#xeonobiology

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Podskates

The four foot long ocean-dwelling podskate is a strange creature which permeates the open seas throughout the world, primarily around the depths beneath roaming schools of deep-ocean plankton that form luminous clouds in seas which at times can be so dense and vast that they can be visible on the night side of Mua from low orbit. They do this by filtering water over the labial baleens visible in their ever-gaping maws. These pink flaps of flesh supported by small arches of bone catch microbes and small organisms. Some believe the podskate is a form of native fauna on Mua, as their strange body plan defies most norms on earth.

Podskates possess a skirt fin like a cuttlefish or squid yet their body shape suggests origins in the Stingray family despite their clear lack of a tail or stinger. Their eyes appear to lack any distinguishing features such as pupils or other complex eye components at first glance yet they appear to be superb at detecting depth and light and even some specific high intensity bands of visible light. Parthian sea life was rarely able to be augmented for life in the more terrestrial seas of Mua, though most Parthian-descended lifeforms in the Muan oceans exist only in deep, alien "Stygian Lagoons" which are similar to the vapor canyons on the surface of Mua where stripes of Parthian Atmosphere sit heavy in deep terrestrial caves, crevasses, and, obviously, canyons. This means that it is highly unlikely that the podskate is of Parthian origins. On the other hand, if the podskate is native to Mua, there's little to no evidence available to suggest knowledge of them throughout Ullari history. To put it simply, if the podskate were native to Mua, it'd be the most alien native fauna on the planet, making the podskate much like the octopus of earth- a alien in even it's most natural environment.

#podskate #mua #ocean #aquatic #sea life #xeonobiology #speculative evolution