Feather Blice
From Sagan 4 Alpha Wiki
| Feather Blice | ||
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| (Satiavipediculus ssp.) | ||
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| Information | ||
| Creator | Colddigger Other | |
| Week/Generation | 27/167 | |
| Habitat | Wallace, Kosemen, Drake, Steiner, Barlowe, Lamarck, Fermi, Ramul | |
| Size | 1 - 2.5 cm long | |
| Primary Mobility | Unknown | |
| Support | Exoskeleton (Chitin) | |
| Diet | Detritivore, Parasitic (feathers and skin of Saucebacks, Biats, Ophrey, etc.) | |
| Respiration | Passive (Diffusion) | |
| Thermoregulation | Ectotherm | |
| Reproduction | Sexual, Two sexes, soft eggs cemented to leaves or feathers | |
| Taxonomy | ||
| Domain Kingdom Subkingdom Phylum Clade Superclass Class Superorder Order Family Subfamily Genus Species | Eukaryota Binucleozoa Symbiovermes (info) Thoracocephalia Coluripoda Ossicancer Entomocarcinia (info) Xenocimecomorpha Eukruggiformes Kruggidae Krugginae Satiavipediculus Satiavipediculus ssp. | |
| Ancestor: | Descendants: |
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Feather Blice split from its ancestor, the Minikruggs to take on a more parasitic style of living. They can be found throughout Wallace and Kosemen. These miniscule creatures may measure from half a centimeter in length down to 1 mm among the smaller species of the genus. They have undergone a dietary transition from a diverse form of eating among their ancestors to a more specialized food source. The new food source for this group of fauna are specifically the chitinous feathers and skin of feathered saucebacks, biats, and their kin.
The reproductive cycle of this group is a little more complex than its ancestor, but it begins with a soft egg hidden at the base of a floral leaf. This egg hatches to release a single diploid female baby, fully capable of wandering around on its own. This baby wanders to the tip of the leaf that it was born on and extends its legs outward in a reaching form. In time other larger fauna will brush past it, those without feathers made from chitin are ignored or even fleed from. Those that do have feathers made from chitin are quickly latched upon by the extended limbs.
The baby female having found its first host quickly scurries deep into the feather coat of the larger organism toward its skin where it will feed on both the filaments of the feathers toward their base as well as taking small bites out of the skin itself. Homes on the body of the host that are most sought after are near the crevices of limbs where it's warmest and safest from the elements as well as the backs of ears or along the seams of the sauce.
It takes about 10 days for the parasite to reach reproductive maturity on the host. Once having reached maturity the female parasite will begin laying parthenogenic eggs cemented to the base of feathers. These eggs will always hatch into haploid females, which again will take 10 days before becoming reproductively mature. Behaviorally they are fairly similar to their diploid mother, though less persistent in remaining near the base of limbs and ears, and have a tendency to feed further up the feathers.
Once this first generation of haploid females reach reproductive maturity they too will begin laying their own eggs. These eggs will be clonal, complete copies of their parents genome. However the behavior of their parent differing from the diploid form of their genus will result in the eggs being scattered throughout the feather coat of their host. This placement of eggs means that the temperature exposure will be different, those eggs that were cemented to a feather further up the structure and away from the body of the host will be exposed to cooler temperatures. These temperature differences will determine the sex of the organism, with cooler temperatures resulting in males and warmer temperatures resulting in females.
These haploid eggs attach to the feathers of their host hatch within 2 to 3 days. Preening and other hygienic forms of behavior from their host will clean off these eggs, especially destroying the eggs further up the feather which are destined to become males. However, egg production is fairly consistent so many of them will be able to hatch in time to scurry back down to the body where it's safer. Males become sexually viable within only a few days, and unceremoniously breed with any females in their vicinity.
Fertilized haploid females will replicate the egg laying behavior of the initial diploid females, laying diploid eggs tightly against the base of feathers. Virtually all of these eggs will hatch into diploid females due to proximity to the body. Though, because the sex determination of eggs laid by haploid females is temperature-based, If an egg that were fertilized is somehow placed higher up on a feather, or falls away from the host's body due to the event of feather loss, it will hatch into a diploid male. These individuals produce progeny that are triploid after fertilization, and die before hatching.
Fertilized diploid females, also producing eggs that are diploid, will gorge themselves on the skin of their host and then drop away into the open environment during a period when their host is resting. From there they will scurry away to the safety of any Flora where they will begin to cement individual eggs to the base of leaves. Diploid females produce a hormone inside their eggs that silence the temperature based sex determination found in haploid females, this is why all their eggs become female. The Feather Blice will feed on the dead tissue of these flora as well as detritus on the ground, until they run out of fertile eggs. After this they'll clamber up to the top of a flora to try to repeat the process of hitching a ride onto a sauceback or biat.
Diploid Feather Blice can live in this cycle of living on a host and crawling around the underbrush for about a year before dying. In more temperate climates the population survives the cold periods via the individuals found on hosts. Those that drop off of the hosts from instinct simply succumb to the heat loss and quickly die before completing their cycle. During these times of years the main method that the parasites are spread is via direct contact between individual hosts, as haploid females and males shuffle between the feathers. Haploid individuals typically never leave the host that they hatched on, they're rather short lived, haploid females only living for a quarter of a year and haploid males for only half that.
Because of their small stature, and their blood containing hemoglobin, they have no longer any need for active respiration. The blood close to the surface of their bodies is able to absorb oxygen through exposure at the seams between their exoskeletal scutes and carapace. This blood is able to capture, hold on to, and transport the oxygen to tissues deeper in the body. Their legs and body are flatter than their ancestors, this allows them to more quickly shift about among the feathers of their host and to avoid being preened away. Their feet are more hook-like and grippy to allow them to hang onto feathers more easily.