Croto
Ocean Depths North of Kal II
Comparable to having the skin of a squid with razor-sharp teeth and bulbous lumps, the Croto are nightmarish monsters of Spesnova's oceans. Being able to withstand water from 4.5 degrees celsius to 40 degrees celsius and females growing to be 6 feet in diameter, the Croto is Spesnova’s most shivering discovery. Since the last of ocean life became extinct on Earth's downfall of 2092, our scientists have never seen anything like this.
The Croto function by turning and pulsing its interconnected limbs to propel itself like a torpedo through the water. We also find this is how they are able to populate such a vast area of the planet's ocean
To reproduce the females consume the males in order to gain the needed cells to produce their eggs. Their jelly-like eggs are laid under the sand in bunches of hundreds. The croto start out eating small vegetation and scraps from the ocean floor under they are large enough to eat this planet's “fish”. You can tell the difference between the male and female Croto by their drastic size difference as the males are much smaller for the female to eat. We have observed the females get up to 6 feet in diameter and the largest males only about 3-4 feet. The males spend their year-long life span eating as much as they possibly can gain the vital nutrients they need for the female to consume and reproduce. The females have been seen to live up to 3 generations before becoming too slow to catch food or get eaten themselves. Female Croto will often lay their eggs together as their offspring are more likely to survive in larger groups. The mothers will stay in the area of their buried eggs and often switch back and forth with one another to protect the eggs from being found by any bottom-dwelling creatures.
The most notable feature of the Croto is its teeth. Each full-grown female has approximately 50 outward teeth with another tighter set in the middle of their mouth that can break up nearly anything. When hunting, the Croto will suck up water through its mouth and propel it out its rear to shoot itself forward. When their prey is caught they trap them in their teeth and begin pulsing and chewing until it is all ground down and inside their tubal stomach. Because of their body shape their stomach consists of a small sack in their middle that absorbs the finely minced food and carries it to different parts of their body through internal tubes in their limbs. This helps their body process all the nutrients in minutes after consumption to be able to travel at their speeds.
When observing the speeds of the Croto our scientists used bait and scanners to find the average full-grown female Croto to be able to project itself at 40 miles per hour.
