Make an Alien

[Panel]

Here's an idea:

Gleise 6893 is a small K0 star (number chosen because it's not actually in the catalogue) with a planet called Tehn orbiting in about the middle of the habitable zone. What makes Tehn interesting is that it has an axial tilt of 89 degrees! The surface is covered in oceans that rise and fall with the seasons. Since almost all land is in the arctic circles of this planet, most life has a seasonal life cycle.

Most plants have a reproductive cycle that is dormant during the extreme months. They grow and store energy in tubers during the fall. The tubers have several antifreeze proteins in them, preventing them from dying. When spring rolls around, the tubers sprout and the plants begin a frenzy of growth and reproduction. Rather than using pollen and ova, these plants have gender-neutral gametes, which combine with each other freely. Flowering is used to attract "pollinators" which preform a similar job as Earth pollinators. Summer brings a dry heat that lasts for a quarter orbit, and the seeds these plants produce lie dormant underground, waiting to begin the cycle anew.

There are many forms of animal on Tehn, but the most numerous are the Zyters. Zyters are a large group of flying animal with radial symmetry. They fly by pulsing their wings up and down in a motion that looks similar to a jellyfish in slow motion. Their wings are much faster, and go at up to 15 beats per second. They are similar in size and ecology to Earth insects, acting as pollinators, scavengers, and herbivores, eating the variety of plants during the spring and fall. A zyter is active in it's adult form only once a year, and are classified by whether that time is in the fall or the spring.

Fall zyters lay their "eggs" inside the tubers produced by plants, and die during the winter. The "eggs" are actually single cells, which feed off the starches and stay warm inside of the tubers throughout the winter. When spring comes along, the "eggs" burrow out of the tubers, and grow into a water-sealed pupa. These wait out the summer and hatch into adults during the fall. Spring zyters, on the other hand, have cold resistant pupae, and live parasitically in seeds during the summer.

There may be more to come, but I will need another stroke of inspiration.

[TheSealBrigade]

1 hour ago, Panel said:

There may be more to come, but I will need another stroke of inspiration.

What about sea life? I would like to hear how that would be on a planet with such a degree of axial tilt.

Edited May 14, 2016 by TheSealBrigade

[Panel]

Sea life is definitely interesting on such a planet.

While summer on the land is hellish, with temperatures reaching above 60 degrees Celsius, the sea comes alive. Temperatures soar, but the heat exchange from ocean currents keeps the sea a relatively gentle temperature. The single celled photosynthesizers, often called Tunuks, are at the bottom of the food chain, and form huge colonies in the ocean. During the winter, they are frozen in the huge layers of ice that cover the oceans, and remain in a state of suspension until thawing in spring. Tunuks reproduce asexually.

One form of multicellular marine life on Tehn is a group of filter feeders called Ishops. They are flexible, skinny creatures with a long gut and a fuzzy filter near the mouthparts. On an ishop, these look a bit like big, bushy mustaches. The largest species grows up to 3 meters long, but most are only about 1.5 m. Ishops are bioluminescent, and can communicate with patterns of light in a similar manner to Earth cuttlefish. Ishops lay eggs during the fall that stay dormant until spring. They then hatch during the summer, and feed on Tunuks. After saturating their "mustache," it is retracted and the organisms swallowed.

A group of "fish" also exist. Convergent with Earth fish, these creatures often have a sort of armor on their back, to protect from predators. Very diverse, they fill all the niches left over from the ishops. Most fish migrate during the winter to warmer waters, and the few that remain behind have a similar life cycle as the Ishops.

During the winter, a lot water is frozen at one pole. This leaves large swaths of ocean which recede in the summer and winter. These regions are called Seasonal Oceans. Seasonal Oceans are inhabited by a group of animals with a hard, water containing, outer shell. They look superficially similar to giant pill bugs, and burrow into the ground during the summer and winter. Called clickers, due the sound they make when they are dug up, these animals have a hybrid respiratory system. While submerged, they can extend long, feathery gills. While underground, these gills are retracted, and they use a rudimentary lung to breathe through long, narrow tubes.

Clickers are one of the few complex Tehnian animals that live longer than a year. They will lay their eggs underground, just before beginning hibernation. The eggs hatch one season later, resulting in two batches of young. One hatches during the spring, and the other during the fall. Clickers reach sexual maturity after 2 years, and have been known to live up to 12.

After this, I might do a post on the life that becomes active during the winter on land.

[EDIT] I just read a paper on the climates of planets with axial tilt. It turns out that oceans would remain relatively temperate year round. I'll have to create a different set of life for the seas of Tehn. 

Edited May 16, 2016 by Panel

[TheSealBrigade]

This is an extension of the life on Notogertasi. If you have no idea what im talking about, click here and scroll about 3/4 the way down. 

The marshy, storm laden land masses that make up 17% of the surface are home to lots of odd creatures, but what about the other 83% of endless ocean? The water is about 90 degrees Fahrenheit at the surface, making it a little more warm than humans are used to. The ocean is deep as well, the average depth being 30,000 ft, or almost the average depth of Challenger Deep. The best part about this is that some parts are even deeper, reaching about 56,000 ft below sea level! This massive depth directly constitutes to massive depth pressure, which leads to an odd phenomenon; The water at these depths is so compressed, the water acts like ice while still being at a mild temperature. And yet, life still thrives in this briny deep...

The Olympus Whale is a massive sea creature that lives in the northern oceans of Notogertasi. Weighing in at 573 tons! at a length of 392 ft, the Olympus Whale is truly the king of the sea. Along with being an absolute behemoth, It also looks like It would come straight out of your worst nightmares.  Think of a giant, deformed lamprey without teeth. It's oddly shaped body is laden with 40 fins, all aligned in 4x radial symmetry along it's 392 ft in length. Four large 'tails' allow movement by spinning around like a propeller. (much slower than a mechanical one, mind you) You might be asking 'how does it sustain itself?' The simple answer is it swallows anything and everything in its path. Plankton, fish, submarines, It doesn't matter to the Olympus Whale, as long as it fits in it's mouth. It lives at an average depth of 25,000ft below sea level, but will ascend if food is becoming scarce. It uses sonar to communicate and navigate, and lives for about 109 years, becoming sexually mature at 4 years old. Just imagine how...no, no I'm stopping here.

The next creature is the main morsel to the Olympus Whale; Amorians. This lil' fishy is 9 ft long and weighs 150 lbs. It has 4 fins, all in the 4x symmetry most sea animals on Notogertasi have. Most of the mass is in the front; the tail makes up 60% of it's length. It's a scavenger, catching carcasses that happen to be floating down into the darkness below. They swim in huge masses, and can get up to 600 individuals in a shoal. They can be found all over the ocean, even on the surface if food is scarce. Before they reach sexual maturity at 2 years old, the Amorians go into a month long feeding frenzy, During this month, they can gain 90 pounds and eat 2 times their body weight a day; sometimes going as far as attacking live prey and cannibalism. In some cases, this gets so intense that entire shoals will attack Olympus Whales and rip them apart alive. But why the violence? You see, in an Amorian's mind, the larger or fatter an individual is, the likeliness of getting a mate rises. The more colorful males, now bloated by all the feeding, search for "attractive" females to mate with and pass on the good genes.

Fresnel's Shark is the next creature on the list. It's about the size of a Blacktip Reef Shark and weighs about 80 pounds. Unlike most of the creatures on Notogertasi, the ones close to the surface have developed eyes along with sonar. Fresnel's Shark uses this to advantage to escape prey, in fact. It is very round, and actually looks akin to a mini Orca with black skin all over. Anyway, It's skin cells are bio-luminescent.  They have a shutter structure over the out side the to prevent the light from shining. When the individual feels it's in danger, these shutters open suddenly, releasing the light through a Fresnel Lens and releasing a flash of light. This blinds the attacker long enough for the Fresnel's Shark to escape...

 

Thats all I have for now.   Credit to @PB666 and @Panel for Fresnel Lens idea.

Edited May 17, 2016 by TheSealBrigade
Credit

[Panel]

How would the light stay captured? A fresnel lense only focuses light. The light would not be "captured" by the cells, but I could see them having fresnel lense to focuse their own bioluminescence. 

[PB666]

15 minutes ago, Panel said:

How would the light stay captured? A fresnel lense only focuses light. The light would not be "captured" by the cells, but I could see them having fresnel lense to focuse their own bioluminescence. 

You could have cells on one side of the lens.

[Panel]

The cells could absorb light, but even the best mirrors cannot keep light "captured" for more than a few milliseconds, and even then it's just photons. 

[TheSealBrigade]

@Panel and @PB666, what about a structure within the cell that is a sphere with a tiny hole with a flap. The light travels there, and then the light is caught in a near perfectly reflective surface inside the sphere. The flap would close and open on demand, so if a predetor attacks it would beam the light into the lens. The light inside this "spherical one-sided mirror" would eventually decay into heat, but it would be an efficient way to capture it. 

[Panel]

Like I previously said, light simply is absorbed too quickly by the mirror. The very best mirrors can only reflect a photon a few hundred times; in a structure as small as a cell, this would decay nearly instantly. 

[TheSealBrigade]

Hmm, well I guess storing light is pretty hard, if not impossible. I'm going to have to sleep on this.

[TheSealBrigade]

@Panel, I think your right. Focusing the light of bio-luminescence through the lens would be a more acceptable option. I'm going to edit the post now, I'll make sure to credit you.

[YNM]

You could probably make it more of the animal that's just reflecting light produced by predators but not actually producing it. Like cat's eye.

Hmm... Alien lifeforms... I often think closer to reality. Maybe some creature under icy moons of gas giants ? Fishes that resembles sponges ? Revolve around underground "volcanic" vents ?

[TheSealBrigade]

29 minutes ago, YNM said:

 

You could probably make it more of the animal that's just reflecting light produced by predators but not actually producing it. Like cat's eye.

 

Notogertasi is constantly covered with clouds, so the only light is the lightning and the tiny amount of light that leaks through the storms.