Perchlator

The perchlator digests naturally-occurring chlorate and perchlorate using sulfur compounds, which occur in abundance in the Otter Vents. The exact process is complicated, with several steps involving enzymes and oxidation, but the end result is that it acquires energy and excretes waste through a vent at its top. The waste consists of extracted sulfur compounds it was not able to fully break down into useful chemicals, hence the yellow color.

It prefers chlorate over perchlorate. Its ideal environment is totally without oxygen, but it can survive in a very-low-oxygen environment. When it's in an environment with too much oxygen or heat, it "runs away" with its cilia. In the very-low-oxygen environments, it faces two threats: freak oxygen increases and the more obvious threat of the chunky zoister, which feeds on perchlators. In their ideal environments, perchlators reproduce frequently. The cleft begins at the top. After that, the vent splits. Finally, the daughter cell breaks away. Due to this (as well as their inability to regulate population density), oxygen-less micro-environments abound with perchlators.

The various perchlator strains vary in the specifics of their "digestive" processes, number of organelles, frequency of division, cystoskeletal structure, and tolerance of oxygen.

Notes: Perchlorate is most famous as an ingredient in rocket fuel.

Purple Dotters are named for how they dot the surfaces of beach carnoferns in the spring. Newly sprouted purple dotters are small, so several can cling to a beach carnofern at the time. As the seasons become colder, purple dotters which did not have the fortune of being attached to the correct side may wilt and die before they reproduce, especially if there are too many days of unusually cold weather.