Web Limeball

The web limeball lives on the webs of mandate gossalizards. The tiny, undetectable spores settle onto the web, first absorbing debris, (such as prey scraps) bioaerosols, and bacteria through its skin and later through its roots. As it grows older, it may derive nutrients from the web itself, dissolving its proteins with a mild acid. Like its ancestor, it is only mildly sticky, but freshly germinated web limeballs are so small the weak stickiness suffices. The number of roots a web limeball has is variable, depending on age or chance. As the growth of roots is staggered, younger specimens have fewer roots than older ones. Notably, the web limeball is unable to synthesize Vitamin K. This is normally no hindrance, since it receives all it needs from its diet of webs. If experimentally induced to grow on a substrate lacking in Vitamin K, it will struggle to grow, "bleed" profusely, dry out and die. While web limeballs may live on both active and abandoned mandate gossalizard webs, populations on active mandate gossalizard webs are larger. This is because organisms that eat the limestone ball may also eat the web limeball, but when the organism tries to eat the web limeball it often alerts the mandate gossalizard, which rushes out to eat the herbivore.