Vampiric moss doesn’t look like the conventional moss one might see in greener settings. but rather it looks much like blood veins with a rich red hue due to the animal blood flowing through it. These vines attach to animals using thousands of small thorns that hook onto the animal to keep the vine secured. Furthermore, there are circular patches that are an even brighter hue of red due to the excess blood, this is where the organism stabs its needle-like probes into the host to consume its blood.

Basic Information

Anatomy

This parasitic plant grows thousands of tiny hooks that dig into its host making it near impossible to get off once it takes hold. Once the parasite has firmly attached itself to the host it uses thin, strong, and hollow needles to penetrate the animal’s blood veins and suck the blood out of them. They then use this blood in place of water to transport critical nutrients throughout the organism.

Genetics and Reproduction

When the moss attaches to predatory animals it can spread to other animals when the predator is chasing down the animal. If the predator gets close enough to an animal but isn’t able to get in a killing blow the vampiric moss might transfer over and live on through that animal. If the moss attaches to an animal that lives in a herd or packs then as the animals move around each other the moss will grab hold of new hosts. As well when the Vampiric Moss grows out of hand it will consume too much of the blood of the host animal killing it. Then when the scavengers come to consume the remains of the animal the Vampiric Moss transfers to those scavengers further propagating it through the ecosystem.