Radiashrub

The radiashrub replaced its ancestor the radia tree and its distant ancestor the radia primus. Like its ancestor it has 3 stages to its life cycle; brood tree, star juvenile and swimming larva. The brood adult is an immobile detrivore that feeds on the decomposing matter around the vents. They grows flower-like buds that grow into the star juveniles. These break off and spin using their small flagella-like tentacles. They seek out the chemal smell of the vents and crawl over beds of bacteria like octhermas. At the end of each arm are a single proboscis wich can suck the cytoplsim out of the bacterial cells. These star juveniles are only around 50 µm wide. When fully grown their arms will break off into 5 swimming larva which are only around 25 µm long. With their duel flagella they swim back to the decomposing matter around the vents. Some will fuel together with 5 or more swimming larva into new brood trees. However some will latch onto existing brood trees and fuse their DNA with it. Thus making a new branch to the tree. This helps add new genetic diversity to the brood tree. While brood trees start out only around 50 µm tall they can grow to around 1000 µm tall. While still microscopic this is huge compared to its other life stages.