Purple Wude
The biggest difference between the Purple Snood and its ancestor are the much larger calcified structures (“teeth”) on its short, thick tentacles (“jaws”). Three of these tentacle-jaws are used to capture or chisel away food. The one on its upper right, the long “snood”, is only fully developed in the adult male Purple Wude, and the snoods of female Purple Wudes are only a fourth of the size of the male’s. The snood is built a little like a spade, and is used both to dig shallow nests in the mud during the breeding season and as a display feature. Juvenile males (depicted) have shorter snoods, which may comically flail backwards when they move quickly.
Life Cycle
Like most Luceremundarians, they undergo drastic metamorphosis, akin to certain Earth fish. Their larvae are small filter-feeders which resemble their distant ancestor, the Carpotesta Luceremundare. The barely-visible, nigh-embryonic larvae grow quickly, developing eyes and a proper stomach out of the digestive membrane on its front side. The larvae of Purple Wudes hatch as a lemon shape, and become increasingly almond-shaped as they grow into juveniles. This is the briefest stage.
In the juvenile stage, which starts when roughly a fourth of the adult size, they filter-feed, but the adults do not eat like this. Though the juveniles could theoretically filter-feed out the larvae of the same species, this doesn’t happen in the wild: they all breed in autumn, and any stragglers born late in the season are still too big to be filter-fed.
Diet
Given the chance, juvenile and adult Purple Wudes eat primarily Violetmellows and small fauna. They will even eat juvenile Twistworms, should they drop into the water. However, much of the time they must compete with Purple Snoods or Snoodcish, often in immense numbers, who are hostile to related species.
As such, they have specialized in eating tough, rotting plant tissue or outright wood that falls into the marshy areas of its habitat. It uses its long, calcified “teeth” to chisel into wood and break it apart into small, mulch-like pieces before swallowing it. With neither specialized endogenous enzymes nor specialized microbial partners, it has little ability to digest cellulose. It eats the rotting wood more for the photosynthetic organisms encrusted onto it and the microbes decomposing it. For especially large, fresh chunks, it won’t bother eating the whole thing and will only scrape off photosynthesizers and any tiny organisms attached to the surface.
It must eat lot of wood to gain nutrients, and its lengthened, coiled intestines help it extract somewhat more nutrients from its diet. It prefers crunching up purpleflora tissue, as it’s not as tough and indigestible as crystalflora wood.
Behavior
Its lengthened digestive system makes it slow and dumpy. Without predators, though, this is not much of an issue. Despite its slow movement, it is still territorial, and so aggressive towards anything that comes too close to it. It will flail around its tentacles and “bite” any perceived threats.