Impaling Placoball

The impaling placoball split from its ancestor, the placoball, and grew to 2 mm in width. Its plate's hard cilia prolonged and it now uses them to impale itself to the lining of a vent darkswarmer's or a xxeljet's stomachs, getting stuck there, eating biological particles straight out of the water its predators inhale.

When a predator filter feeds on these creatures, not many are able to impale the lining of the stomach. Therefore, it seldom happens that the feeding tube is so cluttered with impaling placoballs that it blocks all food intakes into the host. However, if such an occurrence happens, the host dies of starvation.

When its host dies, the impaling placoball will feed both on its dead cells, and on the sulfur compounds found around the Rhodix Vents area.