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Description
It has been 20 million years since Mars was terraformed by sentient being from a neighboring planet, Earth. Those beings have since vanished, but the life they brought with them from their home world persists and has evolved, despite the fact that the planet is slowly stagnating. It appears that they never fully terraformed the planet as it lacks the megafauna characteristic of Earth. Instead, the smaller creatures that were introduced have come to dominate.
There is perhaps no better example of this than the Titanic Tadpoles (Xenocetus): massive, paedomorphic, filter-feeding, semitransparent, marine amphibians descended from an ancient Earth species known as the African Clawed Frog (Xenopus laevis). Their tiny filter feeding larvae have since evolved into 20 meter giants that have taken to the brackish Martian oceans to take advantage of their rich planktonic fauna. Whiskers converted into funneling chemoreceptors, enlarged spiracles to filter large volumes of water, hind limb buds modified into fins, and a reversed heterocercal tail for efficient cruising. They are the last remnant of what was a great variety of filter-feeding organisms that proliferated early in the Mars's terraformed history.
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My entry for the "Earth Life on Mars" monthly contest of the Speculative Evolution Group.

I like this conceptual world, I'd like to dive into it further but I think I've got enough on my plate.

Description
It has been 20 million years since Mars was terraformed by sentient being from a neighboring planet, Earth. Those beings have since vanished, but the life they brought with them from their home world persists and has evolved, despite the fact that the planet is slowly stagnating. It appears that they never fully terraformed the planet as it lacks the megafauna characteristic of Earth. Instead, the smaller creatures that were introduced have come to dominate.
There is perhaps no better example of this than the Titanic Tadpoles (Xenocetus): massive, paedomorphic, filter-feeding, semitransparent, marine amphibians descended from an ancient Earth species known as the African Clawed Frog (Xenopus laevis). Their tiny filter feeding larvae have since evolved into 20 meter giants that have taken to the brackish Martian oceans to take advantage of their rich planktonic fauna. Whiskers converted into funneling chemoreceptors, enlarged spiracles to filter large volumes of water, hind limb buds modified into fins, and a reversed heterocercal tail for efficient cruising. They are the last remnant of what was a great variety of filter-feeding organisms that proliferated early in the Mars's terraformed history.
...................................................................................................................................................................................................

My entry for the "Earth Life on Mars" monthly contest of the Speculative Evolution Group.

I like this conceptual world, I'd like to dive into it further but I think I've got enough on my plate.