Clade Profile: Llamplelganae

Beneath the waves of Eryobis we can find a group of very strange looking animals, even for Eryobian standards. Occurring in habitats ranging from the shallowest reefs to the deepest ocean canyons, they have conquered every marine habitat and some even venture into freshwater.

But what are these odd creatures?

The locals (Hrennat language) call them llamplelgans, roughly translating to “fluttering fish snail”. But they are no fish, nor are they mollusks. Instead, they are glyceriform phyllodocidan polychaete annelids, or simply put: Eryobian bloodworms.

They left their wormy appearance far behind them however, nowadays looking more like if a cuttlefish had a baby with a scorpion and had it raised by crabs.
Their annelid ancestry becomes more clear when you look at how they develop. They start out looking like a more typical polychaete worm, but fold their posterior bodies ventrally as they mature. What you end up with is a worm folded up like a taco with chaetae for fins on both sides being able to swim in every direction available to a 3-dimensional animal.

As they evolved to be far larger than most annelids, they had more need for the ability to see their surroundings. Deriving from the primitive compound eyes of their ancestors, llamplelgans evolved 2 pairs of highly advanced compound eyes on par with those of mantises. Their ommatidia in the anterior eyes are slightly more forwards directed while those in the posterior eye are directed more sideways and backwards, giving them an almost 360 degree field of vision. This causes their pseudopupils to seem unaligned.

They evolved eight long tentacles on either side of their heads which aid in detection and manipulation of food and often hunting. But their main weapon is their retractable proboscis edged with large copper coated teeth. Not only are these teeth strengthened with copper, they can also inject a deadly venom into whatever is unfortunate enough to get caught. Llamplelgans deploy this weapon by extending their esophagus and turning it inside out to reveal the teeth. Whatever gets impaled by the teeth will then just get pulled into the llamplelgans esophagus and will never see the light of day again.

This species depicted here is Llamplelgania peregrina, a medium sized species that mostly inhabits the tropical coastal waters of eastern Guralta. In the picture it is about to attack an unlucky ray / flounder-like nienktvis. A soft bodied animal, the nienktvis will get swallowed by the llamplelgan without much effort.