As a vegetarian I often wondered why people asked me if I ate fish, crustatians, or chickens when I told them I was vegetarian. Did these people know of a type of animal that really wasn't an animal thus allowing vegetarians could eat them? This contradiction (vegetarians eating animals) needed further investigation. What I found was that these people really did know something after all. There are very few instances of this happening, but it has happened: A few animal species have crossed over from the animal kingdom into the plant kingdom. These cross overs, I refer to as plantimals. Plantimals retain some of their animal shape and characteristics, but they are truly plants. They generally have roots, leaves and chlorophyll. Gone is the blood and guts of an animal, replaced by the inner workings of a plant.
I have travelled extensily with my trusty tabby cat FLOcat and we checked on local fables and stories. On this web page, I have tallied a short list of some of the oddities I have unearthed in my travels.
This amazing Amazonian creature seems to have been a normal salmon which spawned regularly, but due to landslide the river was cut off from the ocean. This resulted in a pool of water, where the salmon remained. Then further up the river another landslide occured and the water supply was reduced to a trickle causing the water level to slowly lower. The salmon needed to adapt to their changing environment or die out. Unfortunately, the riverbed was at the bottom of steep walls, the only food coming in was in the form of sunshine. The fish adapted by gaining chlorophyl, and they further adapted by gaining the ability to grow roots to get at the continually receeding water. The riverbed has been dry for centuries, but the salmon still live there and have spread up the walls, and along the shores of the river.
The mouths have closed up, the stomache and entrails have withered away. The eyes remain but are only good enough now to help the fish aim its adapted fins so it can get maximum sunlight. It can not see shapes and does not respond to stimuli other than sunlight and water. The salmon don't need to spawn anymore, as young fry develop from runners the parent fish send out. This salmon tasts horrible. It tasts like a mixure of road tar and oranges.
This is a recent addition to the plantimals kingdom. Ferral mice have recently been a plague size problem for Austrailia, and they have responded by trying to purge the animals. A very small group of these animals responded by adapting into plants. When a farmer near Tansmania used an unknown pesticide, the mice who ingested it underwent a bizarre change. The brown fur was replaced with green rubber like skin which now contains chlorophyl which the mice use to gather energy from the sunlight. Roots sprout from the rear legs (now trunks) and the ears are turned upward to trap the rare rain water.
They are not easy to spot amoungst the underbrush where they cluster. The mice still respond to stimuli by trembling and somewhat shrinking into a ball. Granted that the mice no longer have muscles, the scientists involved with the green mouse are investigating how it trembles and how it goes into a ball shape so quickly. This mouse releases spores from under it's belly similar to how mushrooms do. The green mouse tastes close to mushrooms, and are best prepared as such.
This is the rarest of all plantimals. Only three have ever been reported. Two still exist and are likely to continue exist as they taste like dung. These rooted chickens are found in deep shade (such as caves or burrows) where very minimal diffused sunlight ever reaches. The chickens are red in colour and the feathers have turned into leaves. They eyes have gone, but the beak remains though it's use is a mystery as no stomach or lungs attach to it. The chicken seems to get most of its energy from the roots it spreads out from its trunks. It is not known how the chicken reproduces. If you find one and want to keep it. Just plop it into a pot and keep it in your basement away from activity. I kept mine in a main floor closet, and it nearly died. I believe the noise of people walking so close was too much strain on it. When it was in the basement, it thrived.
These Ice Shrimp grow in clusters on the ice where the sun is strong. The shrimp's legs have grown into a root system which cling to the ice and soak up water and dissolved nutrients. The shrimp are the size of pencil erasers and white in colour which make them easy to miss whilst walking along the glaiciers. These shrimp don't mate, but young sprout off from the root systems of the parents. These shrimp taste like plums and don't need to be shelled like their animal based relatives.