Sand Swimmers are Air-Breathing Fish (which SEE) and descendants of other marine creatures adapted to swim through sand. Many marine creatures have cousins adapted to swimming the seas of sand; sand swimmers come in nearly as wide a range as would be expected in a water-sea of similar volume to their sand-sea habitat.
For statistics, SEE either the marine fish they are derived from or individual species entries. In general, the basic statistics for a sea creature may be adapted to those of a sand swimmer simply by toughening the hide and fins. Skin surfaces are developed to improve traction in the gritty sand; rough scales, large or sandpaper fine, are common. Heavy, muscular fins aide in swimming through the coarser, heavier medium, as does a body shape compressed either horizontally or vertically. Sand swimmers will also have superior filters masking their gills and / or lungs, allowing them to breathe in the depths of the sand; many opt for transpiration through the skin or other membranes, especially when resting (sleeping or lurking), needing only to breach the surface and gulp air when undergoing vigorous exertion. Water conservation characteristics are a must, although many get all the water they need by the occasional deep dive to reservoirs hidden far below the sands. A snorkel-like organ may serve both for breathing and for scenting prey. Most sand swimmers are exquisitely sensitive to vibrations carried through the ground.
Sep stone sand swimmers utilized a symbiotic sep stone or cranial carbuncle, which uses a specialized telekinetic power to displace sand, earth or gravel, making swimming through such loose mineral media much easier; SEE Sep Stone Sand Swimmer Symbiont. Sand-swimmers lacking a sep symbiont may only be able swim through reasonably particularized sands, and not through cobblestone wastes or stony deserts. However, it is common for ribbons of sand sea to tread up into other sorts of deserts flanking a true sand sea.
More delicate creatures, such as jellyfish, may require more substantial modifications to adapt to an inter-terrestrial environment. Creatures such as squid may find that they cannot readily use sand as a jet propulsion medium, but may have modified jet propulsion siphons able to blast sand as a weapon, or simply to create an obscuring sand or dust cloud, to hide their escape.
The majority of sand swimmers are harmless microvours, feeding upon the microbial thermo/photo/kinetic plankton that riddle the very grains of sand of which their sand-sea is composed. Carnivorous sand swimmers hunt them, and sand swimmers larger yet hunt those in turn - as well as travelers who stray into the desert.
For examples of sand swimmers, SEE Earth Eels and Sand Swimmer Land Sharks, Sand Rays, and Sand Seas Grain Plankton, Churners, and Snufflers.
| Vladpup Home RPG Home Bestiary Index | Last update Apr 4, 2006 |