Arboreal Ooze

The Arboreal Ooze (aka The Flying Ooze) split from its ancestor and now lives in trees. The Arboreal Ooze makes its home as a net stretching between branches of a tree. Here it eats anything that flies into its sticky trap lured in by its aroma.

The most interesting thing is the juvenile form of the Arboreal Ooze. The baby Arboreal Oozes form from buds that coalesce around small rods that begin to form once an adult reaches full size. Extra mass is then used to produce young buds. If it cannot get enough food it will not begin producing young until it does. The young will readily exchange genetic information with each other. The Arboreal Ooze has many thousands of tiny hair-like strands all over its body. When these hairs are blown about on a strong windy day, the Arboreal Ooze releases its multitude of young oozes into the wind.

The young Arboreal ooze has a small flexible rod that is bent in a shape that allows the tiny ooze to best catch the wind allowing it to travel great distances until it reaches a new tree or down to the surface. If it climbs a tree that already has an Arboreal Ooze, the larger organism assimilates the smaller one. Once the infant Ooze lands it will consume the rod and only has a few days to find a a tree or suitable high location to feed and begin growing bigger. It takes about 5 years for a new Arboreal Ooze to reach full maturity. An Arboreal Ooze typically releases a new clutch of young Arboreal Oozes once or twice a year.

Life Cycle
An infant Arboreal Ooze starts out it’s life as an imperfect copy of its parent, forming around a small flexible rod. It is inside of a chamber, (Really just empty spaces between the strands of ooze created as it colonizes the tree) surrounded by anywhere up to hundreds or even thousands of siblings.

The chamber is allowed to rip open during a strong wind, and the multitude of infant Arboreal Oozes pour out and catch the wind. They vaguely resemble parachutes. The tiny flexible rod is shaped just right to best catch the wind.

When the infant oozes land they will consume this rod, similar to the yolk of an egg. The infant ooze must use this energy to find a tree to crawl up or some other way of finding food. If it cannot find food the infant ooze will die within a few days.

The infant oozes readily exchange genetic material between cells with other Arboreal Oozes in a process called conjugation. If it climbs up a tree that already has an Arboreal Ooze, the infant ooze will be consumed/assimilated.

Once in a tree an Arboreal Ooze will stretch itself like a net between branches, luring prey in with its aroma. It will take about 5 years to reach full size and be ready to reproduce