Homo Sapiens Aqualis

An offshoot of the Homo Sapiens Sapiens found in the fossil records of several worlds which showed parallel development to that on Earth. Most notably are the records found on Earth Two, a near exact duplicate to the Sol system found lightyears away discovered by the Enterprise (NCC-1701) under the command of Captain James T. Kirk, along with a number of other worlds in which Homo Sapiens developed independently. An interesting note is that there are no known fossil records of Homo Sapiens Aqualis on Earth itself, making Earth an anomaly in the general evolutionary record of its principle species. The species has also been discovered on Ekos, the dominant species is genetically very similar to Homo Sapiens and dubbed Homo Sapiens Ekosian.

Compared to Humans

Aqualis has evolved to be amphibious while maintaining most of its land-based physiology. In particular, they are capable of withstanding extreme depths and breathing through gills. The lungs are present and not vestigial, able to process oxygen like that of a normal human. The lungs are resistant to seawater and while they do not process oxygen, they are used in a breathing-like way to moderate body temperature and pressure.

The average lifespan is about equal to that of Homo Sapiens, though they tend to be slightly shorter and heavier due to a much higher bone and muscle density than that of humans, owing to the high pressure environments they are found.

An interesting feature of Aqualis is that through young have difficulty handling the depth, and tend to spend formative years growing up at shallower depths until their bodies can handle the higher pressure at the sea floor.

Changes in Pressure

The body chemistry of homo sapiens aqualis has some significant differences from that of a homo sapiens, particularly in the species ability to handle intense changes in pressure. Their skin forms natural crystal lattices that have a unique crystalline compound which dramatically expands under pressure. The skin will compress under high pressure environments and the crystals expand into a kind of scales that form a tight and flexible lattice of fine crystal scales over the body. This protects the skin from large pressure changes taking place. In addition to that, a similar substance found inside the smooth muscle and organ tissues of the body also expands under pressure which allows the body to maintain an equilibrium with extremely deep aquatic environments.

Response to Oxygen Toxicity

The crystals throughout body tissues also assist in protecting the body from oxygen toxicity. The body of homo sapiens aqualis contains liquid crystal molecules throughout tissues and blood, once these molecules expand under pressure they are able to capture molecular oxygen saturating tissues, the lungs of aqualis also have developed natural mechanism to expel excess oxygen into the water during temperature regulation. This has the added benefit that aqualis can process water for oxygen in extreme depths even when oxygen is more scarce.

Response to Exotic Gas Mixtures

While extreme diving in humans can be achieved through exotic gas mixtures, these can prove deadly to aqualis, where the body responds extremely badly to the exotic gas mixture used. Since the aqualis body has developed specific responses to exist at extreme depths, it is not necessary for them to breath exotic mixtures.

Negative Pressure Changes

While generally speaking aqualis handles low pressure environments about as well as their human cousins does, it should be noted that their bodies do not handle sudden or extreme pressure changes in the negative direction as well. Their body is naturally of somewhat higher internal pressure compared to humans, when the body does not have time to adapt to pressure changes or those pressure changes are extreme in nature aqualis suffer adverse effects much quicker and with higher severity at below 50 kPa on average (about 0.5 atmospheres). Environment suits should maintain at least double what humans have as internal pressure for aqualis, that is to say human environment suits are generally set to high oxygen at low pressure (about 29 kPa with 100% oxygen). Aqualis should have an environment suit maintaining at least 60 kPa, but for maximum comfort generally speaking about 65 kPa is needed.