Chelimp
| Chelimp | ||
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| (Turtursquilla aureus) | ||
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| Information | ||
| Creator | Disgustedorite Other | |
| Week/Generation | 27/167 | |
| Habitat | Vailnoff Tropical Lake Shore, Vailnoff Subtropical River, Vailnoff Subtropical Riparian, Vailnoff Montane River, Vailnoff Montane Riparian | |
| Size | 24 cm long | |
| Primary Mobility | Unknown | |
| Support | Endoskeleton (Live Chitin), Partial Exoskeleton (Chitin) | |
| Diet | Planktivore, Detritivore | |
| Respiration | Active (Microlungs) | |
| Thermoregulation | Ectotherm | |
| Reproduction | Sexual (Male and Female, Eggs in Water) | |
| Taxonomy | ||
| Domain Kingdom Subkingdom Phylum Clade Subphylum Class Order Family Genus Species | Eukaryota Binucleozoa Symbiovermes (info) Thoracocephalia Coluripoda Vermitheria (info) Crurivermes Remihelminthes (info) Turtursquillidae Turtursquilla Turtursquilla aureus | |
| Ancestor: | Descendants: |
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The chelimp split from its ancestor and ascended from the subterranean waters via Vailnoff Lake, which was deep enough that many entrances to the Wallace Water Table were present. With no predators or competition within the lake, it rapidly took over the waters, keeping them clean by feeding on detritus and microorganisms. It also spread up the river soon after, preferring slow streams and oxbow lakes. Returning to the light has encouraged the production of melanin and the evolution of a pair of eye spots upon its sauce, protecting it from too much UV light and allowing it to swim to cover when it's too exposed, respectively. It no longer produces a mucus sac from its nostrils, as it is no longer needed and it is active throughout the year. To improve the flexibility of its filter horns and allow it to squeeze under rocks when hiding from the sun, it has reverted to a partial sauce plate like its ancestor's ancestor rather than a full sauce ring. The rings the rest of its legs attach to remain complete, but their shape allows them to easily be compressed.
Much like its ancestor, the chelimp is an air-breathing beastworm and technically a vertebrate related to saucebacks which is highly adapted for low-oxygen conditions. In particular, its red blood cells lack nuclei and it is capable of obtaining some oxygen from water through its mouth and cloaca, though not its skin which is impermeable and chitinous, features present as far back as its distant ancestor the buryworm. Air-breathing occurs through many paired spiracles set just behind each exoskeletal ring; it has four microlungs per body segment. As it can breathe air and has legs, the chelimp is able to come onto land, though as it is slow and vulnerable to both predators and sunburn, it usually does so by the cover of night. This is how it reaches new bodies of water in the Vailnoff the watershed.
The chelimp's endoskeleton is made of living walled cells, rather than a sclerotized matrix like in saucebacks, which makes it relatively soft and flexible more like cartilage. (In fact, this flexibility was ancestral and is what allowed the morphologically similar early saucebacks to evolve so many leg bones from the ancestral two-part beastworm limb before the matrix evolved). All of its limbs have two segments, a short (albeit longer than in its ancestor) mobile ischium homologous with a sauceback's rigid ischium, and the skelos, which is sheathed by the limb carapace and homologous with the entire dromaeodont sauceback leg.
The inside of the chelimp's mouth reveals that its oral ring, a structure ancestral to beastworms (and the presence of which is absolutely required for the formation of the nostrils), is actually intact. In all descendants of the original filterworm, the oral ring teeth are sharp, backswept, and forked, which serves to prevent plankton from escaping the mouth. The teeth can also be used for chewing, most often by juveniles.
The chelimp breeds in the masonlight during times of abundance. It prefers to lay its eggs in the shelter of rocks or aquatic vegetation. Hatchlings lack legs but already have a tail paddle, which they use to swim to the surface to take their first breath. They mostly chew on microbial films until their limbs grow in, allowing them to start catching microorganisms suspended in the water.