Ironspine Seacural

The ironspine seacural splits from its ancestor. The tentacles on its circumference are stiff and spiny, with jagged, harpoon-like spikes at the tip on the microscopic level. They are hollow, filled with little pouches of amoeba-like varigocytes. The spiny tentacles function as a defense against the curalbiter. When curalbiters get too close, the spines lodge in the curalbiter's skin. This is very painful. The spines stay in the curalbiter's skin for a relatively long time due to jagged backwards-curving barbs, which is comparable to the quill barbs of an American porcupine. If the spine is lodged deeply in the curalbiter, and has a breakage point somewhere on its length, the varigocytes inside the spine may crawl out and into the curalbiter's body. The varigocytes proceed with their typical activity of passing iron to cells, but to no avail: the curalbiter's cells are too chemically dissimilar, so the proper chemical dialogues do not occur. The varigocytes eventually die within the curalbiter's body. (Though due to the curalbiter's primitive and mild immune system, it takes a surprisingly long time for them to do so)