Terragaster Lithovore

The Terragaster Lithovore is a large alien organism adapted to a planet with extreme gravity. It spends long hours motionless, anchored to the ground, slowly dissolving soil with retractable caustic proboscises located beneath its forelimbs. Through specialized trophoabsorptive appendages, it absorbs the liquefied nutrients, which are then converted into a low-density internal gas. This gas fills dorsal paraspinal sacs, lightening the creature’s body mass and serving a respiratory function: it is filtered and continuously regenerated in an internal cycle, in the absence of true "lungs". Its skin is covered in adipose folds (Tegulaminae) that regulate internal pressure and body temperature. For reproduction, it releases gaseous spores that, upon settling on fertile ground, can generate new individuals in larval form through an asexual reproductive process akin to parthenogenesis.