Giant Starfloat

Artwork

Weight:
12,000lbs

The **Giant Starfloat** (*Asterinsula macrobracchium*) is an original species created and designed by TheAgent41. The Giant Starfloat inhabits the *The Hole* universe, an original universe created by TheAgent41.

## Appearance and Anatomy

The giant starfloat is an enormous free-drifting asteriform distantly related to species such as the marleyfish and kitefish. Over the course of its evolution, the starfloat, along with other asteriforms, has gradually evolved to tilt forward on its "face", its mouth permanently facing down to the ocean floor and the siphon once used for propulsion closing up.

The giant starfloat, true to its name, is an incredibly large carnevite, being one of the largest known pinnapodes and by far the largest asteriform. Its incredibly large body appears from the outside to have radial symmetry, but its internal anatomy reveals it to be primarily bilaterally symmetrical. From the tip of one flipper to the tip of an opposing flipper, the giant starfloat measures nearly 30 feet across and weighs just over six tons. Because of its enormous size, the giant starfloat is incapable of surviving for long if accidentally beached, not only because it requires oxygen to breathe but also because it will crush itself under its own weight.

The giant starfloat's thick hide is a dark red in color and is covered in numerous thick spines that help to protect it from attacking predators. The softer underside of its body (i.e. the front facial area on a pisciform) is yellow and does not feature these spines. Like nearly all other pinnapodes, the giant starfloat's circular mouth is permanently held agape. Whereas pisciforms feed primarily using a suction ability, the giant starfloat, like all other asteriforms, possesses numerous "tongues", long flexible tentacles comprised entirely of muscle. These prehensile tongues are tipped with feathery appendages that serve two purposes. Firstly, these feathery appendange act as gills, trapping oxygen from the surrounding water. The other purpose is to catch food.

Whereas pisciforms hunt using infrared-sensing heat pits, asteriforms have developed electroreceptive organs on their ventral side, with the densest arrangements of them being around the mouth. Using these organs, the giant starfloat can detect other carnevites swimming underneath them or near them and can reach out with their "tongues" accordingly.

There is a large bowl-like depression in the center of the starfloat's back. The Achlysian fossil record indicates that this depression was once the location of the siphon used by the starfloat's pisciform-like ancestors before they adapted to a more free-floating life.

## Ecology

### Behavior and Intelligence

Due to its most passive lifestyle, the giant starfloat's mental capacities are somewhat less than those of its ancestors. While it is certainly more intelligent than carnevites such as the sea tube or glubbedo, it has no real social life or means of powered propulsion, spending their entirely lives adrift at sea.

The giant starfloat has developed a mutualistic relationship with Montgolfier's airshooter. Small colonies of airshooters live on the starfloat's back as though it were a giant biological life raft. This has been compared by researchers to small birds living on the backs of African buffaloes. This relationship benefits both species. The airshooters gain a personal nesting ground that is constantly drifting and thus moving to new feeding grounds, and the starfloat gains what is essentially its own personal crew of groomers that defend it from other airshooter colonies and eat parasites off of its body.

### Diet

The giant starfloat is an opportunistic feeder. Using its electroreceptive organs, the giant starfloat is capable of detecting the electrical currents given off by moving carnevites. By doing this, it is capable of producing a crude-but-effective visual map of its surroundings in its brain, allowing it to lash out its tongues at where it has predicted the prey will be and consume it. The starfloat is not a picky eater, consuming whatever small carnevites it can catch.

### Reproduction

The giant starfloat, unlike its pisciform relatives, isn't capable of "kissing" its mate and exchanging sperm through the mouth. This is largely due to the vast distances between individuals of the species. Starfloats don't travel in groups and thus don't have ready access to a mate. To get around this, the starfloat has evolved a unique solution. The starfloat has adapted to sync up its own reproductive needs to those of the airshooters on its back. During the airshooter mating season, the starfloat actually secretes sperm and mucus from the thin skin on its concave back. The sticky mucus causes the sperm to get stuck to the hooves of the airshooters, causing them to spread this sperm to other parts of the ocean when they leave to hunt. This helps to spread the sperm to as much of the surrounding waters as possible, increasing the chances that another starfloat will drift along and take in the sperm.

Obviously, the statistical chances of this are low. To combat this, giant starfloats are incredibly long-lived, having lifespans of 300 years or more. Because they can secrete semen once a year and reach sexual maturity at the age of 20 or so, they essentially can secrete sperm approximately 280 times ideally, giving them plenty of chances to produce semen that will successfully produce offspring.

When a starfloat is impregnated by taking the sperm in through its mouth, it will gestate its offspring for a period of three months or so before expelling the soft gelatinous eggs through the same orifice. When they hatch, giant starfloats have a body plan more similar to that of a pisciform. They still have their star-like shape, but their mouths don't face down and they still have a functional siphon on their rears. As they grow older and near the age of sexual maturity, they begin to face straight down more and more and their siphon hole begins to close up, eventually positioning their rears toward the sky and becoming adult starfloat.

## Trivia

* The scientific name *Asterinsula macrobracchium* loosely translates from Latin as "large-armed star island".

## Gallery

Artwork