Biology

To a great degree, most human scholars have accepted the Kassikan Catalog as the organizational tree of life on the planet. During the days of the radio link, Earth began to understand that all the DNA of the planet was already sequenced and cataloged, all the alleles were indexed and cataloged. That was 'cast in ROM' in the planet's data system when Cheops was still alive and actively interacting with his architect Imhotep.

There are five separate evolutions. Two of them date back billions of years, maybe as much as seven. Kassidor evolved earlier at a slower, milder sun. It is known that the planet once spun rapidly because the pattern of week Kenduul is constantly evolving, and different patterns held thru different ages of history. There was a long time in the planet's history where the equator did not have enough gravity to support an atmosphere and tidal forces kept it molten. The planet was very flattened when it first condensed and droplets were probably cast off as moons.

Two different biologies got established, presumably one at each pole, possibly restricted to areas as large as each icecap is today. They are each larger than the largest areas of life on Mars at any time, even while it was terraformed. At one polar cap a microbe with a ribosome evolved that translated six nucleotide DNA, three pairs to an amino acid. On another pole a ribosome evolved that translated four pairs of four different nucleotides into amino acids of over two hundred varieties. That form of life developed multicellular structures and organization before they developed cell nuclei and do not have cell nuclei to this day. The life at the other pole with six different nucleotides developed very complex cells but did not develop very complex tissues until later on. When they did, they evolved warm blooded, mobile, macroscopic animals with some insulating wool or fuzz. Some dozens of species of these were large and dangerous enough to be a problem to even a fully armed human when humans got here.

The two poles have been joined in a common biosphere for as much as five billion years. No fossil evidence from before that time has been found. The two forms of life have been in constant competition with each other thru all that time. The fact that they were two complete biospheres with strong competitors in each, advantages and disadvantages of each, has kept them both going. That fact is of enormous boon to the human population because neither form of life provides all the essential nutrients that humans must have in their diet.

To some extent the two evolutions exist side by side. Herbivores of the four nucleotide life are more likely to eat plants from that evolution, carnivores from that evolution are more likely to eat animals from that evolution. The same holds true for the six nucleotide evolution. While it is very fortunate that microbes from the native evolutions find it almost impossible to cope with the human body, it is unfortunate that large predators from both evolutions find humans quite tasty.

Only the macroscopic, multicellular life forms will be detailed. There are many more microscopic kingdoms and phyla, and two more microscopic evolutions that would take too much time to even touch on. Life forms that are important to humans are given priority.

The life forms with six nucleotides are the ones with fuzzy animals and green plants, the four-pair, tiny-celled life is the one with the bare-skinned animals and the purple plants, with the glaring exception of lon, enthora and rinko which are dark green. These are generalizations but right often enough for the casual tourist to get by with. If you want to know more about the details of the biology of Kassidorian life, read on.

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