Listening Gorgon
Profile
Category
- Anchored Life
- Subcategory
- Corals
- Entries in Corals
- 11
- Words
- 225
PDA entry
- Gorgon Kryphakous or Listening Gorgon. A soft coral with dull olive filaments. A predatory filter feeder that sways with the current like kelp. Not known to be hostile or harmful to humans, but remains under observation (see notes below).
- 1. Sound sensitive
- Dissecting the Listening Gorgon's basal filaments reveals a web of vibration-sensitive cilia hidden in its soft, gelatinous core. These can detect movement through water at resolutions not seen except in the airflow sensors of clip-winged gnats on Kepler-22b - enough to pick up the swish of a tail through miles of water.
- 2. Reactive orientation
- At first the listening gorgon appeared inert, but its movement is simply too slow to be perceived. It has been observed to orient itself over time to specific low-frequency vibrations. It will do this even if food is less abundant in that direction.
- 3. Silent.
- The Gorgon kryphakous has no vibration-producing organs. It emits no detectable signals - no chemical plumes nor bioluminescence. It is essentially silent across all known communication spectra.
- ASSESSMENT: Requires further analysis. One leading hypothesis suggests that the Listening Gorgon once tracked the low-frequency vibrations of a massive, slow-moving marine species - now possibly extinct, or still undetected in the deeper zones of Proteus’s oceans. If so, the open question is whether this trait evolved in response to an ecological partner... or a threat
Related entries
Databank autogeneration interrupted.
"In the early stages of the Holocene Collapse, the bleaching of coral became a metaphor for the breakdown of...
Gorgon thalamiskos.
Coral geodesica.
Gorgon aulaia.
Coral dragonscale.
Tentatively Coral oblast.
A hard coral that frequently grows on hydrothermal vents.
"There's nothing unnatural in nature.
Gorgon mastix, the whip gorgon.
Loading discussion...