Giluksips

The Giluksips split from their ancestor. They have developed their mouths into a large blind gut with digestive enzymes. They have stopped absorbing food into their gills, and as such and with their new digestive ability in mind they have also lost any need for their intestine-like waste funnel. This leaves their “cloaca” as merely a reproductive opening. In the center of their mouth, they have developed a barbed tooth made of a tough enamel-like material which is used to capture and kill prey. The changes to their anatomy caused them to resemble primitive Uksips of another time and place.

Giluksips catch their prey by detecting movement with their eyes and/or gills and rapidly inverting their mouths, thrusting their tooth into their target. Even if the organism they detect turns out to not be food, this also makes them dangerous for would-be predators to approach and thus also serves as predator deterrence. When food is captured, the mouth and therefore tooth and prey are pulled back in, and the mouth closes so their digestive enzymes can do their work. While Giluksips do spend most of their time just sitting around partially buried in the sediment waiting for prey to come by, they are also capable of swimming somewhat like a terran anemone to flee from a predator.

Giluksips no longer need to meet one another to reproduce. They sit with their anal arm partially buried but curved up to expose the anal hand, which essentially acts like a flower. It usually remains clenched into a fist, but when it comes time to spawn, the hand opens. Males release plumes of sperm, which is then collected like pollen by a flower by the females. After being fertilized, the female will close her anal hand to protect the developing babies. Tiny radially symmetric larvae develop in the female’s womb, and once they have developed sufficiently the mother will open her hand once again, and the babies will then swim off to find a place to settle and metamorphose into bilateral adults. Spawning is coordinated using pheromones detected with their chemoreceptive patches.

There are many species of Giluksip. They come in a variety of colors usually lining up with the color of local flora so that their prey does not see them. Though, in the absence of flora, they may be colored like the sediment instead and deep sea species may lack pigment at all. They are most common in tropical habitats, especially reefs, but they can be found in nearly every marine habitat where food is available.