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Creature Features, Episode Two
By Joe Pivetti

After 24,000 years of desiccation, well toothed Siberian Bdelloid rotifers recover, becoming parasite free and ten percent bacteria, fungi and/or plant (via horizontal gene transfer). A diving bell spider paramour builds a tunnel from his bubble to a solitary deb's, where she lives for days at a time, thanks to CO2 and O2 diffusion through her gill-like webs. Hippos "sweat blood" (made of antiseptic hipposuderic acid goo) from behind each ear, yawn to 150 degrees with 20 inch tusks, run 30 MPH, and spin-tail muck-spread at the rear. Hyperthermophile methanogen worms are stabilized by DNA (that's positively supertwisty) and eukaryotic histones and glycerol ether lipids as they chemosynthesize CH4 at 350ºC. Monogamous oil birds are nicknamed guácharo (whiner), have whiskers, chubby chicks, the highest rod density among vertebrates, and individualistic audible echolocation clicks. Thirteen opossum from a pouch, once weened, are immune to a rattler's bite; and thereby hangs a scuted tail of possum play (involuntary thanatosis precipitated by deathly fright). Aussie King in His Carriage looks, feels and smells like a wingless thynid wasp girl, whose beau calls and unhinges His orchid, gets hammered* and goes off packin' pollen awhirl. A female panda ant's a wingless wasp who only flies when her intended carries her away, but she's so tough she's hard to pin down, and her cow killer sting makes her preyers pay. Only reindeer digest lichen, change eye color from brown to blue in the winter, have nasal counter-current vascular heat exchange (excepting moose) and [rein]does with antlers. Polar bears are southpaws, can swim for 10 days straight, smell a seal's ice hole from a 1/2 mile away, and they've the fattiest milk found on land (fueled by 100 lb. blubber entrees). Sea cucumbers cloak pearlfish, can liquefy and solidify their bodies at will, expel toxic sticky Cuverian tubules if threatened, hoover up sand and redeposit it waste-free and distilled. Sea pigs gather in 100's for a food fall, being the most abundant critters on the abyssal seafloor, and protect commensal juvenile king crabs with holothurin skin that predators abhor. It takes a star-nosed mole 8 milliseconds to feel out edibles and 250 to eat the quarry, and in water they blow 8 bubbles a second, then suck 'em back in to smell out aquatic prey. One end of a rootless waterwheel stem fades as the other end, each day, grows...a new bristly whorl of traps that can shut in 15 milliseconds (making all other plants seem slow). The trigger plant stamen takes only 15 milliseconds to powder puff a pollinator, making it the fastest make-up, and make-out, artist in nature. Sea lilies once grew to 130 feet, but now, as adults with up to 200 arms, they become detached...feather stars with a cirri-ous walk and a three-over-arm swim (when attacked). Blind, hirsute deep-sea squat lobster yeti crabs wave around in a dance about sea vents to cause...increased chemosynthesis in bacteria mats that they farm on their setaed claws. The 9mm wrap around spider thorax has small slit discs for flexibility and camouflage and it makes and breaks a web every eve and morn so no threads lead to it's mirage. Three-hearted Wunderpus photogenicus' individually unique pattern gains complexity with age; they eat mimic octopuses, mimic sea snakes and, in umbrella form, drop upon prey. Amphipods live in and on land, lake, ocean, aquaria and tops of trees; these mesograzing scuds are the favorite food of pipefish and the horse of the sea. Tadpole sea squirts stick to a rock and lose their tail, eyespot and notocord, becoming sessile bidirectionally-hearted tunicates that amass vanadium to deter the predatory horde. Wombats have cartilaginous burrow blocking butts, cubic poop, rear facing pouches, ever growing teeth, and multiple warrens (shared with other Aussies during fire and drought). If two trigger hairs on a Venus fly trap are sufficiently moved within a duration of 20 seconds, plant math, via additive action potentials, adds up to close the trap in a decisecond. Happy chickens purr, hens have individual songs for their "I've laid an egg" tale, and when you buy baby fowl it's the sender who says "the chick's in the mail." Centipedes, like rotifers, benefit from HGT, borrowing venom oomycytic, bacterial and fungal, that their maxillipeds inject to block potassium, cutting ties between brain and the vitals. Millipedes hatch with three leg pairs, then every molt, with morphogenesis, add a two-paired secreting segment, maxing at 750, which, when curled, makes for quite a leggy stunt. The longest male beetles are the flying Hercules, who, for two years, as larvae, eat deadwood and poop β-mannanase, before molting themselves into huffy horny wrestlers who change color depending on the dampness of the day. An Oecanthus henryi tree cricket peeks through a hole that he's  cut in a leaf; this acts as a baffle that can more than double the volume of his mating song, increasing his attractivity. The UV reflecting female white crab spider takes a few days or more...to match color with a yellow flower and hide in ambush for a sneak-sidle-attack on a pollinator. A typical blenny blends, builds tunnels, mimics wrasses or combtoothes algae, but fangtooths deliver opiates, Pacific leapers live on land, and sarcastic fringeheads kiss the enemy. The siphonophore zooid colony nectosomes provide, for some, the jetting, pneumatophores the buoyancy, and bioluminescently tentacled siphosome gastrozooids do the eating. Salp ozooids birth blastozooid colonies which can grow 10% per hour during an algae bloom, and reproduce quickly, starting as an ozoid bride and then becoming an ozoid groom. *by a pollinium