THE ARTIFACT

Log 2, Nosimo. The second creature here is one of the strangest I’ve seen on this planet. A being about 15ft long slowly walks the desert on stubby legs, from afar though it looks like a group of small creatures walking in a line. Closer inspection shows what’s going on. The animal, which I’ve dubbed the Nosimo, contains clusters of chromatophores on sections of its body, these chromatophores change color constantly so that they're almost see-through. Patters on the body are meant to look like the head and tail of two different animals with lumps of muscle and fat acting as small legs. The purpose of this strange defense is to trick predators into thinking it’s a smaller and less appetizing meal. This disguise exploits the fact that creatures on this planet don’t possess the Gestalt principle of closure

What kind of name is Gestalt? That a Codorian?

Wha, no he was a human

Who the fuck names their kid Gestalt?

He was a homosapien I think I don’t know; anyway, the animals don’t perceive it as one creature but rather multiple as their brains don’t connect the gaps into a whole. While anything with a developed occipital lobe can see through this trick it does do a good job at forming gaps in its body. The occipital lobe of the Nosimo is a long stem that spreads throughout the body. Nerves connect it to the masses of chromatophores throughout the body which allows them to reflect the environment based on what the eyes see. Since they can’t perceive their whole body the segments furthest from their vison are the least disguised, they get around this by curling up to maximize the number of segments they can see. While this is a strange form of camouflage it’s a surprisingly effective one, predators it’s size stay away from it and smaller predators are lured in and eaten. Traces of the crystals can be found in the chromatophores, I suspect tha-

I would’ve put the crystals on the outside of the skin. put in the right location they could just move with the sun and cut out the need for seeing all segments for cloaking.

Well I’ve told you before animals don’t exactly choose how they evolve. The quartz in its cells-

Actually I’ve figured out that it’s petrified salt

FOR THE LAST TIME ITS QUAR-

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