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Saxophlutist — Cardiophyta Introduction
Published: 2009-07-11 16:04:22 +0000 UTC; Views: 2449; Favourites: 34; Downloads: 22
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W00t! I'm on a roll! Here's another Europan tidbit.I finally decided to stop putting it off and did a piece on Europan "plant analogues"!
These organisms, though they fill a similar niche as plants do on Earth, are not complete analogues of Earth plants. Thus showing the nature of evolution and an example of convergent evolution.
They are actually the sister Kingdom to the animal analogues, and there are reasons which will be disclosed soon. (Or in the comments section if you want to ask)
Most of the information on Advanced Cardiophytes is on the deviation, but one thing I haven't entirely fleshed out their reproduction. I'm thinking that they could have an initial motile embryo/larval stage that will seek out vents.
More Europa Stuff!
[link]
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Comments: 26
Very cool. This would make for a great Sculptris project.
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Yup! Now if only I was any good at using Sculptris.
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So these things simply use heat to generate bio-chemical energy? How? It sounds like a cool idea (heat drives a gradient that moves molecules across a barrier to generate something like ATP), but no earth organism has managed the trick. We have photosynthesis, chemo-synthesis, but no...thermosynthesis? Maybe it's because the temperatures at which it would work would denature any biological molecule. That problem could be solved though. Maybe that's why they need muscular pumping systems, to pump heated water away from the heat source before the temperature climbs too high.
Another sort of thermo-synthetic organism could be a huge tube-shaped thing that creates an internal gradient between the cold water near Europa's crust and the hot water around areas of vulcanism. Water moving through the tube could power biochemical turbines.
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Thanks for your input! I still have a lot of fleshing out to do.
They use a hybrid system for getting energy to process biochemicals. They absorb chemicals from the surrounding water and vents, then the chemicals undergo primary biological processing in the Chemical Body tissues. In there different substances are mixed in with the absorbed material. Then the chemical fluid is loaded into the arms, where they are put in the heat and infra-red light absorbing tissue, where the energy is used to catalyze reactions. Then the results are circulated around the body of the organism, or stored. Also, as a supplementary source of material, detritus can be absorbed by the organism.
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If I understand correctly, you're talking about two biochemical "schema" at work here. One is low-temperature, more like terrestrial biochemistry, the other is high-temperature. Sounds cool---perhaps evolved from two organisms living commensurately (like Eukaryotic cells and mitochondria)? Still, the materials of the high-temperature parts of the organism would need to be made of something less heat-sensitive than proteins. See: [link]
maybe silicon?
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i know, but why is it part of the animals name?
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It's not an animal.
It's there because it punps vascular fluid around its body. Its name means "heart-plant".
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... wouldn't vascular fluid just be blood?
and also, according to your description, it says it's not a plant either...
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It's not really blood quite yet.
It's a plant analogue. It can't technically be called a plant biologically (Or an animal), not having evolved from plants on Earth.
It's part of a non-analogous kingdom.
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Yes, it has roots, and absorbs.
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so the only thing that makes it animal like is the fact that it has internal organs?
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Not really organs, more like just specialized tissues.
It's 'animal-like' because it is closely related to the "animal" kingdom. And it has a mobile larval stage.
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ah... so a bit like a knobby white spider (from star wars, look it up)
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In a vague sense, yes.
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so it's a healthy squid!
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This is SO COOL! I love this idea, and you have NO IDEA how closely it parallels some of my recent thinking on aliens...I was just working on the text for something I'm going to post soon when I took a break to check my messages. Check out my scraps later today, I'm hoping you'll be able to contribute to the discussion!
If you haven't already seen it, you might like ~fractal's [link] !
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Thanks! I'm glad you like it! It means a lot to see other spec-evolution fans say they like it.
Ah neat! Yet another pseudo-"plant" organism! With some animal trait thrown in as well!
I see you also did a chart! Looks neat! I shall check it out!
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