Marine Crystals

The marine crystals first appeared after the during the Yannickian Period in the Chum saltwater lake systems. They soon spread to the oceans and began to thrive, as the global cooling freed up many marine environments for them to take the place of the basal photosynthetic flora. Once the global freezing event subsided, this genus began to find itself spread out through all shallow saltwater systems of Sagan 4. Soon the basal Marine Crystal species was replaced with over 60 descendant species, along all the major coastal and salt marsh regions. The genus is characterized by a hard photosynthetic chitin that have tiny pores that intake water to filter out organic matter. Inside, their red fungi-like interiors consumes the organic matter, expelling the excess water and salts from their base. This same fungi-like material forms a base, which have a root-like system, which both anchors the crystals, and allows it to absorb further needed nutrients and minerals from the soil. They all reproduce asexually using spores, which are generated in the crystal interiors and expelled out of the filter pores. They are all capable of producing mild toxins, which when ingested by most herbivores cause digestive muscle spasms, leading to expulsion of their stomach contents. This has been taken advantage of by a few species in the more nutrient poor environments near Fermi, and have allowed them to spread their spores, as the spores will use the expelled organic matter to begin growing.