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In a cold marsh common to the late Cetiocene, two eyes bob scanning the horizon for disturbances in the agal flow that surrounds them. Two eyes of six, the remaining four lie gazing below as sediment is kicked up underwater. The four foot long behemoth has little to worry about, paltry squim pose no threat to them, especially not in the shallow waters of mangroves it calls home. Raking through ribbons of xanthophytes drifting through the wastes, Its lesser pair of eyes grow bored in the endless sea of yellow - until it notices a tear in the primordial mat. Despite being keen as any squim, its vision is overwhelmed in the citrine bloom. A knife cuts through the cloud, as a silver squim darts by. The once peaceful eyes of the dutetrapod trail towards the disturbance, its heavy body lies motionless. The squim slows to a hover. Enveloped by curtains of yellow, it's trapped. The dutetrapod strikes, Its mouth like a flower of shovels opening up to pluck the squim from its bubble of disturbed water. Its exterior jaws largely unadopted for such a task it quickly passes its meal to the back of its throat to be chewed by internal chelicera. For a lowly squim there is an unfortunate demise in passing only to supplement a usually peaceful filter feeders nutrient deficiencies.
In a dense swamp a great sludge sulker sunbathes, taking advantage of one of the Aether's few cloudless days it will see this year. What appears to be its companion lurks in the distance, its surfaces for air after after snorkeling through the dense algal blooms its mouth trawling through the water to filter feed.
large and resilient, sludge sulkers represent an early attempt and success in the squim terrestrial linage. Their mobility is unmatched by any of the water locked squim of the past. Their temporal freedom remains just as unhindered, sludge sulkers easily put on fat in preparation of Aether's extreme winters. This allows them to take advantage of the effects of the ice melting and subsequent eutrophication that leads to their favored aegal blooms. In squim, it is not uncommon for the amount of vertebrate rings to vary even among individuals in a species. The negative effects of this mutation is near harmless, a larger body and additional gill slit is possibly positive, typically neutral, and rarely fatal. This repetition of the body is possible because of the segmental nature of the squim's body. As squim, the same process effects amphiverms. The pseudopods of amphiverms are derived directly from mobile gill structures originally serving to facilitated a subtle constant flow over the gills. This suggests that just as a duplication of gills is possible so to is a duplication of limbs. While biologically feasible, an extra gill may go unnoticed, an extra leg will not. This means terrestrial squims experience restraints in a reduced diversity in amount of vertebrae segments compared to their free and flowing aquatic brethren. A loosely defined lock can be placed on the possibility of the descendants of terrestrial squim to gain additional limbs.
The defining trait of sludge sulkers is a characteristic that can be traced back to a specific population of amphiverms, the pearl-clutcher amphiverm. A slightly less social clade, pearl-clutcher amphiverms were intentional about egg placement and maneuvered them using their pectoral fins. Eggs protected in this manor and were less likely to be eaten or broken, creating a successful branch off of the ancestorial amphiverm's tree. Their direct descendants, the terrestrial sludge sulker has exadapted their pectoral fins into a quasi-womb. The fins lie flat to either side of the body cradling offspring until later development. In males they are smaller, more articulated, their fins are colorful and can be held outward for display. When her eggs near the end of development the mother sludge sulker will evacuate her fins, only after digging a shallow den for her young to flee from in the coming days. The sludge sulker has done her job. As she returns to the swamp, her offspring will sporadically emerge from the burrow, relying only their instincts and their mother's many footprints to guide them.
A pearl-clutcher amphiverm relocates its clutch of eggs, allowing it to nomadically travel to follow its prey as its young develop.
The development of pseudopods emerging from the amphiverm's gill slits was initially encouraged by a primitive capability to grip in place preventing sliding off the bromeliad like plant they called home. As fully realized terrestrial walking organisms their limbs are largely left bare, just two digits cap each limb. From the wrist extends a paddle like forelimb, towards the body lies a wedge shaped mobile digit derived from a structure that allowed gill slits of their aquatic ancestors to seal and preserve water. Only two digits on each foot is but a consequence of rapid evolution, limb buds evolved joints before they could evolve fingers, a distinct ramification to effect all the Sludge sulker's descendants.
Notably unlike the amphiverm, limbs emerge with alternating pattern between breathing hole and limb. A result of segmental expression of genes, in this case it marks a separation from the limb and the psuedo-lung segments. The segments absent of limbs didn't have their genes disabled, rather the same limb buds that became the legs of the sludge sulker have been co-opted and internalized on alternating segments, repurposed to facilitate active breathing. Finally a diaphragm to pump air into the network of folds and struts of what used to be gills, to allow that life giving gas exchange to take place.
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