Alien Name: Pa’a Stuulk

Planet of Origin: -to be made-

Ecosystem Component: Carnivore

Base Habitat: Coastal cliffs, about 5-4 feet below the high-tide mark

Grouping: solitary

Size: 8 in

Appearance: it appears vaguely plantlike with a large sucker holding it fast to the rocks it calls home. At the end of its long neck is a mouth-like organ that is ringed by a set of reinforced ‘teeth’ that are used to hold prey and prevent their escape. This ‘head’ is topped by a cluster of tiny light detectors that can sense the shadow of a predator or prey overhead. The neck leads down to a distended belly full of glands, gills, gonads, and a massive, multi purpose stomach/waste removal tract organ. On the back of its lower part rests a hard fin, a vestige of its former free-swimming state. Now it serves as a secondary protection. The large spined shell on its neck is its first line of protection. It is pastel blue splashed with grey and designed to protect its soft body from predation.
Its inner body is black and laterally striped white, with a pure black region on the part of its ‘belly’ opposite the fins. This region is ridged like the belly of a snake, but it doesn’t extend past the base of the ’Neck’.

Physiology: it produces a sticky substance much like human saliva in consistency. When it senses the shadow of something tasty, and detects that it is in range (by the darkness of the shadow) it spits this at the prey. The substance begins to solidify in the air, leaving a thick trail from the Stuulk to the prey, which is encased in a glob of the stuff. The Stuulk begins to slurp up the trail, dragging the prey towards it.
The substance it uses digests into small strands which it excretes when covered by the tide.

Lifespan/Reproduction:
The oldest adult recorded was about 3 years old. The larval stage lasts as long as it takes them to find a suitable spot, then they sucker themselves to their chosen spot and grow as fast as they can off of algae.
Adults have the male and female genders and reproduce as mussels do- by spewing gametes into the water and letting them float where they may. However, they do not shift gender.
Males tend to have large white stripes, while females tend to have larger black patches.

Territory: in order to prevent overcrowding, an area of 7 square meters of midtidal zone rocks must be provided for every 200 of them

Known Predators/Dangers: large land predators, anything that can lift its shell, drought