Uksip Lazarus

Though sometimes regarded as god-like, such as by the sophont Tripodician, the Nauceans who study Sagan 4 are ultimately people. Even with time travel and other technology well beyond what we can ever hope to comprehend, potentially including the ability to detect and scan every species on the planet, people can still make mistakes. One of these was regarding the Uksip Marfinnus, which was regarded as having gone extinct by the Irinyan period. Obviously, this was completely false.

The Uksip Lazarus has replaced the Uksip Marfinnus in Krakow Polar Shallows. Like the Terran coelacanth, it can be regarded as a living fossil, implying a ghost lineage (now busted) which has been residing in Sagan 4’s oceans for a whopping 357.5 million years. It survived the gamma ray burst through representatives in deeper waters, which later repopulated the sunlight zone. It survived the ice comet impact event thanks to its small size and generalized diet. When its population was once again pushed deeper by the ice age, it resurfaced once food returned. It survived the snowball event thanks to its tolerance to cold water, though as the ice receded it was eventually left restricted to only a few locations.

The most remarkable aspect of this creature is that externally, it looks almost exactly like its ancestor. Even its lifestyle seems similar, at a glance. However, it has made quite a number of less visible changes over time, such as in behavior and anatomy. The most visibly notable of these is that its tooth grows continuously and has more enamel on the inner side relative to the spiral, which causes it to wear unevenly and stay sharp. Further, though it can still kill by ramming its prey, if it misses it will grab it with its tentacles and pull it against the tooth. Like a Terran cephalopod, its tentacles have suckers which bear toothy sucker rings to help it grip. It has also taken up scavenging, detecting carcasses over a great distance with chemoreceptors on its tentacles.

There have also been significant internal changes. The most immediately obvious one is to the Uksip Lazarus’ gut. Rather than a simple blind gut, its gut is U-shaped—meaning it has an anus inside its mouth—and it has many chambers for different stages of digestion. The first of these chambers was originally used to aid in suction-feeding, and as such it can expand to suck in water and food particles. When water is pushed out, it passes through setae which are homologous with the insulating coat of the extinct Snowky. This allows it to filter feed to some extent. This chamber is also vascularized and has many bumps tipped with protective setae, allowing it to also function somewhat as a gill. It also became much smarter over time, as it had to compete with both other predators and increasingly smart prey. At present, its intelligence is comparable to that of a Terran shark.

The Uksip Lazarus has a relatively small population density, due in part to its eggs being consumed by the cosmopolitan planktivorous swarmers. Its reproductive method is full-throttle r-selection, broadcast spawning mass numbers of gametes with the hope that just a few will be fertilized and grow into surviving offspring. Hatchlings somewhat resemble the Uksip Luliformes, but as they grow they rapidly change to better resemble the adult form. The reproductive opening is located inside its mouth, next to its anus.

Like its ancestor, the Uksip Lazarus swims using six ribbon-like cuttlefishesque fins and a horizontal fish-like tail fin. It lacks any internal skeleton at all apart from a hydrostatic skeleton formed from its abdominal cavity, the only hard parts of its body being its tooth, its sucker teeth, and the lenses of its compound eyes.