Space Slug

Space slugs are large to gigantic creatures adapted to living in areas of little to no atmosphere, especially asteroids. While the head loosely recalls a slug, with its toothy jaws and antennae, the body is almost more fungal, with roots and tendrils leaching into the rock where the slug has lodged itself. Space slugs do produce a significant amount of atmosphere inside their bodies, perhaps by metabolizing chemical compounds from the surrounding rocks. Their metabolisms are extremely low, as nutrients of any sort are very rare in this exceedingly harsh environment.

Young space slugs are known to feed on mynocks, which are silicon-based, and it is probable that space slugs have a similarly exotic biochemistry. Young individuals are often intentionally placed around shipyards to manage the mynock population. Very old space slugs are large enough to attack and eat fighters and small freighters, making them too dangerous for use around inhabited facilities.

Space slugs can be found around the galaxy for their mynock-control quality, but they are also somewhat mobile themselves - they can remove themselves from their burrows and push off in the hopes of striking another, more suitable asteroid. How feasible this would be in a typical, low-density asteroid field (where asteroids are many hundreds of thousands of miles apart) is doubtful, but in extraordinarily dense fields like that of the Hoth system it is an effective strategy.

Record 1522 - creature - Last update 17 Nov 2007, 21:51:08

Entry written by: Torvus

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