Crustling

The crustling split from its ancestor when several spores landed on one of the several macro fauna found on Mason and adapted to surviving on them. Spongy in texture, it leeches nutrients from its host after which it is passed throughout the colony. Causing mild irritation once a colony has reached a significant size as shown in the image, it begins to bring attention to itself. This typically causes the host to rub itself with its oral tentacles in order to remove them. Once the colony is "scratched", it pops in a cloud of spores which are carried by the wind and will grow should they find a suitable host to land on. If a host is too heavily parasitized, it can die. To prevent this, should two colonies with different genomes come in contact, both engage in chemical warfare until one is beaten into submission and eliminated, typically by the larger of the two.