The Afatshe: The Time of Water

This was the time of the Afatshe Radiation. Most phyla began during this time period. It was warm, but much cooler than the Afaguzdsuverudnuv. The planet’s land mass was divided between two continents that were slowly splitting into six, and an assortment of smaller volcanic islands. As all life was aquatic, however, there was not much in the way of geographic variation—aside from dzeCabava life, which began to diverge greatly.

Oxygen increased in abundance in the atmosphere during the Afatshe, reaching a high of 10% at around 700 million years ago. The arms race among the ñåich spurred the evolution of faster-growing forms, and the frequent storms wash covered organic matter with mudslides, preventing decay from returning the carbon to the atmosphere.

The dzeQuareya ñåich developed into far more complex forms during the Afatshe Radiation. Their constant competition for light led them to evolve into larger, branching forms with flattened blades. Other lineages developed a taste for plankton. Vast gutshâ forests were formed. The first vewt crawled on the bottom and fed on decaying matter, tsulaing fed on microorganisms and each other, and voracious gutshâ ate anything foolish enough to fall for their lure.

The dominant multicellular heterotrophs of the Afatshe were the fja’uk, tiny vermiform creatures. They are little more than a tube within a tube capable of basic chemosensory perception and moving towards food. But they were good at it, and they reproduced explosively. They were not a single clade. When their fossils were initially discovered, it was assumed they were related to a very similar species alive in the present. Instead, the fossils proved to be the ancestors to the kraqrelk themselves.

Life in this time was still soft-bodied. Even the vewt, famous in modern times for their shells, lacked hard plates.

Gutshâ: The gutshâ were the most common heterotroph of the Afatshe. They evolved from broad-leaved ñåich with mucus-covered leaves. Originally evolved to discourage herbivores, the mucus was so thick that small particles became tangled in it and microorganisms became smothered. Most ñåich simply shed the mucus, but a chance mutation in the ancestors of the gutshâ led to the secretion of enzymes from their leaves, into the mucus. Nutrients were then taken up into the leaves.

Leaf structure became more weblike towards the middle Afatshe, with cilia creating currents that funneled plankton towards the mucus nets stretching across the open spaces in the leaf.

The environmental conditions of the Afatshe were good to them. Fertile conditions off the continental shelves led to an explosion in the population of plankton, and the current carried that plankton straight into the forest of fronds that made up gutshâ fields. The most common genus of gutshâ was Heshezh, distinguished from other genera by their pointed, spear-like leaves.

Not unlike seagrass, corals, or kelp, gutshâ was a foundation species. Myriad parasites and symbionts, mostly vewt and stem featherworms, lived on their foot-long leaves, and in turn they were eaten by a variety of larger predators. The largest creatures of the Afatshe were predators that lived above the gutshâ fields, darting down to snatch up bottom-dwelling prey.

Quarat: Closely related to some of the fja’uk lineages, quarat are one of the dominant phyla of complex life in the modern day. At the time of the Afatshe Radiation, though, they numbered only a few genera.

Quarat in the Afatshe were all surface-dwellers. By using a sack of gas to remain afloat, their symbiotic algae had much more light available for photosynthesis. Thin tendrils hung from the bottom of their body to absorb nutrients and release gametes.

Stem Featherworms: Unlike other fja’uk, the stem featherworms were covered in dozens of tiny protrusions that increased surface area for gas and ion exchange. The largest organism of the Afatshe was a stem featherworm that reached a meter in length, named Soptuzhu sulafuza. It fed on tsulaing and vewt, and had unique downwards angled eyes to spot prey lurking on the substrate. The majority of featherworms, however, were planktivores and detritivores.

Soptuzhu sulafuza only appeared near the end of the Afatshe, and was the first carnivorous animal on the planet. The lineages they gave rise to led in turn to the evolution of hard-bodied organisms, and the Afatshe is characterized by their lack.

Stem Tsulaing: Some of the larger bottom-dwelling fja’uk from the Afatshe were too large to absorb the oxygen they needed through diffusion. They shared the one characteristic feature of all tsulaing: three holes on either side, connected to an inflationary sac. An invagination of that sac held the gills, and by pumping water in and out the tsulaing could obtain more oxygen and have a more active lifestyle. Unlike most modern tsulaing, stem tsulaing used hemoglobin as an oxygen-carrying molecule, rather than coboglobin. While carbon monoxide is relatively soluble in water, the relatively low concentration prevents it from becoming toxic, especially for bottom-dwelling organisms.

While stem tsulaing had no legs, they did have a single intromittant organ below the middle spiracle. Both males and females possessed it—it was not only used for transferring sperm to the female, but for accepting it. It was prehensile, but not muscular enough to be useful for movement.

The senses of stem tsulaing were quite sharp, for creatures of the Afatshe. Chemoreception took place in an organ near the rear of the organism. As the brain of tsulaing was at the front, this led to the evolution of a clump of neural tissue that’s function was to analyze information coming from chemoreceptors and send a message to the main brain if anything interesting was detected. In the modern day, the conduction speed of tsulaing axons is the highest of any organism on any planet the kraqrelk are aware of. Even in the late Afatshe, their reaction speed was impressive so that despite having their sensory organisms on the other end of the body, they could quickly react to approaching predators. While they weren’t capable of moving quickly, puffing themselves up worked just as well.

Vewt: Evolved from a colonial species of protest, the vewt had evolved tissues and organs by the Afatshe. The earliest members of the Sutyitonyukaxaj are present, with their characteristic tongues. Their eyes are primitive, and lack lenses.

The largest vewt from this period are two inches in diameter, and lived on mudflats where they could graze on algae.

 

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