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Contest Entry: Volcanic Ventworm — Description
This is the second of my four entries into [link] Fakemon design contest.
Polympei is derived from Polychaeta, a class of wormlike invertebrates, and Pompeii, one of the Roman cities buried in the AD 79 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. On the whole it was inspired by a particular Polychaete species, Alvinella pompejana, a hydrothermal vent-dwelling species found in the Pacific ocean, discovered near the Galapagos islands in the 1980s. It bears a furry grey coat of chemolithotrophic bacteria; the worm feeds these bacteria with mucus secretions and the bacteria provide a degree of insulation, for A. pompejana dwells in an extreme temperature gradient. The head end floating in water at 22 °C and the tail end buried in the vent column, exposed to water temperatures as high as 80°C, one of the highest heat tolerances of any known animal.
Of course Polympei had to be cutened up a little from the real worm, so it has a baby-blue eye to stare at you with. :3