It’s a form of slime mold. It’s evolved originally in an extremely wet environment, but as the continent moved the environment went from a rainforest to an extremely arid environment. The slime mold blooms after the rain and quickly covers the environment in a bi layered structure in order to preserve the moisture. Duck tape can only be found in areas where the ground is made of clay or stone where the water doesn’t get absorbed by the ground
It’s first layer is filled with extremely sticky and oily cells that adheres to rocky surface and absorbs moisture like crazy. The sticking is meant to deter predators, making it very difficult to peel the layer off without thumbs. There are some creatures like the desert duck with razor a razor sharp that allows them to poke a hole in the duck tape, and suck up the sweet nutrients. Of course the slime mold responds by drying out the area and forming a cement ring around the damaged skin the outer layer is a thick skin filled with many layers of dried cells, similar to our skin.
The sticky substance when dried forms a sort of cement that leaves the top layer tough. This forms a layer of an almost gel like material with a thick outer skin. The duck tape can be carefully peeled off the rocky floor and dried for a short period of time to create a drier adhesive. It must be quickly wrapped around itself in order to keep it from completely drying. However once unpeeled and stuck the polymers form a strong almost permanent seal.
The slime mold itself has a symbiotic relationship with a form of moss and is provided tons of free energy. 452
after the rain. Very quickly a layer of moss springs up from the duct tape and uses the water to survive for a long period of time. Once it gets too dry, the moss rementants forms a seed of dried moss wrapped up in a thick layer of biofilm, and remains inactive until the rainy season starts back up. For the most part duck tape can usually survive between the rains but if it can’t it always has the ‘bacteria’ part of its life cycle
In fact the dead skin cells could actually form a water tight layer on the soil preventing water from leaking into the ground . Beneath each duck tape is a thick layer, often many feet deep of non sticky duct tape material
To Sumerize: * a desert slime mold evolved form a thick duct tape like material to preserve moisture after rain. It forms a sticky layer of gel like material with a hard, plastically layer of dried skin. After a few days, tiny moss sprouts will picture the tape and grow out of the duck tape * duck tape is only really usable before the moss sprouts and must be carefully peaked from the ground and allowed to dry in the sun just long enough to mostly dry up but not enough to completely dry. * using this strategy the slime mold can survive many years between rains and if it runs out of water, the kiss dries up and the slime turns into a community of single celled organisms
Note: I realize my grammar is probably pretty off. I’m typing on my iPhone and I never expect myself to write as much as I usually do. On a iPhone this feels like a novel and spell check can be annoying. Plz forgive any grammar mistakes/spelling errors, but if it’s possible feel free to clean this up
Another side note, the idea is pretty heavily based on the anemonic sea, which you can read about here: https://alienplanet.fandom.com/wiki/Amoebic_Sea
No idea how to make a link on mobile but if I did know, rest assured Amniotic sea would be hyperlinked. 452