Marleyfish

Artwork

Weight:
5lbs

The **Marleyfish** (*Crinichthyes marleyi*) is an original species created and designed by TheAgent41. The Marleyfish inhabits the *The Hole* universe, an original universe created by TheAgent41.

## Appearance and Anatomy

The marleyfish is a small pinnapode with a round, barrel-shaped body. Its epidermis is smooth and light green in color except for the triangular yellow stripes on its back and paddle-shaped fins, each of which is surrounded by a brown border.

The marleyfish's face consists of a large, gaping, toothless mouth and a series of eight thermal pit organs situated just behind the mouth. These sensory organs are used by the marleyfish to detect the body heat of other organisms in its surrounding. The marleyfish's mouth, like the mouths of its relatives, is perpetually held open, lacking the jaw muscles possessed by most Earth vertebrates needed to close it.

The marleyfish propels itself through the water with a large muscular siphon located on its rear, sucking up water and then pumping it back out at a rapid rate. By contracting the siphon repeatedly fast enough, the marleyfish can travel at speeds of up to 22 miles per hour.

The marleyfish's most noticeable physical feature is the cluster of long thin tentacles that emerges from behind the mouth and trail behind its body. These tentacles are highly sensitive, acting like the antennae of many insects or the whiskers of cats. They are thought to assist the marleyfish in navigating the dense reef-like environments it inhabits, especially dark caves in the rocks.

## Ecology

### Behavior and Intelligence

Marleyfish are a schooling species, living in large schools of as many as 50 members. Each member of the group is thought to be considered equal, as no signs of any social hierarchy have been discovered. Marleyfish are highly coordinated in groups, being able to move and change direction as a school at a moment's notice, giving off the impression of a single large organism.

Marleyfish are cautious and skittish creatures. When faced with a threat, marleyfish will flee from it as a group. The younger member of the school are generally kept near the center of the school with the older member being situated near the outside. The only time marleyfish are known to be aggressive or territorial is when they are protecting their brooding ground. If a predator approaches the nests, half of the adults in the school will go on the defensive, using their suction ability to latch onto a predator's body with a watertight seal. This sensation causes skin irritation and can even result in rash-like marks. Eventually, the predator will flee from the brooding ground.

### Diet

Marleyfish are omnivorous filter feeders, feeding primarily on detritus, skin flakes left by molting organisms, and microscopic organisms floating in the water. They are indiscriminate feeders, sweeping in whatever floats in front of them via a powerful suction.

### Reproduction

The marleyfish is a hermaphroditic organism, like most Achlysian carnevites. Like many of its relatives, the marleyfish mates in large swarms consisting of as many as 50 or so individuals. Marleyfish are capable of taking in sperm from multiple partners as once, an ability that evolved to guarantee that as many offspring as possible would be strong enough to make it to adulthood.

During these frenzied orgy swarms, marleyfish will swim about rapidly from partner to partner, attempting to gather sperm from as many partners as physically possible. Marleyfish can hold and utilize sperm from as many as 20 individuals at a time, maximizing the diversity of its eventual offspring. During the mating process, marleyfish engage each other in an act that superficially resembles kissing, using their suction ability to create a watertight seal to prevent sperm from leaking out. Once a seal is made, the two marleyfish in question will transfer sperm to each other via a long spermipositor, a long tube-like organ resting on the bottom of the mouth where the tongue would be on an Earth organism. After this process is done, the marleyfish will separate and swim off in search of another partner. Marleyfish are somehow capable of knowing which partners they have and have not mated with; it has been hypothesized that each Achlysian organism's thermal signature is slightly different, like a human fingerprint or a zebra's stripes.

Unlike many other pisciformes, every marleyfish involved in the mating swarm lays its eggs in the same spot. When the orgy has completed, the school will locate a suitable place to lay the eggs. Once all eggs are laid, marleyfish will aggressively defend the brooding ground and protect each other's eggs as though they were their own. When the eggs hatch after a period of several weeks, the adults will abandon the brooding ground, leaving the newborns to fend for themselves and start a new school.

## Trivia

* The scientific name *Crinichthyes marleyi* loosely translates from Latin as "Marley's hair fish." The explorers who discovered this species named it after famous Jamaican singer-songwriter Bob Marley due to the creature's dreadlock-like head tentacles.

## Gallery

Artwork