Rock Bugs

Article written by Jude

Rock bugs, as named by Ember when she was four, are small molluscs that live primarily on land. They can be found beneath rocks, in rotting logs, and other places that are dark and damp. They glow a sort of blue-purple colour when disturbed and have three fleshy tentacles, not unlike a snail. Technically, rock bugs are edible raw, if you were desperate, but they taste horrible. Cooked properly, they're not half bad to eat.

That have protective shells made up of three to four interlocking layers of what seems to be stone. If they produce this stone themselves or gather it from their environment and fashion it into their shells, we have no idea. Either way, the stone seems to be so firmly attached to the flesh of the mollusc that removing it without causing any sort of damage to the creature is seemingly impossible.

Angel: Kind of making it sound like we just ripped the shells off a bunch of these guys for fun.

Jude: Yes, fine. As a note, we're all pretty sure they were already dead when doing that experiment. Except for that time when they were alive and Ember was ripping their shells off because children do that sort of thing.

The natural predators of rock bugs seem to be the bird-like animals that live around here. They will pluck them out of their dark hiding places, wedge their claws or teeth or tongues into the shells, and rip the flesh of the rock bugs out from the inside piece by piece, eventually leaving nothing more than a few stones.
It seems that some of the rock bugs have shells thick enough that the animals hoping to eat them are driven to give up and find easier prey. This is likely how these shells evolved, and given time, I assume the rock bugs will select for thicker and thicker shells. It's unlikely we'll see any sort of visible change within our lifetimes, of course, but it is fun to speculate.

Mina: Still funny that we let the kid name them.

Jude: She was technically the one who discovered them.

Mina: Yeah, yeah, upholding the system of how we name shit and all that, I agree with the decision. I am just also serious that it's fucking hilarious.