#plaggots

Plaggot Species Concepts by EnterTheDwelling

I had some Myriaverses creature concept art lying around on my computer and spruced it up to post-able condition. They're still deep in the development phase, but the rough idea of this creature is that it's an artificially created animal made by a colony of humans living quite far away from Earth. They were developed to eat vast amounts of plastics to help with the planet's pollution problem, and were often contained in pits and landfills specifically filled with this type of trash. Plaggots are modular, much like siphonophores, and each "segment" can technically be separated from the main mass and encouraged to grow into a new, complete plaggot. Also, plaggots are hollow; much more like a segmented tube than a solid creature. All of their organs and most metabolic processes are actually embedded within the muscular walls of the animal. The plaggot fills its chambers with plastics and then secrets enzymes to break them down, giving it the energy and nutrients it needs to live. They are not considered even remotely close to sapient OR sentient. This exclusively instinct-driven setup makes them excellent at their job, but a nightmare outside of it. Unfortunately, they eventually multiplied out of control and started to escape their intended habitat when the amount of plastic trash finally ran low enough. They began spreading out and causing havoc by mindlessly eating equipment, wiring, plastic accessories (along with the people wearing them oops)... literally just anything that had plastic in or on it. What made the epidemic worse is that when plaggots "starve", they don't properly die. They just deactivate and can lie dormant for a very long time before weathering down till they can't be reactivated. Thankfully, the local populace is still around and has since learned to deal with their runaway creations, capturing them and augmenting them into tools and AI companions. Plaggots have been "feral" for several centuries now, so they're just a normal part of life at this point. Sometimes, you just have to call in "animal control" to catch that rhino-sized trash eating monster behind your apartment block! ... Oh! By the way! Those "eyes"? Those are actually holes with a small ridge of light-sensitive tissue around the borders. It's not uncommon for the vapors produced from digesting plastic to vent out of them as the plaggot metabolizes.