Living Wave
Living waves are a class of massive, photosynthetic, colonial neuston organism found in large bodies of water associated with the Southern, Northern, and even Distal Tesseracts - especially in regions of the Western Tesseract adjacent to these.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Often mistaken for mats of kelp or sargassum at a distance, a living wave's extent is only truly limited by the agressiveness of the surf on which it lies and the availability of nutrients in the water. The organism forms a thick, tough sheet of dark greenish-blue, translucent material that conforms to the surface of the water, giving the patch of colonized water a viscous appearance and supressing the formation of crests. Beneath the water, long tendrils covered with nematocysts to dissuade predation gather together before reaching down towards rocks, coral reefs, or other solid objects upon which to establish anchors. The whole of a living wave glows faintly under ultraviolet light or particle radiation, the effect being most apparent during the height of the summer and winter radiation maximums.
Genetics and Reproduction
Living waves reproduce asexually, growing until physical interactions with the environment break them appart to create new colonies, but this does not mean that the creature is incapable of evoloving or that differentiation between colonies does not occur. One consequence of living in environments where ultraviolet light (Distal Tesseract) or particle radiation (Northern and Southern Tesseracts) is more pronounced is that, instead of relying on gene shuffling as a result of sexual reproduction, the living waves can rely on increased mutation rates in combination with natural selection to drive the development of beneficial genetic traits. Colonies-within-colonies can occur when one set of cells develops a more advantageous trait, such as the now-common radioluminescence-based metabolism, and the natural 'calving' that occurs when rough surf breaks up a living wave serves to spread these new variants far and wide.
Ecology and Habitats
The shade and tangled mass of anchoring tendrils beneath a living wave provides ample shelter and foraging grounds for fish capable of resisting the living wave's sting. This can be mutualistic relationship, as the scraps and waste of these fish can help to provide a living wave with the nutrients required to grow and calve.
Dietary Needs and Habits
The fundamental building blocks of living waves are blue-green, photosynthetic algae that have evolved over the eons to live together in massive colonies. Unlike the man 'o war, however, living waves have evolved to cover a large expanse of the ocean surface rather than coming together as a cohesive, bottle-like body because this greatly increases the surface area of the living wave and, thus, the amount of solar (or otherwise) radiation it can absorb due to cross-sectional incidence. Radioluminescent bodies in this sheet serve to provide a constant source of additional light to the organism, allowing to grow even in the relative darkness of a Distal sea. Living waves are one of the only 'terrestrial' species under the Manifold Sky capable of utilizing both l-glucose and d-glucose for metabolsm due to a unique set of oxidizing enzyimes.
Conservation Status
Living waves are not threatened and are, in fact, a nuisance for swimmers, sightseers, and small boat pilots wherever they may be found.
Geographic Distribution
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