Muddlers

Muddlers
(Cerebronebulator sp.)
Information
Creator	Oofle Other
Week/Generation	27/167
Habitat	Jujubee Ocean, LadyM Ocean, Mnid Ocean, Barlowe-Lamarck Shelf, Drake Shelf, Fermi Shelf, Kosemen-Wallace Shelf, Ramul-Steiner Shelf, Vonnegut Shelf, Driftwood Islands, Barlowe, Drake, Fermi, Kosemen, Lamarck, Ramul, Steiner, Vonnegut, Wallace, North Sagan 4 Ice Sheet, South Sagan 4 Ice Sheet, Atmosphere
Size	3 to 34 micrometers long (individual cell)
Primary Mobility	Unknown
Support	Unknown
Diet	Parasite (Plents, Ukfauna, Carpozoa)
Respiration	Passive Diffusion
Thermoregulation	Ectotherm
Reproduction	Mitosis, Meiosis
Taxonomy
Domain Class Order Family Genus Species	Eukaryota Panpestilentia Pestilentales Pestilentaceae Cerebronebulator Cerebronebulator sp.

Ancestor:	Descendants:
Pestilence

Pestilences, on account of their wide range of ancestors but complete lack of genetic exchange, as well as the almost complete absence of competition, are very morphologically and ecologically diverse…so a ‘falling out' is inevitable. Muddlers are a very diverse group of pathogenic microbes closely allied with the nialrus, forming long clonal chains in association with the host's nerves, some species are specialized to wrap around somatic nerve cells themselves with thin flagella, but the vast majority parasitize the nerve cord and brain, swimming through the cerebrospinal fluid itself. Muddlers have a fairly specific set of hosts, for the most part this was influenced by their ancestry, muddlers originally were restricted to ukfauna, but very quickly made a leap to plents, though this is widely considered more coincidental than anything as while the two share cellular ancestors they independently developed their faunal status and have considerably divergent physiology.

While it seems exchanges have happened fairly frequently between plents and ukfauna, muddlers have only leapt to carpozoans a handful of times in comparison, they still seem to utterly thrive when they do so however, with just as dizzying of an array of species from various lineages thriving in shrews and skysnappers just as they do in nodents and ukbacks. These three kingdoms are all very widespread, and muddlers followed suit rather readily, infecting everything from the highest-flying phlyers to the deepest diving lyngbakrs and hafgufas, and their hosts have served them well in regards to carrying them to new continents and seas.

In respect to being spread to new regions, it would seem appropriate to bring up how exactly muddlers spread from host to host, indeed, just as there are a dizzying array of physical forms that muddlers take on based on a single template, muddlers are equally diverse in their range of vectors, but rely on one commonality: fluid. Muddlers tend to be spread by infected fecal material or even saliva, with the latter being most common within species that infect the brain due to the shorter distance, while this can manifest via direct transmission, it more often is by contamination of water and other resources that muddlers will spread, the chains breaking apart outside of a host to increase the chances that any one cell will be able to find a host. Some muddlers however are spread almost exclusively when their hosts are eaten, and others still are spread not passively, but actively by ectoparasites like gushitos and bloodbees, remaining in a semi-active state within their intestines or salivary glands and then being released into a fresh host's bloodstream when the vector feeds.

One of the most universal issues muddlers face in getting to the richest feeding grounds of the host - the brain - is the Blood Brain Barrier, muddlers ancestrally used a surprisingly crude method of bypassing it. As organisms often at least an order of magnitude smaller than their host's cells, muddlers simply squeeze through. The many flagella in robust forms often being just as good for moving through fluid as they are for ‘gripping' the cell walls of cells making up the BBB and forcing themselves to the other side through the minute gap. Most species are more ‘cunning' (if a brainless microorganism can be referred to as such) species have picked up certain markers from their hosts through horizontal gene transfer that cause the BBB to open up for them, making passage even simpler and more energy efficient for them. Thus these phenotypes are far more common than the ancestral form, even if it's more common in somatic species because they're not wasting energy on cell membrane markers they'll never use.

It is within these vectors where some muddlers partake in sexual reproduction, all muddlers are capable of meiosis from a single common ancestor that had broken off from the main pestilence genus long ago, they will undergo multiple divisions during meiosis, from as few as 2 to as many as 8, with each sequentially producing more and more gametes, the final division is defined by a lack of the replication of genetic material, producing haploid but ultimately genderless gametes: if no other mates are available, they will simply fuse with each other to produce clones of their parent, but they ideally will encounter another muddler of the same species's gametes and fuse with them to create an individual with a roughly equal ratio of genes from each parent. This is a rather basic form of reproduction, and the genes are rarely mixed very deeply, but it gives them something of an edge over asexual competitors in sheer longevity…not that muddlers could hope to put a dent in their ancestor's population, even many species of nialrus-like pestilence coexist with muddlers in the same hosts, and the lack of muddler species in many other faunal kingdoms would regardless permit the continued existence of similar forms, not to get started on the dissimilar forms.

Muddlers are so named for the fact they ‘muddle up' the cognitive functions of their host, the pathology of these symptoms varies from species to species, but usually it is a rather surprising dietary choice that leads to it: most muddlers, like the nialrus, primarily feed on the electric signals that neurons use to communicate with one another, intercepting them while they're in the process of moving down the axon. There are some terran prokaryotes that exhibit a similar capacity for the production of energy exclusively from artificial electrical sources, but muddlers also have the advantage of this not being their sole energy source; while some species do rely mostly or entirely on it, and it is a necessity for the vast majority of species that constitutes the majority of their energy intake, muddlers have also developed some heterotrophic tendencies. While most muddlers utilize cerebrospinal fluid as a carbon source, many will also extract nutrients from the neurons and glial cells themselves, either consuming cytoplasm and other internal contents directly by boring a small hole into their target, or eating the delicate insulating sheath around the axon, which has the boon of further exposing them to the electrical signals they use for energy anyways.

Symptoms of muddler infection - generally referred to as either central cerebronebulosis or peripheral cerebronebulosis depending on which portion of the nervous system is impacted - are rather distinct. One of the most concerning perhaps is simply forgetfulness, memory recall being stifled by both damage to the nerves and direct interruption of signals along the axons of neurons. This creates a general ‘brain fog' in the afflicted and, in severe cases, can advance into a dementia-like neurodegenerative state that tends to lead to indirect death in short order. Other superficially mental illness-like symptoms aren't uncommon either, such as delayed reactions or, if an individual is infected at a young age, interrupted mental development, idiosyncratic behaviors may also develop either from attempted compensation for lost signals or general nerve damage. Peripheral cerebronebulosis tends to have less drastic symptoms, such as twitches and jitters, slowed reactions or momentarily unresponsive muscles, stiffness, and mild numbness. Due to proximity of the nerves, cerebronebulosis can evade the immune system for a considerable amount of time, and may leave lasting damage even when contracted. As is common in disease, the old and young where the immune system is less capable are more severely infected, and cerebronebulosis may infect an individual at middle age and remain discrete only to flare up when they reach an advanced age. Cerebronebulosis is not often itself fatal except in immunocompromised individuals or over extremely long periods of time in more heterotrophic species; but because of its proclivity to reduce nervous functioning, it often leads to premature deaths by dulling the reactions of its hosts.

This tendency for mortality is an advantage to most species, as if a dead host contaminates a water source many more may be infected, and the predator may be a host directly as well, though overall the goal tends to be to be contagious before host death. Species with faunal transporters especially will ‘break off' from the nerves to swim throughout the host, aiming to be picked up by gushitos or other viable vectors via the blood, though a number of these will end up scooped up by the immune system before they can be as they make themselves rather obvious.