Drift Lashworm
Evo 2WormMakes own foodShallows / ShoreResilientShaped by 🏝️ isolation
These worms have lost their strong anchoring to drift freely in the water column near the ice ceiling, carrying their symbiotic bacteria with them.
segmented12 cmpelagicchemosymbioticreduced anchoring
- Size
- 12 cm
- Diet
- symbiotic chemosynthesis
- Habitat
- under-ice ceiling
- Moves by
- passive drift
Why it evolved
The isolation pressure selects for individuals capable of dispersing away from the dwindling vent resources, leading to reduced anchoring structures and a smaller overall size to manage energy budgets in the oxygen-poor water. This allows them to exploit nutrient plumes closer to the under-ice ceiling, though they become vulnerable to predation by mobile organisms and lose the stability of their original vent habitat.