⚠️TRYPOPHOBIA WARNING⚠️
Author's note: The following image of the creature has been known to trigger reactions in those with trypophobia, the fear of many small holes. Please continue at your own discretion.
Mutualistic symbiosis is the phenomenon by which two or more organisms of different species depend on each other for survival with a long-term, close interaction. We can observe this phenomenon in the relationship between the inhabited lorge and its inhabitants, the colonial gobolin.
The inhabited lorge evolved from foaming squander that abandoned their high-latitude lifestyle and took advantage of arid grasslands to the south. To survive this climate, much of the squander’s characteristic foam-producing system evolved into fatty deposits to store moisture during dry times. However, the lorge’s ancestors had a high degree of vulnerability to predators due to their limited field of view and little more defense than their size. Fortuitously, the colonial gobolin’s ancestors, the banded suckerlump’s descendants, had a habit of hitching rides on the slow-moving lorge. The lorge, like many grazing herbivores, attracts many parasitic insects, the suckerlump’s favorite meal. It became common for the lorge’s ancestor to harbor colonies of suckerlump. Fast forward to 70,000,000 BC, and the two species have become inextricable. Colonial gobolin thrive in tunnels burrowed into the spongy, nerve-less flesh of the lorge’s hump, making a colony easily compared to our timeline’s meerkat’s. Gobolin keep guard, maintaining a 360º field of awareness around their mobile home. At any sign of danger, the gobolin can alert the lorge to move out and seek safety. Should the lorge be cornered, as a last resort, gobolin can exit the lorge, swarming the attacker to defend their home. With such an effective defense array, the lorge has few natural predators. The lorge’s hump is always growing and regenerating, providing a steady supply of protein for the gobolin. So quick is this growth, that, without a healthy colony of gobolin, the hump will grow too heavy for the lorge to move, and it will starve to death. Despite its success story, the lorge's reign will be ended prematurely when the same meteor that killed the dinosaur in our timeline decimates the Earth's population, around 65,000,000 BC. |
Inhabited LorgeMagnapyram porosum
Era: Late Cretaceous
Time: 70,000,000 BCE Habitat: temperate forest Diet: fungus and vegetation Location: Indian Peninsula Size: 10’ Colonial GobolinAnumanestra coloniam
Era: Late Cretaceous
Time: 70,000,000 BCE Habitat: temperate forest Diet: parasites, insects and lorge hump Location: Indian Peninsula Size: 1.5' |
EVOLVES FROM:
Banded Suckerlump
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