Nixoutine

The nixoutine has slowly replaced its ancestor on Glicker, it remains mostly the same in lifestyle and function, experiencing a smaller change in the reduction of flagella from four to two, fitting its less-active lifestyle. The only major change that has occurred is the nixoutine’s ability to take atmospheric nitrogen (N2) in the air and break the powerful bond that makes it otherwise unusable to most organisms, allowing nixoutine to make it into a useable form. Since nitrogen is needed for the basic proteins that make up cells, the nixoutine plays a rather important roll in making the nitrogen usable, since its rather short cellular lifespan leads the nitrogen making it into the soil in the form of ammonium (NH4+) as the cell decays. This ammonium can then be used by other organisms and make its way into the food chain. For the nixoutine, however, all this just means that it needs to gain less of its nutrients from food, and thus needs to move around less, leaving more energy for reproduction.