Gillung

The gillung split from its ancestor and has spread out to the open ocean once again. There they found plenty of food and shelter. They have changed colors to blend in with the korystals and avoid predators. The way they move has been modified to accommodate living in the flora. The muscles on their front fins have grown tremendously, allowing for rapid course correction. This makes it easier to not only swim through the maze of crystal flora, but also allows them to escape predators more easily. The muscles in their fins allow them to pull themselves along out of the water. When trapped by aquatic predators, the gillungs will jump out of the water onto the shore. When they are safe, they will slid back into the water. They must do this quickly though because they can only survive for a short while out of the water and doing this leaves them vulnerable to land predators. They now use the back fins to clamp their gills shut, preventing a fatal loss of moisture. They breed in Flisch Marsh, where they congregate each year. They are at their most vulnerable at this time, but they must do this in order to protect they're young from predators, like the soma tailswimmer. But due to the flora taking up the water in the marsh, there is not much oxygen in the water, so the gillungs have evolved an amazingly simple coping mechanism, they can breathe air when they need to. To do this they flip backwards out of the water, catching air in their gill intakes, then they clamp them shut until they use up the bubble. They only need to do this if they're not getting enough oxygen from the water. They now have a branchiostegal lung that allows for the diffusion of oxygen, but still have gills. This allows their young to develop healthier and stronger.