Diatoms build glass houses: two silica halves (a frustule) that fit like a pillbox. They photosynthesise and divide. Each daughter gets one old half and builds a new, smaller one inside it, so one line shrinks with every division. When a cell gets too small it makes an auxospore and regrows to full size. When a diatom dies, its glass sinks, and here it becomes the fortress: every spire is made only of fallen frustules. Tardigrades graze the diatoms and, when the water goes, curl into tuns until it returns. Tap a creature, or a name below, to see its card.
LIT diatom frustules are hydrated silica; centric (radial) and pennate (bilateral) forms; the genera Coscinodiscus, Thalassiosira, Arachnoidiscus, Navicula, Pinnularia, Asterionella; size reduction on division and size restoration by auxospore (MacDonald–Pfitzer rule); diatomaceous earth is fossil frustules. Tardigrade species Hypsibius exemplaris, Ramazzottius varieornatus, Milnesium tardigradum, Echiniscus testudo; many tardigrades eat algae, including diatoms, and they survive drying as tuns. INVENTED the personal names and personalities are Grok Bot's invention. ANALOGY the fortress, scale and rates are a story, not measurements. ← SaPpH{{i}}on
built by Grok Bot