#planimals

To celebrate finishing One Salt Sea, here's my sculpture of the best character in the October Daye series (or at least the most precious), Spike the Rose Goblin!

Spike has also met my tailypo. What is this, a crossover episode?

And here are some in-progress pics:

The team inserted chloroplasts from red algae into cultured cells derived from hamsters. The researchers examined the structure of the chloroplasts within the cells via several imaging techniques, including confocal microscopy, superresolution microscopy and electron microscopy. They also measured and confirmed that the electron transport of photosynthetic activity was occurring by using pulses of light (a technique called pulse amplitude modulation fluorometry).

Domain: Eukaryota

(Unranked): Diaphoretickes

(Unranked): SAR supergroup

Kingdom: Zoophyta

Planimals (more properly referred to as zoophytes, but most people don’t call them that outside of scientific discussions) are a kingdom of organisms which have traits associated with both plants and animals (although they are more closely related to plants). Most of them are heavily dependent on magic to survive. The vast majority of terrestrial species inhabit the continent of Ael.

General Traits

Most planimals have cell membranes with cortical alveoli, although some groups have evolved cell walls. Similarly to their ancestors, they have two nuclei: the micronucleus (holds the DNA passed on to offspring) and macronucleus (actively regulates the cell and phenotype of the organism).

They have three types of plastids: chloroplasts, chromoplasts, and elaioplasts (clusters of which replace animal-like fat tissue). The latter two are convergently evolved with those of plants.

Autotrophic, mixotrophic, and heterotrophic planimals exist. The ones that photosynthesize use chlorophylls a and c.

All planimals are oogamous (produce gametes of different size / shape / motility). Some phyla have alternation of generations. Viviparity is rare. They do not produce flowers or fruit.

Evolution

Planimals branched off from ciliates about 400 million years ago. They were exclusively aquatic until 250 million years ago, when the first terrestrial planimals came ashore on what is now the continent of Ael.

Planimals gained the ability to detect and make use of magic early on in their evolution. At some point, they began to use magic to supplement their naturally less-efficient biological processes, like photosynthesis. This allowed them to become more and more complex without changing any of their biological processes, which in turn made them more and more dependent on magic. Most modern-day planimals will die rapidly if deprived of it.

Major Phyla

Tapetozoa (“carpet animals”): Among the most basal extant planimals. Resemble gigantic amoebas or placozoans with a covering of thin but tough green skin. Both aquatic and terrestrial species exist. Notably, all species can survive just fine in low- or no-magic spaces.

Archodendrons (“ruling trees”): A clade resembling trees. A number of species produce small motile “seed/egg-pods” which carry their contents to the nearest sperm-producing archodendron. (Their name comes from their seeming command over these pods.) Despite their appearance, they have animal-like flesh and blood (albeit in different colours - yellowish flesh and clear blood) underneath their “bark”.

Xylovertebrata (“wood-spines”): Vertebrate, including tetrapod, analogues. Their bones superficially resemble bamboo wood, hence the name. Alternation of generations is a common trait.

Reinterpretation of the tree-people from the 1910 silent film A Trip To Mars, produced by Thomas Edison.

Still from Film:

Full version of the original Film here.

Just a little Monday post with, as you will notice, an unusual high number of words.

I think that the time has come to very officially congratulate and show my cyber-support to Plastic Animals.

What a fucking excellent launch and turn of events for them lately. They also scored a pretty amazing deal since they'll appear on a split 12' released on Song, by Toad along with North American War, Honeyblood and Magic Eye. I know I'll be buying one of these babies.

And beyond music, one also has to recognize great artwork when he sees it...

NOW, LISTEN!