| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Type | Anchored |
| Category | Sponges |
| Biome | Tar Delta |
| Attitude | Passive |
| Scan Tool | Bioscanner |
Frondy is an anchored Lifeform that appears in the Tar Delta region.
Appearance
The frondy starts with a cluster of cabbage-like appendages surrounding a wrinkly trunk which is topped off with a wide conical structure. This cone has many appendages protruding off of it that resemble the spike proteins found in some viruses. At the end of these appendages are broad, large, leaf-like structures with a tear-drop marking in the middle.
Databank Entry
Symposium sponge Symphon pnigosymposia, the wine-drowning sponge. A carnivorous kelp mimic of unusual complexity.
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Complex sponge As on Earth, Protean sponges diverged from other animal life very early. Yet the symposium has independently evolved specialized organs, including a skeleton of wax esters, tar distillation glands, and two separate circulatory systems for water and ethyl alcohol.
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Drowned in wine Plankton searching for an anchor and feeding site enter the cups, where they are drowned in ethyl alcohol and pumped to a central stomach for digestion.
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How did flesh take form? Earth's animals probably evolved from cells that failed to separate after dividing. Protean cells may have merged instead—for example, amoebae cooperating to pump water may have led to the first sponge. But how did these 'programmable tissues' take on fixed shapes? Sponge cells can still move, transform, and even reproduce on their own. Cells in higher animals (such as halfmoons, or yourself) have lost these freedoms. Why?
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Componenta vs imponenta The symposium sponge's cells choose their role based on chemical signals, mechanical forces, and peer pressure from neighbors. There is no top-down plan. Yet a living organism forms. By contrast, the HOLOX genes in the nerves of higher Protean animals instruct nearby cells what role to play, forcing irreversible specialization. A halfmoon's muscle cells will never give birth; only the egg has this privilege.
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Must it be so? Does the development of higher-order structure, like a halfmoon or a human being, require loss of freedom on the part of the individual? Must the whole strip away the potential of its parts in order to force them into useful and stable roles?
Conclusion: This PDA will continue to develop insight into the tissues of living things.
Supplementary assessment: do not collect or drink fluid from the sponge's killing jars.
Source: Scan a Symposium Sponge
