Infilt Pewpa
From Sagan 4 Alpha Wiki
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The infilt pewpa is descended from populations of pewpa that learned to adapt to and take advantage of the communal janits, utilizing their colonies as a source of shelter for their own offspring. These juvenile pewpas are incredibly vulnerable at such an early age, as they lack the foul-smelling liquids which the adults utilize in order to deter their natural predators. This has resulted in the juveniles and adults having distinct morphs, which differs from their ancestors and relatives who have young emerge as miniature versions of the adults.
The juvenile infilt pewpa has adapted several bits of its anatomy to mimic the communal janits so they can travel among the colonies unnoticed and thus able to take advantage of the nests they create and feed on the food they collect using their ancestral leech-like mouths. This includes their four eyes being raised up on small ridges on their segments to mimic the short eyestalks while two small bumps have formed on the first segment that try to mimic the fifth eye and the front end of a communal janit. Additionally, their front pair of hollow tubes have moved forward and grown in size to the degree it resembles the forelimbs of the communal janits. This was selected for in the juveniles as those with these tubes fooled the communal janits more often and thus were not attacked. Meanwhile, the other two pairs of hollow tubes have shrunk in the juvenile forms along with two pairs of their legs which they now keep off of the ground. These, combined with their coloration and patterns, is enough to fool the communal janits to let them live in their colonies where the young infilt pewpas can spend the early parts of their lives as freeloaders.
Once the infilt pewpas begin to grow too large to effectively blend into the colony, at around 4 centimeters, they will leave the communal janits behind. Once this happens, the hindmost pair of limbs grows in size until they touch the ground for extra support while the other two pairs of hollow tubes grow at least 3 times their juvenile length. The infilt pewpas will also have a major change in coloration, shifting from colors that mimic the communal janits into their adult colors which are a variety of greens and yellows. These colors are quite similar to their ancestor and relatives, since it also acts as a warning coloration to predators since the adult infilt pewpas will still secret a foul-smelling liquid as a defense. They also have two large spikes on the first segment, which derived from the two small bumps the juveniles had to mimic communal janits that have then grown larger.
Being hermaphrodites, both infilt pewpas will mate with one another using their cloacas. After this occurs, both individuals will go their separate ways to find an ideal spot to lay their eggs. The infilt pewpa will seek out colonies of communal janits and then deposit their eggs by the roots of flora growing close to these colonies. Once they hatch, the infilt pewpa youngsters will already have the coloration and physical adaptations necessary to blend into the communal janit colony and repeat the cycle.
As the infilt pewpas start the first portion of their lives among the colonies of communal janits, the species will spread to any areas where the model species is present. As such, when the communal janits spread across Fermi and then got carried away on Seashrog and Marine Tamow rafts, populations of infilt pewpas would soon follow although they would get on the rafts much less often compared to the communal janits. Despite this, the infilt pewpas would nonetheless spread to most tropical and temperate habitats on Sagan 4.