HOME | DD

Preradkor In reply to SonicCaleritas [2018-12-23 17:25:35 +0000 UTC]

Of course, most of zooplankton are helmbugs.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

SonicCaleritas In reply to Preradkor [2018-12-23 22:48:50 +0000 UTC]

So shelled zooplankton cool

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Preradkor In reply to SonicCaleritas [2018-12-24 09:45:12 +0000 UTC]

Shelled or unslelled. The one in lower right corner and two tiny under the biggest one are clearly planktonic. These helmbugs are separated int categories: labaeled "lądowe" are land, "słodkowodny"is freshwater, "morskie" are marine. I drew it in school, when I was drawing mostly for myself. I didnt expected to publish it then in internet, so descriptions are in polish.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

SonicCaleritas In reply to Preradkor [2018-12-24 15:44:27 +0000 UTC]

Ok cool

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

Preradkor In reply to AntFingers [2018-03-14 19:51:20 +0000 UTC]

These organisms have rather similar built and are also carbon based, but there are few important diferences.

- Their genetic material is also long structure with digital code like our DNA, but diferntly constructed. Instead of phosphate-deoxiribose backbone, their genetic material have protein backbone, but it is also double helix. Nucleotides inside it are also diferent than in our cells.

- They also are protein based organisms, but aminoacids in their proteins have reverse chirality than ours. Some of aminoacids in their proteins are similar (but of course inverted), so they have glycine, D-alanine or D-theonine in their proteins, but some more complicated aminoacids are replaced by diferent ones which dont occur naturally in Earth life. Also in our proteins there are naturally 20 types of diferent aminoacids, in Coatlicue organisms there are few more.

- They use arsenic insead of phosphorus in their proteins. That means they need arsenic, while phosphorus is toxic for them.

- They have cyanide diluted in their cytoplasm and some enzymes responsible for very basic cell metabolism need it to function properly. At the other hand cyanide in Earth organisms blocks important enzyme responsible for cell respiration, so Coatlique organisms are toxic to Earth life. And some common compounds of Earth life cells are the same way toxcic for Coatlicue organisms.

- Coatlicue is much warmer than Earth, so metabolism of its life is similar to our extremophile bacterya found in some hot springs on Earth. Their proteins evolved to be resistant to high temperature. Optimal body temperature for most Coatlicue organism is around 90 Celcius degree, but some can tolerate even more. Many organisms from warmer regions have advanced refrigeration systems radiating heat out of their bodies (usually trough lungs) or special enzymes lifting water boilng temperature to prevent boling of blood in their bodies. Higher temperature means also faster metabolism, so Coatlicue creatures move and grow much faster than Earth ones.

- Coatlicue creatures usually have multiple genomes in every living organism. Blueplant cells have several nuclei, each with slightly diferent genome copy (similar to dicariotic cells of some fungus on Earth, but in blueplant there can be much more than two nuclei in cell). Animal-like organisms at the other hand are genetic chimeras, that means every embryo develops not from one fertilized egg, but from cluser of zygotes. So cells in its body in genetic point of view are like cells of several siblings, however they build one creature. Quite often such Coatlicue animal can have more than one father if female was fertilized by multiple males. In rarer cases, in species with external fertilization embryo can develop from several zygote clustes fused in the water and then creature which grows out of it can have multiple mothers too. In Velorans number of zygotes from which each individual developed is very important factor of caste-determination factor. Individuals which developed from greatest number of zygotes develop into reproductives, while others grow into asexual workers.

I coudnt answer this comment for long time, DA didnt allowed me as this comment was recognised by system as "spam". :/

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

AntFingers In reply to Preradkor [2018-03-16 06:58:54 +0000 UTC]

I don't mind the time. You put a lot of thought into this, nice. So they're similar to earth creatures in composition but almost the reverse in cellular chemicals? 

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Preradkor In reply to AntFingers [2018-03-16 07:22:53 +0000 UTC]

Not exacly reverse, but just diferent ins some aspects. Only thing really reverse is chirality of aminoacids.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

AntFingers In reply to Preradkor [2018-03-17 03:04:07 +0000 UTC]

Interesting. I had an idea for a xenobiology project I might do later on. An asteroid belt with an atmosphere, placed there by some alien super civilization. There is no gravity for the most part, though some of the larger asteroids have a weak pull. The life there is descended from the civilization's robot probes, similar to your vacuum dwelling alien. However, there are uniquely two biochemical configurations living in the belt. One of them is descended from primitive carbon-based living machines, and the others are something I've been working on for some time, organosilicate organisms descended from crystal machines. Essentially living computers with many features of animals and plants, though the basic chemical compounds of what to us would be some kind of machine.

Still working on a design for them however.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Preradkor In reply to AntFingers [2018-03-17 10:25:03 +0000 UTC]

I have in my gallery some creature which is more obviously evolving machine, which outlived its creators, the greenhousehive

👍: 0 ⏩: 0