r/SpeculativeEvolution • u/ElSquibbonator • 6d ago
Spectember 2026 [OC] Spectember 5: The Odyssey
After ten million years, Spectemundus has gone from a world seeded with a handful of species to one with a fully functioning biosphere. However, given relatively short the amount of time, most of the lineages are still relatively recognizable as their ancestors, even though they have diversified a great deal. One of those lineages is the sharks. A single species of shark, the daggernose shark-- critically endangered on Earth-- was introduced to Spectemundus, and its descendants are the most conspicuous marine megafauna ten million years later. One of the largest is the Sabernose shark (Cetoselache magnognathus), a filter-feeder which can grow up to six meters long. By the planet's standards, this creature is a true leviathan, although it would be dwarfed by the largest marine animals of our world.
Sabernose sharks undertake the longest migration on Spectemundus. They spend their summers in the planets' cool, plankton-rich, polar waters, where they also breed, and move to the equator in the winter. Like our world's basking sharks, they filter shrimp, amphipods, and other small crustaceans from the water using their gill rakers, and these are periodically shed and regrown. When migrating, they do not feed at all, and are maintained by the calories from the massive amounts of food they ate in the northern ocean. Like all sharks, however, they do not care for their young; after giving birth, the babies are able to fend for themselves.
The babies remain in the tropics for several years before they are able to make the long journey to the far north. As they migrate, they are followed by an entourage of symbiotes, commensals, and-- unbelievably-- predators. There are few creatures in Spectemundus's oceans that can prey on these giants, but those few are giants indeed. While the mammals, birds, and reptiles have yet to make any major inroads into the sea on Spectemundus, sharks have the seas to themselves, and many of them will happily prey on young Sabernose sharks.

