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Cradle Shootroot
● Anchored Life › Starfish

Cradle Shootroot

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Anchored Life
Subcategory
Starfish
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2
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180
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Cradle Shootroot
  • A basket-shaped organism (tentatively shootroot cunabulum) with no clear Earthly analog. Anatomically similar to a plastic starfish, or to an opened variety of Earth's extinct blastoids.
  • 1. Animal anatomy
  • The flattened, fibrous 'leaves' are the arms of an animal loaded with photosynthetic symbiotes. The central structure houses a digestive system and a hard, sticky cradle (the cunabulum). A second ring of arms grows into the seabed, seeking crevices in the rock.
  • 2. Preferred symbiote
  • The cradle is an exchange site with a symbiotic partner (such as the lucifer rotsac). Spectrogenetic analysis suggests the cradle shootroot is younger than the rotsac. It may have originally parasitized free-floating lucifer rotsacs, before evolving a niche as an anchor: providing a refuge and minerals to the rotsac in exchange for a share of the rotsac's fermented food.
  • 3. Plastic fibers
  • Although it lacks the true cell walls of Earth plants, the cradle shootroot strengthens its tissues with bioplastic fibers. Too tough to cut by hand, they could be severed by a cutting tool.
  • Assessment: tough fibers could be used to synthesize fabric, possibly food.

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