Deepwing Brooder
Titanotagmatapterya amalthea
, the titanic wing-segmented cup of plenty. An enormous arthropod leviathan with a huge tearing beak and a payload of fatty deposits, which it uses to both feed and protect its eggs.
Overview
, the titanic wing-segmented cup of plenty. An enormous arthropod leviathan with a huge tearing beak and a payload of fatty deposits, which it uses to both feed and protect its eggs.
Gameplay attributes
No extractable gameplay attributes for this entry.
PDA Analysis
1. Ancient origins
The brooder's ancestors, the tagmatapterya (wing-segmented ones), evolved very early in the development of Protean arthropods. Their limbs evolved into paddles, the thorax developed a deep keel, and maxillipeds beneath the mouth transformed into eyes by homeosis. Competition from fish selected for enormous size and thick armor. It is unknown if all the tagmatapterya achieved the deepwing brooder's enormous size, or even surpassed it.
2. Mysterious diet
The deepwing brooder's throat is lined with traps for plankton. Filtered water through gill openings at the rear of its thoracic keel. Yet its enormous beak is suited to cracking and tearing. It is possible that the brooder opportunistically feeds on hard prey, including the fluids of titan rockbores, the shells of giant jaws, and fatbergs drifting through the lipid-rich Protean sea.
3. Fertile brooding
Deepwing brooders gather layers of oil beneath their outer shell. This oil is released in droplets alongside eggs, acting as a decoy for predators.The decoy eggs do provide the ocean with a tremendous bounty of concentrated nutrients.
4. Deepfall
As a strandulate, the deepwing brooder must molt. Molted exoskeletons drop to the sea floor with a lining of lipid-rich grease, providing a feast for dwellers in the hungry abyss.
Assessment
Related Creatures
More entries from the same ecological slice.
BFJ
, the behemoth finger-legged jelly. A massive specimen with no Earthly analog.
Cerathecan
"Our PDAs point to organisms like the cerathecan and exclaim 'behold: the road not taken'. On Earth, seed shrimp are tiny slime-dwellers; on Proteus they grow huge. But just as easy life in our decontaminated bases deafens us to the call of Proteus, easy analogies blind us to the truth. The map from Earth is not only wrong, so is its basic dogma. Evolution does not follow roads here." —Anita Gottschall, *The Way Away Home* *Exile cerathecan*, the horn-cupped exile. A mysterious carnivore and deposit feeder with no clear Earth analog except the tiny ostracod (seed shrimp).
Collector Leviathan
Enormous cephalopod predator (tentatively *Tyrannoteuthis phobocoeus*, tyrant squid of fearful curiosity). Feeds on hard-shelled, heavily defended prey. Solitary but highly intelligent. Likely a deep-sea creature.