Aeortic Geyser Tubeworms
Geyser Tubeworms are many-meters long abascualis which live throughout the Strashya Geyser Column on the eastern end of Strashya Atoll. They are a multi-headed soft-bodied Hydra with a central body and stomach that primarily survives on a diet of algae.
They farm this algae by sticking their many heads out through vertical corralum, growing to form a seal with them, and then flooding them with water to create pools. Over months, as these pools of filtered, nutrient-rich freshwater give way to life, they circulate some of the resultant algae into their depths.
Notes
- Tubeworms spawn larval worms within themselves which then crawl out of the pools in search of other bodies of water or corralums to live in. During the first years of their life, the tubeworms may move from location to location before finally taking root. In many pools, this results in a dense, kelpy garden of delicate young tubeworms, filter feeding on the larva.
- Most pools within the coral column are contained within these creatures, resulting in pools having a soft shimmering membrane over them. Any pool large enough to submerge your entire body in, stretched and sprawled, is probably podable. Just be wary of disturbing the surface too much—the flatworm may contract and flush the pool, and you'll fall in with it. Or worse, if it detects necrotic tissue it may eject in an explosive geyser.
- An adult flatworm only lives for a maximum of 10 years, and is easily shocked to death by storms or a dump of toxins into its system. When it dies, it loses its protective mucus, and the algae-mold which it has been cultivating consumes its mass and turns into a dense green Slog Mold Slime that, coincidentally, is very nutritional for the reserve spawn released by tubeworm's death
- On the surface they look a bit like a jellyfish and a sea anemone. They glow blue from within, and disgorge whenever the sun is at its brightest to help kill bacteria before pilling it back in in the dark
Purge! There's a procedure through getting through this, if you don't know it, it's going to be a bat time.
At first it was rather nervewracking, but I've come to love swimming through the Tubeworms. They really are quite harmless, so long as you're wary of what tide phase they're in, and have proven to be full of beautiful ecosystems of flatworms!
These are eerily creepy!