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Description

The most diverse and speciose variety of snark is one which is not often considered, for it is often overlooked or elusive. This is the niche of parasitic snarks, which occur in untold thousands upon thousands of species, accounting for nearly half of all living snark species. This may seem unbelievable, but it has to do with an incredibly fast rate of evolutionary radiation accounting for the evolution and diversification of their hosts; as the host species evolve into multiple species, so too do its parasites, often several times over. Many snark species are themselves host to snark parasites, and some of these parasites are themselves host to even smaller hyperparasites. As well, the perpetually warm and moist climate of the hothouse has promoted the proliferation of sickness and disease like no other point in Serina's history, allowing them to spread across the globe and jump from host to host with ease; ultimately, snarks are just one of many parasitic animals which have benefited from these conditions.

Parasitism as a lifestyle has occurred several times independently in snark evolution, leading to the large assortment of shapes and sizes of them, and one of the newest groups to appear are pancake snarks, a type of amphibious ectoparasite descended from the creeping spikeray, able to survive long periods in drier conditions, a valuable attribute as the landscape has begun to change and less waterlogged environments have developed. With tough, scaly skin, they can survive for days out of the water, and muscular body allow them to actively crawl on land in search of hosts, something few other snark parasites have the capacity for. Their entire body has been transformed into a series of fleshy suction pads, including the fusion of the back appendages with the tail. Their transition to parasitism likely began similar to many parasitic animal species, starting off feeding passively on top of larger animals as a commensal or even beneficial hitchhiker, feeding off the small parasites that riddled the hides of larger animals, before eventually progressing to getting the parasites' original nutrition directly, becoming parasites themselves.

The life of a skin parasite isn't as easy as it might seem; because the market for this niche is booming, this has also incentivized the evolution of numerous cleaner animals which find a bountiful harvest in the sedentary, edible, blood-filled creepy-crawlers that carpet the bodies of large animals, beasts which happily give themselves up to these cleaners to be rid of their irritating infestations, however temporarily. All manner of parasite-eaters, both obligate and opportunistic, will peel the snarks from the host's skin and devour them, prompting the evolution of many characteristics that make this much more difficult.

A thick, adhesive mucus secreted from their underside forms a vacuum-tight seal along the edges of the body, tightly suctioning the snark to the host, while small hooked spines dig into the integument like velcro, and the curved mandibles pinch the flesh, in effect providing a triple assurance, making them exceptionally difficult to remove. Their smooth, flattened body lacks any potential holdfasts for predators, their stalked eyes can be completely retracted and their sensory tentacles folded underneath the body. Like many snarks, they can also change the hues of their skin, allowing them to closely resemble the colour and pattern of their host's skin, making it more difficult for cleaners to spot them. Because of these numerous specializations, they have quickly risen to great success in their niche, having already radiated into over twenty species within several million years.

The jumbo flapray is the very largest of the pancake snarks, for it has adapted to feed upon the very largest land animals to have ever existed on Serina: the great skuorc titans that roam the northern continent of Serinarcta. Capable of growing over fifty centimetres in length and nearly as wide (most other pancake snarks tend to be under twenty centimetres in length), they have exceptionally large, scalpel-thin mandibles capable of slicing through their thick hides, and can drain nearly two-hundred millilitres of blood in one sitting. For animals that often weigh well over ten tonnes, a single flapray is a minor irritant, but heavier infestations can severely weaken even a large adult, as they drain many litres of blood. Being so large, flaprays are quite difficult even for the most determined and specialized parasite-hunters to remove once feeding, but at the same time it makes them more vulnerable to predation and desiccation when not attached to a host. Between meals, the flapray will bury itself in moist earth, underneath rocks, or slip into murky water to prevent from being found while the bloated mollusc digests its meal. The flattened body lobes of the pancake snarks retain enough mobility for both crawling and underwater swimming, although not quite with the same finesse and speed as many other snarks.

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Description

The most diverse and speciose variety of snark is one which is not often considered, for it is often overlooked or elusive. This is the niche of parasitic snarks, which occur in untold thousands upon thousands of species, accounting for nearly half of all living snark species. This may seem unbelievable, but it has to do with an incredibly fast rate of evolutionary radiation accounting for the evolution and diversification of their hosts; as the host species evolve into multiple species, so too do its parasites, often several times over. Many snark species are themselves host to snark parasites, and some of these parasites are themselves host to even smaller hyperparasites. As well, the perpetually warm and moist climate of the hothouse has promoted the proliferation of sickness and disease like no other point in Serina's history, allowing them to spread across the globe and jump from host to host with ease; ultimately, snarks are just one of many parasitic animals which have benefited from these conditions.

Parasitism as a lifestyle has occurred several times independently in snark evolution, leading to the large assortment of shapes and sizes of them, and one of the newest groups to appear are pancake snarks, a type of amphibious ectoparasite descended from the creeping spikeray, able to survive long periods in drier conditions, a valuable attribute as the landscape has begun to change and less waterlogged environments have developed. With tough, scaly skin, they can survive for days out of the water, and muscular body allow them to actively crawl on land in search of hosts, something few other snark parasites have the capacity for. Their entire body has been transformed into a series of fleshy suction pads, including the fusion of the back appendages with the tail. Their transition to parasitism likely began similar to many parasitic animal species, starting off feeding passively on top of larger animals as a commensal or even beneficial hitchhiker, feeding off the small parasites that riddled the hides of larger animals, before eventually progressing to getting the parasites' original nutrition directly, becoming parasites themselves.

The life of a skin parasite isn't as easy as it might seem; because the market for this niche is booming, this has also incentivized the evolution of numerous cleaner animals which find a bountiful harvest in the sedentary, edible, blood-filled creepy-crawlers that carpet the bodies of large animals, beasts which happily give themselves up to these cleaners to be rid of their irritating infestations, however temporarily. All manner of parasite-eaters, both obligate and opportunistic, will peel the snarks from the host's skin and devour them, prompting the evolution of many characteristics that make this much more difficult.

A thick, adhesive mucus secreted from their underside forms a vacuum-tight seal along the edges of the body, tightly suctioning the snark to the host, while small hooked spines dig into the integument like velcro, and the curved mandibles pinch the flesh, in effect providing a triple assurance, making them exceptionally difficult to remove. Their smooth, flattened body lacks any potential holdfasts for predators, their stalked eyes can be completely retracted and their sensory tentacles folded underneath the body. Like many snarks, they can also change the hues of their skin, allowing them to closely resemble the colour and pattern of their host's skin, making it more difficult for cleaners to spot them. Because of these numerous specializations, they have quickly risen to great success in their niche, having already radiated into over twenty species within several million years.

The jumbo flapray is the very largest of the pancake snarks, for it has adapted to feed upon the very largest land animals to have ever existed on Serina: the great skuorc titans that roam the northern continent of Serinarcta. Capable of growing over fifty centimetres in length and nearly as wide (most other pancake snarks tend to be under twenty centimetres in length), they have exceptionally large, scalpel-thin mandibles capable of slicing through their thick hides, and can drain nearly two-hundred millilitres of blood in one sitting. For animals that often weigh well over ten tonnes, a single flapray is a minor irritant, but heavier infestations can severely weaken even a large adult, as they drain many litres of blood. Being so large, flaprays are quite difficult even for the most determined and specialized parasite-hunters to remove once feeding, but at the same time it makes them more vulnerable to predation and desiccation when not attached to a host. Between meals, the flapray will bury itself in moist earth, underneath rocks, or slip into murky water to prevent from being found while the bloated mollusc digests its meal. The flattened body lobes of the pancake snarks retain enough mobility for both crawling and underwater swimming, although not quite with the same finesse and speed as many other snarks.

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This post could be seen months earlier on Patreon ; consider subscribing if you'd like to support me!