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Phylogeny of the shambling flannel
Feb. 5th, 2007 10:22 pmJust now, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fiddledragon and I were snuggling and she expressed a desire for a living flannel. We considered the morphology such an unusual lifeform would have to have. It consists almost entirely of furred epidermis. It should have rudimentary musculature in order to shiver to generate heat, and to power its distributed circulatory system. With its high surface/volume ratio, it can absorb oxygen through its skin — with a simple metabolism, it can also drink (a nectar- or milk-like liquid food) and excrete (chiefly water vapor and carbon dioxide) through its skin. It is thus pretty much homogenous in structure, with no centralized organs at all.
How could such a creature live in the wild? Since it's basically a furry animal without the animal part, it's probably a symbiote, providing furriness to a non-furry host in exchange for the host's nectar-like secretions. Wouldn't it be simpler for the host to just evolve it's own fur, though? How could such an improbable arrangement come to be? ( Read more... )
fiddledragon and I were snuggling and she expressed a desire for a living flannel. We considered the morphology such an unusual lifeform would have to have. It consists almost entirely of furred epidermis. It should have rudimentary musculature in order to shiver to generate heat, and to power its distributed circulatory system. With its high surface/volume ratio, it can absorb oxygen through its skin — with a simple metabolism, it can also drink (a nectar- or milk-like liquid food) and excrete (chiefly water vapor and carbon dioxide) through its skin. It is thus pretty much homogenous in structure, with no centralized organs at all.How could such a creature live in the wild? Since it's basically a furry animal without the animal part, it's probably a symbiote, providing furriness to a non-furry host in exchange for the host's nectar-like secretions. Wouldn't it be simpler for the host to just evolve it's own fur, though? How could such an improbable arrangement come to be? ( Read more... )
