Grabbyswarmers

Grabbyswarmers split from their ancestor. While Miniswarmers are largely pelagic, Grabbyswarmers are benthic, staying on the ocean floor or riverbed and climbing or crawling among aquatic flora with their namesake feature: little grabby fingers at the ends of their tails. This gives them a lower profile to potential predators and gives them greater access to detritus, though they will still swim out of this comfort zone in huge swarms when disturbed or during great blooms of plankton.

Grabbyswarmers have developed an additional adaptation which allows them to look out for predators better. Their eyes are horizontally elongated, and the pupil is divided into 3. This grants them access to depth perception in multiple directions, excellent for detecting and escaping predators as well as staying with their group while they do so.

Thirdly, Grabbyswarmers have altered their blood. Like a terran plant, they make use of oxygen just as much as a terran animal does. And with oxygen usage comes a need for a way to transport it. Instead of chlorophyll, their blood carries hemerythrin, making it purple and iron-based. This also reflects red and blue light which passes through their skin back into their chloroplasts, enhancing their photosynthesis further. This actually allows them to be faster, smarter, and more active than their ancestor, and indeed than most plents of similar size.

There are many species of Grabbyswarmer. Like other swarmers, they can come in many colorful variants. Colorful markings mainly cover their undersides, where they are unlikely to interfere with photosynthesis; the exception is purple markings, which block none of the light they use and therefore can be anywhere on their bodies. Temperate and polar species usually hibernate over winter, and polar and twilight species make use of darker pigments to cope with the dim light levels. Freshwater species tend to be smaller than saltwater species, though there are certainly many exceptions.