Greetings again! As you may or may not know, my name is Colton Blake. I'm sure many of you have heard of or even done business with my longtime friend, Viktor Humphries, who is a licensed Slimeobiologist (Sleye-MAY-o-BI-o-lo-GIST) just like me. Now this is the second Slimeobiology post, where I've compiled all of the current information from the last one. Anyways, let's get into it.What is Slimeobiology?In less fancy words, the study of what makes these lovably viscous lifeforms tick.
What is a Slime?To all current research of my friend and all Slimeobiologists around the universe, the Slime (
Limus Animalia) is a Eukaryotic multicellular organism with a strange structure. Even though it is multicellular, as it has eyes and muscles, the body is structured like a single-celled Protist, with a Nucleus, Cytoplasm, Ribosomes, and Centrioles.
The Slime also has a plasma membrane and is, similarly to a cell, internally powered solely by adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which they get from the foods they eat. We'll get into that later.
The Plort.To start off, let's figure out the single most glaring unknown. You all assume it's poop because the names are similar and it comes out of their back. Well guess what? It's just meat. We eat that and have used animal parts such as whale oil for other uses for thousands of years. The slimes
are, as proven above, structured like a cell, so there's no reason for the process of mitosis not to occur;
It's just a piece of fat they split off because food they ingested turned into a newer, healthier piece. The main body of the slime would contain the organ that directly converts food into body mass and from what I presume, an endocrine system that releases biochemical hormones to specifically react to the natural sugars and vitamins in specific foods to produce larger and healthier body mass. So, by default, the non-organ after-product of the mitosis is just mass. It's pretty much just shedded skin. Highly processable, and with the right chemicals in their body, a very versatile polymer.
How do they do all this?Simple. Food. This food gives them a substance called Adenosine triphosphate. ATP is a molecule the cell produces after breaking down ingested glucose, which gives the cell energy to function. With this energy, special ribosome protiens within the slime will immediately start to copy the Slime's DNA from the nucleus. They have to work fast, because the Slime's structural ribosomes have a whole lotta mass and nowhere to put it. Once they are finished copying the DNA, the mitosis I mentioned above will occur, splitting a useless chunk of fat and DNA off of the slime. Voila. The plort.
Reproduction.One way or another, a Slime is going to make it to the Slime Sea. What's so special about the Slime Sea is that it's full of Slime DNA and ATP. Once said slime finds its way into the sea and starts moving about, it will start splitting extremely rapidly from all the ATP. However, because of having so much "power" from the ATP, it will be able to copy not only basic DNA, but also the nucleus and essential organs as it travels, similar to Tarr. This explains why Slimes fire out of the ground in large packs of the same slime.
Evolution.Through random genetic mutation and Darwinism, it isn't that hard for Slimes to evolve at the rate they reproduce. And as we know so far, one bit of DNA into a literal ocean of cell materials is going to create a LOT of slime really quickly, as seen when they shoot out of the ground in packs. When the DNA replication ribosomes of a specific Slime in a specific area screw up, it creates a mutation, which then reproduces even further through the constant mosh pit of mitosis we call the Slime Sea This mutation usually involves some way to improve a slime's survival, such as defense (The keratin and cellulose shields of the Rock and Honey Slimes), locomotion (The streamlined motion of a Gold slime or the wings of a Phosphor Slime), or specificity.
Favorite Foods.What I mean by specificity is that when new, strong species of Slimes are created, they often get a mutation in which their body produces a new chemical that reacts with the sugars in specific food to create even more ATP and mass from that specific food. These slimes would live better and more often reproduce in the area that said food exists. Because the supply of this food ususally dwindles with the amount of Slimes then eating it, the Slimes evolve into just the general type of sugar gained, defining their diet. However, they will still always have the best chemical reaction to that specific type.
Largo Slimes.When two Slimes love each other very very much, one eats part of the other like some cannibalistic tribe. This is read by the Slime's nucleus brain as food mass and the Slime immediately prepares to do mitosis to get rid of it. But wait. There's now a second set of DNA. The centrioles get very confused and combine the DNA, essentially having sexual reproduction (Two separate gene sets) at the same time as asexual reproduction (One set of copied genes). Mitosis is currently in prophase, meaning the Slime has copied both sets of DNA in the confusion, giving it four sets of DNA. Due to the laws of Biology, each two of this group have their own chromosomes, which causes sexual reproduction to occur within the slime, combining the traits and makeup of the two Slimes. The Slime moves onto metaphase, where it starts to split using the ATP energy already inside of it. This makes it four times larger, as it was splitting into two but given another set of DNA and split that as well. However, because the "food" mass that it ingested was in fact just a piece of another slime, it doesn't receive enough ATP to complete mitosis. So it just kinda... is halfway split twice. The best part is, it doesn't even care.
Gordo Slimes.A Gordo Slime occurs when a slime hits a "sweet spot" of especially sugary land in the Far Far range. What makes the Range so special is how sugary everything is. The food, the lifeforms, even the land itself. This explains how Slimes travel through the ground and sea, as they're given constant locomotive energy from their surroundings when in the natural landforms. But every so often, there's a super-sugary spot in the landmass, usually low to the sea, as the Slime sea is literally made up of sugar and cell parts. Imagine sitting on an area that gave you infinite food and infinite sugar. I'd stay there too. Now what happens is that when sitting on these areas, the ATP doesn't come in rushes as it would with normal feeding, but instead a constant stream into the Slime. This causes the Slime to grow over time with functional organelles, not just pure mass. Compare it to muscle mass and fat mass. Because of this, there's no sudden influx in fat that the Slime is unable to handle, so in turn, no need to rapidly split into plorts.
The Tarr.Edited from the research of z0mbiesrock.When a Largo Slime encounters a third type of Slime DNA in the form of a plort, it eats it, only recognizing the ATP and mass as explained in the Largo section. This causes a disastrous chain of events within the Slime's body, turning into the oily ball we all know and love. The first thing that happens is the nucleus trying to preform mitosis with all three sets of DNA, similar to the formation of a Largo. However, the centrioles that split core DNA for mitosis cannot multitask the additional DNA into the structure of the slime, causing the ribosomes desperately trying to replicate all the different types of DNA to collapse and spread loose DNA out through the cytoplasm, hence the eerie spectral color. The loose DNA creates an extreme burst of free radical nucleotides that char the outer parts of the Largo black. The complete collapse of the Nucleus's assets and intracellular workforce causes the nucleus to lose connection to the rest of the cell, most notably the sensory organs, regressing the nucleus back to its Protist state, simply sniffing out ATP and consuming it. This entire process is what gives birth to "The Tarr". Aptly named for their sludgy exterior, The Tarr are soups of broken protiens and acids, only searching for the closest and largest source of ATP they can find. This, 99.37% of the time, happens to be Slimes. The Tarr will elongate its now incredibly loosely structured body towards the nearest Slime, surrounding it and pulling it back towards the unstable nucleus of the Tarr. It digests the Slime exactly as a normal Slime would to food, and extracts all of the Slime's ATP, so essentially the Slime's entire body. This is excess biomass into the Tarr, and like every other Slime, it needs to get rid of it with mitosis. Without needing eyes or intelligence, all of the newfound ATP can go to the mitosis of the Tarr, setting it apart from normal Slimes. What this means is that the Tarr can completely copy itself, nucleus and all, into a new Tarr. Bloody terrifying.
Okay. I know that was even more to take in than before, but there's a whole world of answers out there, and I'm ready with a good chunk of them. That is why I'm Earth's leading Slimeobiologist after all, besides maybe those Nick and Mike guys who discovered the slimes. Point is, I'm chock full of answers. And for the information to be answers, you guys gotta ask questions!So, Fire away!