Stormfins

Stormfins were large fish native to the planet G0-CVII. Their scales were very smooth and ranged in color from off-white to a medium bluish-gray, often darkening slightly as they aged.

Adult stormfins could grow to a length of 1.4 meters with a width of 45 centimeters.

The average length of the stormfin life cycle was 3 years. Adult stormfins laid thousands of eggs; approximately 1 out of 80 of these eggs would survive to underwater hatching, as stormfin eggs were nutritious and often eaten by other creatures. The juvenile stormfins could survive in frozen water, going dormant, and thus would grow slightly through the first summer and fall and then freeze in the winter.

In the second year, the stormfins were too large to survive the freeze, so they followed the equator-bound streams in the fall to stay in the cold waters below the frozen surface of the equatorial river. Most stormfins passed underneath the horizontal mountain ranges lining the equator, as these cavernous passages were large enough to admit them and they were partially filled with water. The stormfins feasted on other fish and plants that grew below the water, although they avoided prey that was near or above their size, as stormfins had not evolved to kill large prey. They avoided carnivores by secreting a poisonous gel underneath their scales; the poison was harmless unless the scales were broken or torn away.

At the end of the second year, the stormfins swam back north as the ice broke up and melted, carrying them back to the north and south. They laid eggs throughout the spring and summer, and in the fall made their last journey to the equator. Most stormfins die in their third year; a few survive one more year of maturity.