Clamgus

The clamgus eats the bark of dead, dying, and live lurspires. It clings to the surface of a lurspire with its specialized four-pronged tentacles and continually rasps at the surface. Small shards or particles of wood stick to its "tongue", which it then brings back into its mouth to digest. The tongue consists of two tentacles that formerly fringed its mouth. As a tongue, the two tentacles are fused, and sport metal-reinforced nodules at the tip. The nodules, made primarily of zinc and secondarily of manganese, help it scrape against the wood. Due to the small size of the clamgus and the large size of the lurspire, hundreds of clamguses can be found on a single lurspire. On one log formed by a dead lurspire, there were were four hundred clamguses on every section but the flower. However, such numbers are unusual. A more typical number is fifty, with the typical distribution limited to the exposed roots. Its flesh, which consists largely of its huge digestive system, has the color of dark caramel, a disagreeable gritty texture, and a slightly acidic flavor. The gritty texture comes from very small zinc-manganese particles in its stomach, which it uses to grind wood, as well as partly digested, rough wood particles that always fill its digestive cavity. Its acidic flavor has a slight deterrent effect on its only predator, the Painted Uksor, and its unpalatable texture is likely to dissuade additional predators as long as they have no adaptions for eating it. Like its ancestor, it lays its eggs in pools of water. Unlike its ancestor, these pools of water are not on the ground: it lays its eggs in the pools that form when rain fills cavities in Lurspires. The cavities themselves may be caused by extensive feeding there by clamguses.