"The Theranoi have a very unique appearance, looking like a piece of well-fitted white cloth floating in the deep. They are also some of the most photogenic of Haven's brilliant creatures, with it being impossible to not capture a gorgeous shot when attempting to image their respective colonies."-William Tancard's: Guide to Haven's Glorious Creatures
Overview[]
The Theranoi are an uncommon species of Medusozoa Cnidaria, or more commonly known as: "Jellyfish" that exists across Haven's salt-water oceans. They have a unique appearance, appearing like white cloth floating in the deep and are sparsely located across the planet, with small pockets of the creature known to exist in various areas, with a global population of around six hundred thousand.
Unlike most Medusozoa fauna, Theranoi have a large spinal cord extending throughout their body, which in technicality disqualifies them from the traditional cnidarian classification, but as they are an exact mirror image of that of typical Medusozoa fauna, they have been classified as such.
Physical[]
The baseline physical appearance and overall structure is very similar to many Medusozoa species across the known universe. Their bodies are primarily made up of a jelly-like materiel known as "Mesoglea" making them incredible soft and squishy. However the respective Mesoglea that makes up their body has a fairly unique texture that takes the appearance and feeling of well-crafted cloth, and this texture will always take a white-colored appearance, with no known variation of color. Like most Medusozoa, their bodies are mostly made up of water, with the aforementioned liquid making up for around eighty percent of their entire body.
The only internal organ that exists within a Theranoi is their large spinal cord, which takes the appearance of a large blue-colored bone located throughout the length of the animal's body. This spine serves as the sensory organ of the individual Theranoi, with each millimeter of its structure being covered with thousands of sensory groves that can feel out changes in the water around them, or feel changes in its body, allowing the Theranoi to have complete spatial around itself in an area of around ten feet and a three-hundred and sixty degree radius. As a result, Theranoi are totally blind and deaf and require their spine's to give the sensory impute to understand their environment and what's happening to them.
Theranoi belong to the respective category of Medusozoa that lack any form of stingers. Instead, their tentacle-like appendages are able to grip their prey with amazing strength, almost making escape impossible for smaller prey. Then they use their small digestive cavity to consume their prey, making them a carnivorous species.
During the end of a Theranoi's life cycle, which typically lasts around five hundred and sixty standard year time period, they will begin to clone themselves through form of asexual reproduction. Upon their death, the clone will spring from their host's body, starting out extremely small, only around five centimeters and will grow to its maximum height in around a hundred standard year time frame.
Behavior[]
During a Theranoi's life, they will typically spend all of their time slowly swimming across the oceans, attempting to locate small fish and other small aquatic fauna to feed on. Thanks to their biology, an individual Theranoi only requires a small amount of food per standard week to survive, allowing an individual Theranoi to survive for long periods of time without the need for more caloric energy.
Typically, colonies, or more commonly known as "blooms" of Theranoi's will form. These are large swarms of individual Theranoi grouped together to give off an air of intimidation towards other larger aquatic fauna that may attempt to consume them. These blooms range in size widely, but some have been reported to hold a population count of around fifteen thousand and span an area of around a kilometer.