Vibrant Glitterworm

Over time, some populations of crystank crystalworm began to shift away from consuming the spores of crystank shells, instead feeding on the spores produced by the flasprouts. Over time these groups would split off and become the vibrant glitterworm, which has mostly severed its ties with its ancestral relationship with the crystank species complex.

In a lot of ways, the vibrant glitterworm has not changed at all from its ancestor, with the holes in the vibrant glitterworm's first segment still helping the wingworm breath and smell out crystank flasprouts or the glittersprout. The adults will beat their 3 pairs of wings rapidly to lay a batch of their sticky eggs next to the glittersprouts or flasprouts before flying off to repeat this process. The young hatch from their eggs a few days before the glittersprouts release their spores enmasse or when the flasprouts and crystank shells will be soon releasing their own spores so that the young glitterworms can feed upon the spores produced. The crystank crystalworm’s sticky tongue still helps the vibrant glitterworm with licking up the spores to then be consumed as it flies around to collect them.

When they first hatch, the young vibrant glitterworms resemble their ancestor, the crystank crystalworm, which helps provide them camouflage of the crystal flora they live on at first. As they grow, however, these youngsters will begin to shift colors and develop patterns that help them stick out. At the same time, they become sexually mature and stop eating and focus entirely on finding mates. The prominent stripes on the organisms' wings and vibrant colors means vibrant glitterworms can find one another pretty easily and since they are hermaphrodites both individuals will exchange gametes before departing to mate with as many individuals as they can. While its vibrant colors do mean they get spotted by predators relatively easily, there are so many glitterworms flying around at the same time that a decent amount of them will survive long enough to breed. Once a vibrant glitterworm has laid all of its eggs, they often die soon after from exhaustion. This has proven beneficial for species like the inzcrek and crystank walker which feed upon the rotting corpses of the glitterworms once they have died. This means that, while the vibrant glitterworm has mostly moved away from the crystank species complex, they maintain a few tentative ties with it.