Stout Windfilter

The stout windfilter split off from its ancestor and has moved further up the mountains. While the aeroplankton concentrations are higher there, it is also much colder and windier. This has resulted in it growing shorter to avoid the wind and stouter to retain as much heat as possible. The spores are released in the middle of the spring, ensuring they land and germinate during the warmest months of the year. Then it is a race against time for the new windfilters to grow and develop their shell before the winter comes. If they are not big enough, they will freeze to death. Like their ancestor, young stout windfilters grow best in moist conditions rich in microbes and detritus, as they lack the ability to filter aeroplankton until they develop their channel network. The young look remarkably similar to dry shrubites before the nares develop. After the channel network develops, the stout shrubite will both capture microbes from the soil and the air. This is to maximize its ability to grow large enough to survive the winter.

Two separate populations of stout windfilter exist. One is in Lamarck's mountaintops and the other is in Maineiac's mountaintops. The stout shrubite was able to jump across the lower mountains between the two regions via their airborne spores. Stout shrubites constantly fail to establish lasting populations in the lower mountains, as they are outcompeted by their larger ancestor.