Diamond Pumpgill

The diamond pumpgill split from its ancestor when some ebony pump gilltails were swept out to the surrounding temperate waters. Finding it relatively devoid of competition, they doubled in size, developing into gregarious generalists feeding on all the smaller flora and fauna safe enough to eat. Their bodies are diamond shaped (hence the name) and are also thin (about 2 cm Wide). These traits combined with their sparkly speckled bodies mean that schools of hundreds appear as a disorienting swarm to predators. Their rear fins have fused into a single powerful fin, allowing threatened individuals to do 20 second hair-pinned bolts of 20 kph. Individuals live for 3 years. As mentioned before they live in schools of at least 300, traveling amongst the tropical and temperate oceanic biomes in search of food. At the end of the colder months they will migrate in mass to the Chum Tropical Bay region or the Ovi/Solphimr pseudo-bay region to spawn; each female lays 30 6-mm eggs in the sand or underneath larger flora. Eggs take 2 weeks to hatch and the cm long young or "squirms" live in the tropic coasts for 6 months (or until they become half their adult size), feeding on small ground floras and faunas. After this period of maturation they leave to join a nearby school; if enough individuals leave a place at once and no established schools can be found they will form a new one.