Hugger Sturge
Derived from: Sturgoslontus sturgenousis
Size: Body 10 cm, Fins 15 cm long
Zone 10
Sturgenousis came as the decomposer of zone 10. It now has take a slightly different niche. It now eats the remainder food of large creatures like subsalis and volitos. When these creatures eat, they leave smaller bits of food in the water that they don't eat. This is were amplexus comes in. They detach from the body of the large creature and then eat the remainder food. It adapted to do this to protect itself from sturgenmacrops.
Looks: This is one of the main differences. 1. They have much large fins now. They are now 15 cm. These fins wrap around their host species. 2. They have more flexible joints (namely the fin to body joint). Now their fins can go almost anywhere. They had to have more flexible joints to be able to wrap around their host. 3. They have a much shorter body. They want their host to survive as long as possible, so they evolved to help them. Their body is much shorter now so that drag isn't an issue for their host. 4. They also now have raised sandpaper like skin on the bottom of their fins. It also has grooves that run lengthwise (side to side) of the fin. These help them stay on their host withought having to flex their fins all of the time.
Eating: Their eating is way different also. They now hang on subsalis and volitos. They invert their fins so that their back is touching their host. Their fins now wrap around the creature, so that their back is pressed against the creature. Their back is pressed so that they can easily unwrap and swim to get food. After they eat something amplexus unwraps and eats. Then is hops back on. Because they don't need to move as much they don't use much energy, and only need to eat as much as their host does.
Reproduction: They only leave their host for reproduction. They lay relatively large eggs for their size. They lay them on plants. Their eggs are large so that they can grow faster to find a host. The eggs are held inside the body of the adult longer so that they are larger when laid. They lay their eggs on plants like their ansestor. The batch size is around 20-30 eggs. They start out with large fins and are able to grab onto smaller parts of the body like fins at first. Then once they get older they will move to grabbing onto the whole body.
Defence: They stay on their host most of the time which defends them from the sturgenmacrops. Sturgenmacrops does not approach the big species (amplexus's host) and generally ignores them because they cannot eat them. Because of this amplexus are generally ignored also. When they are off their host to eat sturgenmacrops can eat them.
