Slarti Prongangel

The slarti prongangel split from their ancestors to move from the Slarti Polar River to the Slarti Salt Lake, brought there by river currents. Despite being the weaker of their kind, some of the megaorthoceros segnoneustes who were washed down river into the lake successfully survived in the salinated environment by staying within the border between the river and the lake, and from here they adapted a tolerance for so much salinity in the water, and now roam the biome unhindered. Because they are so small, combined with the large size of the lake and the likelihood of distance between carcasses due to the size of the lake, their flagella has strengthened and grown, and now operates more properly like a caudal fin to propel them through the water. Their name stems from a genetic mutation that took over some of their ancestors within the Slarti region, however while it did not really alter anything in the river population, those in the lake ended up getting it bred into the majority and eventually became the norm for what became the slarti prongangels. This mutation consists of a splitting of the fins into a prong-like shape, giving it the very slight resemblance to wings. They still operate to control where they are swimming, but help more due to a minor increase in surface area. Males have adapted to resemble females only hundreds if not thousands of times smaller. Their pronged fins are also usually less pronounced, although 1/300,000 tend to have fully-developed prongs. Like many Megaorthocerosi the males have begun to transform into filter-feeders instead of the old chemovoric tendency. They also will feed on smaller microorganisms by sucking them into their proboscis, but also may attack larger ones in swarms, slowly feeding upon it.