ǀǃ

See clicks section here for pronouncation of ǀǃ

They were the second species to leave their planet roughly 11,000 years ago

Siphonophore like creatures, ǀǃ are composed of a varying number of biological unit. Each unit is composed of a number of psudo-zooids, giving it two limbs, a beak, it’s own set of organs, and sensory hairs. The units are all connected by a shared nervious system, with longer chains having more collective computing power, and the two units at the far ends of the chain can bud new units. Resources, such as nutrition, can be shared slowly between neighboring units.

ǀǃ can split their chain of units as their method of reproduction, either intentionally when they start getting impractically long, or if an older unit dies. When they do this both halves keep having a decent grasp of their memories of before the split. As such, ǀǃ don’t really have the native concept of childhoods. These splits do not need to result in two evenly sized pieces, and smaller segments are less clever and have less memories, so they can fairly easily pick up on the concept of children, but in general most ǀǃ avoid splitting into short segments intentionally as that’s a good way to have part of you fucking die so the concept of ‘children as a common thing we like and do on purpose’ was a bit odd for them initially when dealing with other speicies.

ǀǃ who very recently split can merge with another freshly split ǀǃ, even if both segments originated from different individuals. This is how genetic diversity is spread through the population. Just as nutrition can be shared between neighboring units, so can genetic information. When two segments with different genetics merge, they will distribute the new genetic infomation along the chain, using horizontal gene transfer to incorporate it into the existing chain and new budding units. Because a single ǀǃ could be composed of multiple organisms, and will have memories from each of their “parents”, and each of those “parents” could have memories from their “parents”, the chain of memories a single ǀǃ has could theoretically go back a long time and cover a huge number of indiviuals lives. However, there’s only so much neuro tissue, so there’s not the memory space to hold onto everything. Memories that are not recalled will fade and eventually be overwritten, and as such most ǀǃ who haven’t merged in years will only remember their own lives and maybe a bit of a couple of ancestors. However, very significant memories that are recalled often could theoretically be maintained indefinately.

ǀǃ are soft invertebrates, with thick leathery skin, and firm with a little squish to the touch. Their only hard piece are the beaks that line their bellies, although their sensory hairs are also quite stiff.

They cannot regulate their own body temperature.

They do not have any light sensory ability, but they can hear very well thanks to the ear like structures connected to the base of some of their sensory hairs. They also have a very sensitive sense of touch, and chemical receptors, aka the ability to smell or taste, distributed throughout their skin.

ǀǃ are opportunistic scavengers, and will wrap themselves around a food source when eating so as many units as possible can reach it and eat.