| Class: | Realistic Vermin |
| Hab: | Fibrous materials; insulation, blankets, tapestries, etc. |
| Fre: | Common |
| Num: | Swarms |
| Lair: | 99% |
| Size: | 1/16th inch to 10", by host-fiber size and fungus-worm species |
| Move: | Very slow wriggle or floating spore cloud |
| Def: | Camouflage |
| Att: | Spore cloud |
| Int: | None; simple instincts |
| Spec: | Destroys goods, sabotages hi-tech equipment, infests installations and ships |
| Posns: | Negative |
These insulation-eating "worms" are actually more like a fungus with a mobile life-cycle stage. They will infect electrical insulation and spun heating insulation of spaceships or buildings, fiber mattresses and chests full of blankets, and other compacted fibrous materials; there are even reports of false-fiber infesting storerooms full of quilted armour, high-tech or primitive.
The false-fiber replaces the inside of the fiber with its own body, leaving the shell intact; it is thus extremely difficult to detect. Once they have infected a large region to maximum density, they "bloom," which causes a die-off, rather like the way all the bamboo of a certain species may bloom and die off at once. The bloom results in great clouds of spore-dust - and the disintegration of the fibers they had been growing in. A localized bloom can also be triggered by other events; it is no coincidence that, after billions of years of growing in spaceships, the bloom is now triggered by attempts to clean the insulation, resulting in the cleaning only spreading the effect.
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