Location and biome: a lake with lots of biodiversity and lots of metal deposits
Species name: draculus polymorphus
common name: changeling
Species traits:
phagocytosis: any species with this trait may eat anything to attempt to get it’s DNA or endosymbionts to do things it can do(this trait requires unicellular)
RNA encoding brain: any species with this trait is able to edit a copy of their genome to experiment and modify themselves
unicellular: this species only has one cell making it extremely vulnerable. but has a single double lipid membrane separating modules from eachother. it also has a cardiovascular system evolved from a vacuole
bacterial brain: this animal has endosymbiotic bacteria that function as neurons do in a regular animal but use bundles of nanowires that are insulated from the rest of the cell except for at the start and the end. these nanowires allow far faster processing than a human but they have to send a pattern for each chemical along with a signal from the center nanowire. due to the electrotrophic nature of these bacteria(they produce electricity as waste but have evolved to read it and pass it along but only with multiple inputs to stop malfunctions) the changelings must eat a minimum of 40 grams of metal as conductive as copper or less for more conductive metals to fuel their brains(it is recommended that this is paired with unicellular as it is far less efficient without it)
nucleus trading: this trait allows members of the species to trade nuclei of any type(micro, normal, macro) and exists to improve overall fitness of the species.(requires unicellular or intercellular gene transfer pili)
Species description: a unicellular species of mostly aquatic mammal mimics that can consume anything to gain it’s abilities but since they start out with no abilities their parents must acquire a durable animal for them to eat so they may hunt for themselves. obviously these amoebas that are as big to a normal eukaryote as the sun is to the earth cannot gain the abilities from cooked foods but to prevent their genes getting shredded by the stomachs of their prey they produce a protein that binds to any enzyme that shreds RNA or DNA as they would not survive without it. they are fairly social creatures and trade genes to prevent a member not being biologically fit for their environment.
Character: willow.
Initial character traits: genderfluid, mitochondrial efficiency boost, ambivert, flawless long term memory, bad day vision.
if any of this needs to be changed i will change it
i feel like this one is far more balanced than the last phagocytosis build i made