Side Sprig

The side sprigs split from their ancestor and moved into the Russ River. Their bodies are now asymmetrical and they lean on their side with their mouths facing upriver, the sprigs one and only eye has moved over and is now next to the photosynthetic prong. The photosynthetic prong is dotted with translucent and even transparent sections to allow the sprig to see what is going on on the other side of its body, the largest one being right above the eye, it also is lobed to catch more light. The other prong is thicker, curved, and split at the end (miniprongs), it is used to hold the sprig in place against the current by being wedged between rocks or dug into the riverbed. They walk by adjusting from one miniprong to the other in a jerking, rocking motion. The tentacles have merged into one muscular tether with four strong nubs on the end, these nubs are used to hold onto a rock as an anchor to hold the sprig in place if its prong was to loose its footing, it can also pull itself using the tether in a twisted contraction-like movement(grab a rock, pull the sprig back, let go and search for another rock to grab), but this is hard on its prongs and is overall a poor way to travel as the tether has no real support structure to it. The tether and nubs are yellow and red due to being specialized in muscle tissue rather than being used for photosynthesis. Side sprigs also have a simple skeletal structure, this is to allow tissues to specialize more rather than having all the bodies tissues give the organism support and shape, it is made mainly of olivine. The side sprigs live towards the center of the Russ River in the deeper parts where the current is too strong for most flora to take root. They often are in small clusters so that breeding is easier, but lone sprigs are not unusual. When pregnant, the female sprig will grow her spawn in birthing sacs (normally 5 sacs per female) that she keeps inside her, each sac contains a small group (4-8) of young, after the young reach a certain stage of development the birthing sacs bloat with nutrient rich fluids, by now they are about 2 cm long. At that time the female is bloated with young and she expels the sacs from herself into the water, they have a pair of long sticky tendrils that are flung around by the water until they hit a rock, piece of debris, or even an organism. There the sacs will stick and feed the developing sprigs with stored nutrients through their final growth stages before they are allowed to roam their world. Oxygen and water is diffused through the walls of the birthing sac so the young don't suffocate. By the time the spawn is ready to hatch the birthing sac is empty of nutrients and has shriveled, the young sprigs break out and latch their tether and nubs onto whatever the birthing sac was attached to.