Spectrestar

A population of horrorstars split off and made their way into deeper waters, where they focused more on their parasitic aspect. Modified for faster getaways, the spectrestar gets most of its sustenance from biting chunks of meat out of larger fauna and escaping too quickly to face any consequences. When a suitable victim isn’t found, it may also wander nearer to the ocean floor to nibble on carcasses.

Having no structures that collapse under midnight zone pressures, the spectrestar required no extreme adaptations to make its way into this region. Still, its gills are enlarged to help it get the energy it needs to do what it does. Without a real circulatory system yet, it has also gained extra gill baits covering parts of its back like a thin fuzz; though one would expect this to cause drag, these are actually stiff and flat, not particularly hair-like, and hardly impede water flow at all. Their texture also makes the spectrestar unpleasant to eat.

The spectrestar uniquely only has three arms in adulthood. As their lifestyle no longer necessitates the front arm, it is absorbed early on as larvae develop. This leaves it with just a tail arm and two fin-arms; its fin-arms have also shortened and partially fused with the body, however, allowing the individual fingers to function as three stabilizing pairs of fins as it swims. To help it see in the dark, the spectrestar’s pigment cup eyes have essentially split, giving it 4 eyes total.

The spectrestar is otherwise much like its ancestor. It reproduces sexually, using the finger-like projections on its anal arm to hold on while it mates; developing young stay inside the mother until they are large enough to swim out on their own. Larvae are radially symmetric with four arms and gain their bilateral traits, including absorbing the front arm, as they mature.