Iskandarianichtae (is-KHAN-darr-REE-ahn-nicked-tae)
Iskandarianichtae, or Iskandarids, are the dominant order of fauna of Origin, a continent long isolated from the mainland of Damaria.
Their signature feature is their highly complicated life cycle: Namely, 2 stages of life, one larval, and one adult, as well as an intergenerational sessile form that essentially works as an animalian plant.
The motile species looks and behaves as a normal animal, needing food to eat and moving to search for it. When breeding, however, they give birth to several leathery eggs which often hatch within hours of laying. However, some, rather than hatch, actually harden, at which point the parent will instinctively bury the egg, or, in more intelligent species, be taught at a young age to do such.
These hardened eggs eventualy sprout into the sessile form, which will then begin to grow for about 5-10 years regardless of species, at which point it will develop fruits similar to the hardened eggs it sprouted from and resemble a tree. Should multiple seeds be planted together, the plants will fuse together, and while most species instinctively place the plants so they won't fuse together, intelligent species will often strategically do so in order to create walls or other structures out of their relatives. Some seeds will actually soften and hatch into a new offspring after a few hours. In the wild, this results in the young hatching, although species that cultivate the seesile form will often keep an eye on the seeds to see if they hatch, and then care for them.
Most Iskandarids are small when motile but slowly grow into massive treelike sessile forms. However, a small family within the clade, Kolaridae, actually has much larger motile forms. Kolarid sessile forms are actually the largest kinds of sessile Iskandarid once fully grown.
The larvae of Iskandarids are simple wormlike species, looking similar to velvet worms on Earth. These are sometiems cared for by Iskandarid motile forms, and Kolaridae motile forms always do for their young, although motile larvae they don't give birth to are ignored. These are usually small, although Kolaridae larvae are much bigger, some reaching 6 feet long or more.
After pupating, Iskandarids turn into the adult form, which is always small, except in Kolarids.
Kolarid larvae have two major ways they may form: With and without parental care. Kolarid larvae cared for as they were born to motile parents become the iscan morph, their bodies influenced by hormones that only form with sufficient care from the parents. The uncared-for larvae develop into a totally different form known as the palina morph. This morph is often highly different against the iscan morph.
Basic Information
Anatomy
All Iskandarianichtae have six limbs:
- The rearmost limbs are a pair of legs usually tipped with hooves.
- The middle limbs are a pair of wings, used for flight and display equally, although the largest species are unable to fly. The wings have tough feathers that are able to resist much more than an Earth bird's ever could.
- The forward arms are more varied, although most species use them as arms or legs.
Genetics and Reproduction
All Iskandarids lay small, rubbery eggs that hatch within hours to days after exiting the mother. These eggs are fertilized by the male, who has an extremely flexible penis in all species.
Males in all species are smaller than the females, usually about 15-25% smaller but in some cases an order of magnitude or two. This tends to be based on the species' size: The largest and smallest species tend to have the most dramatic size differences, with more average sized species having less extreme, yet still effortlessly noticeable, size differences.
The largest species, about 50 feet long, have about 200 eggs every 30 months, while female kolari, about 7-9 feet tall, have 27-40 eggs every three or so months. The smallest species in the clade, with a female about 2 inches long, has 1 eggs every 3 days. This actually replicates a common principle for Iskandarids: Most species follow a rough egg/interval ratio: For every 3 feet of a female's length from tail tip to nose tip, they usually lay about 4 eggs once a month, scaling with 4 additioninal eggs and another month for each 3 feet for a larger female. This doesn't work well for the smallest species, however.
Additional Information
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Iskandarianichtae have excellent color vision with an average vision exceeding a human's. Most have a vision of about 20/10, meaning that what a human can see clearly at 10 feet, most Iskandarids can see at 20. Many predators have much higher, going up to 20/0.5 for the record holder, kolari. They can see something clearly at 20 feet that a human would have to be 6 inches away to see well.
Most have reasonable olfactory abilties, although the average is only slightly above that of a human's, and many herbivorous species have less, although some predators excell in olfactory capabilities as well.
All Iskandarids have sensational senses of hearing, and with this, almost all Iskandarids make sense of their world using sight and sounds. Almost all Iskandarids can hear frequencies above what any human can hear, and most species larger than a large dog can sense infrasound frequencies, and a large majority of smaller species can as well.
All can also see full color vision like a human, and all can see lower frequency UV light, and many have separately evolved infrared vision. Due to their unique cone cells, all can see full color in the dark so long as some light is around, even a few stars.
Scientific Name
Iskandarianichtae
Geographic Distribution