The Navipods are a clade of Euichthyphoran that live near the pool cleaner on the surface to offer some defense against predators (predators will have nointrest in eating a pool cleaner, as it is too big), and as a result had evolved some capacity for terrestrial life. Their microbe symbionts, once used as their source of respiration, have been cast out completely (the toxiparents retain microbe-assisted respiration to take care of their toxipod hosts). Instead, they have internalized the upper portion of their tail and evolved a system of active respiration similar to that of tetrapods on Earth. Their body size has shrunk to about 1/10 the size of their ancestors to support themselves on the pool cleaner, much like how fully or partially terrestial animals are constrained on their size to support themselves on land.
The navipods have also evolved colonial behaviors, facultative eusociality, and symbiotic relationships with the toxipods to further defend against predators, as the only way small species like the navipods can survive is through sheer numbers. The navipods have a caste distinction between breeders and workers, which are further split into normal workers and toxiparents. The workers gather food and deliver it to the rest of the colony and protect the breeders, and the toxiparents take care of their toxinopod hosts and defend them against predators, and in return the toxipods defend their pool cleaner home against any predator they can find. The breeders are 33% larger than the workers and house an expanded reproductive system.
The navipods have a very strict succession order depending on a dominance hierarchy inside breeders that favors male sex. Whenever the dominant male dies, the dominant female will change her sex to male and assume the title of the colony's leader, while the third-most dominant breeder will move on to second-most dominant position, and so on. Although the navipods have evolved monogamy as an unavoidable prerequisite for evolving eusociality, the navipods have reverted to polygynous mating systems, like their ancestors have. Female offspring also inherit one genome from their father, and male offspring has two genomes, one from the mother and one from the father, creating a situation where individuals are related more to their brothers than their own offspring. As their is only one pool cleaner, there is not more than one colony in this species.
Branches[]
- Eunavipoda - Basal navipods
- Volaniformes - Evolved a fully terrestrial life style.
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- Venenimphora
- Ichthyphora
- Euichthyphora
- Navipoda
- Volanoformes
- Brachiphora
- Euvolanoformes
- Eunavipoda
- Volanoformes
- Pisciformes
- Navipoda
- Necropoda
- Eunecropoda
- Toxinopoda
- Euichthyphora
- Lutumphora
- Eulutumphora
- Eulutumphoridae
- Osteophora
- Corpuspoda
- Eulutumphora
- Ichthyphora