Classification of Luminescent Lillies
After months of waiting, I have finally discovered what happens to the lilies every day. As mentioned before, the currents and tides here are not enough to just carry them away each morning, and as yet I’ve encountered no fauna large enough to eat them.
Well, not until now, because they are fauna! They are not plant life at all. I had to stay up all night for several successive nights to see it, but they are aquatic swimmers, somewhat mollusk-like, that mimic the look of a bioluminescent blossom to attract the local equivalent of insects to their maw. I have heard the distinctive slap and splash they create when they make a strike, but never associated it with them. They are incredibly fast. If you aren’t looking right at one when it happens, you’ll never see it.
I saw one of them leap from the water only briefly, but from what I could make out, they are a creature with a main body that is oblong in shape, opening along nearly its full length with a tri-valve system. The interior looks to be composed of 3 layers which can be seen when the creature has it’s outer body open or unfurled. The outer shells, which look somewhat tough, perhaps leathery. A second set of 3 flat and wide tongues (maybe tentacles?) arrayed in a circle, then 3 more, long and thin, above that. The two inner layers exhibit the bioluminescence common here. Behind the oblong body outer layer is a set of 3 tentacles, probably used for motion.
I have tried to include a quick sketch from memory. The imagers are running low on power, and the eternal twilight here makes it hard to recharge them, so I plan to use them only when I have a specimen captured and can be sure of a good image. I have had to make my own paper from local plant fibers, and my own inks, brushes, and everything else as well. It is times like this that I wish the Captain had not forced my hand. There were so many supplies on the Cabot that would be useful now. In the long run, I know that the loss of the ship and the others was my only option.
My artistic skills are not much to crow about. Hopefully they will improve with practice.