Nixie

Splitting from Their ancestors and adapting to an amphibious lifestyle on the emerging Steiner & Ramul Archipelagos, the Nixies live a crepuscular life and only venture out to land during the twilight hours, as those that venture out in the heat of the day dry up and die, and those that venture out at night are all but blind in the darkness, making them easy prey for predators. On land, they'll scavenge carcasses washed ashore, catch crawling vermin, catch any small prey that won't expect the long oral arm coming out of the water, and swimming counterparts that won't expect it coming in. They are easily pulled by the sight of small movements and are likely to take a bite of anything that rattles around them. Externally the Nixie look like a bulkier version of a bulky hammerhead, but internally they were undergoing many changes to meet the challenges of the new lifestyle.



Senses
While the Nixies middle eye's primary retina (1A) continues to correct for underwater distortions even when on land, the rolled-up photoreceptor-covered skin behind the middle eye's cornea has evolved into a secondary land-adapted retina (1B) and compensates for the correction, allowing the Nixies to make sense of the world around them on land and avoid potentially deadly miscalculations of size and distance. Spiraling around the nexus of the hammerhead senses - the 3 eyes and the olfactory sack - is the primary ganglia (2A), which is more likely to be the first to detect potential prey and tends to be more aggressive, prioritizing fight. In the middle tail between the two photoreceptors covered tail projections, they have a secondary ganglia (2B), which is more likely to be the first to detect potential predators and tends to be more defensive, prioritizing flight. Individual Nixies vary in the balance of the two and might shift depending on circumstances, balancing the risks of starvation and predation.

Respiration
The Nixies breath in by stretching out flexible air gulpers (3A), inflating an olfactory sack (3B) behind the hammerhead. If it smells safe, they'll open the safety barrier (3C) between the olfactory sack and the respiratory canal (3D) which regulates the transition from air to water and prevents black flora toxins from entering the bloodstream. The respiratory canal extends into 5 dorsal gill slits (3F), each folded backward to protect a thick layer of concentrated blood vessels from desiccation. Oxygen-rich blood flows from each slit gill to a dedicated gill heart (4A) at its base, pumping the blood forward into the primary heart (4B) around the base of the hammerhead, pumping blood through the rest of the body,

Support
Supporting their body while out of the water is a ventral spine (5A). Grown from the outside-in, from the wooden exoskeleton covering the legs and hips (5B) to the internalized wooden bones between them, it is made of one single piece of wood, mimicking the flexibility of segmentation through soft flexible tissue within tough ball joints (5C), not too dissimilar from the flexible wood stretching within the long oral arm to the flash covered beak.

Digetive system
The Nixie's gut has developed a pronounced stomach (6A) just behind the hammerhead that is supplied with digestive enzymes from two pancreatic livers (6B), functioning as general digestive aids. The food from the stomach passed over a gut partition (6C) turning the previously blind gut into a loop that extends back into the oral arm.

Reproduction
Female Nixies produce eggs in oral gonads (7A) and place them with the oral arm in wooden egg cases (7B) growing under the tail to protect the eggs from desiccation. The egg cases extend from stalks covered with slight yellow stripes, inviting males to use their oral gonads to fertilize the eggs. Females release their larva underwater, where the larva will feed on plankton and small swarmers until they are about 2 months old. They will spend another 4 months on the coastal seafloor, growing and hardening their wooden skeleton until they are ready to venture out of the water. After a year they'll be sexually mature, and spend the next 5 to 8 years spreading their young across the archipelago.