XENOBIOLOGY REPORT: MARTIAN PHYSIOLOGY—Part 1 of 2

On-going research from the Veterinary Division of the New Mars Colony

Botany and Biology Consortium Précis

Submission for consideration, addendum to the subchapter, “Native Martian Anatomy and Physiology.”

Submitter, Evan Mickal, Ph.D., VSD investigator.

Methodology: Magnetic Resonance Physiology at the Quark-focus Level

Date: Sol 28,942

Focus of addendum: Locomotion in the absence of an endoskeleton and the Central Nervous System (CNS)

• Locomotion in the absence of an endoskeleton

Very much analogous to octopi, other cephalopods, and numerous non-skeletonized animals on Earth, the Martian’s posture and stance, erect stature, and functions of ambulation and usage of appendages depend on elastofluidics. Their bodies contain innumerable patterns of muscular tubes which are fiber-reinforced elastomeric enclosures that contain a pressurized fluid. The fibers surrounding them have angles of orientation that can be changed at will, which determines the direction in which the limbs/appendages move when the fluid within is pressurized of depressurized. The external plates (“feathered scales”)finalize the maintenance of a particular position or stance, and when in motion, louver and “unlouver” sequentially to effect smoothness of motion. Therefore, there is no endoskeleton nor one needed.

• Central Nervous System (CNS)

The shape of the Martian head is governed by the necessity of design that accommodates the complexity of the multi-oropharynx and the brain structures that innervate them and a tripartite trachea. Thus it has an elongated face—or a “long” face—reminiscent of a horse, that likeness furthered by a remarkably coincidental aspect of pigmentation: down the face is a vertical patch or pattern of depigmentation, creating a long irregular splash of white, which on a horse is called a blaze. Such a blaze, individualized for each Martian, could represent a way of telling each apart, although recognition may involve many factors other than merely how the Martian appears. The blaze seems to have embedded in it innumerable olfactory cells, making this an organ for smell.

To appreciate the Martian CNS it is first important to understand aspects of breathing and ingestion that also impact the shape of the head.

There are six bilateral sets of mouths and throats that funnel together such that they can effect a steady single intake of ingestion along a single esophagus no matter how many mouths are ingesting. This coalescing requires distance and is a major determinant of the distinctively long face. (The main mouth goes its separate way—SEE BELOW.)

Each throat has two posterior openings:

1. One leading into a separate esophagus that distally fuses with the other esophagi into a central one; and

2. the other leading into a “reverse” trachea [SEE BELOW] that is the source of the blasted air from the central air bladder used in vocalization.

These two posterior pharyngeal openings at the back of each throat are separated from each other by a glottis—an opening guarded by a septation that can flap closed against the reverse trachea so that food can be diverted properly downward into the central alimentary tract and not into the central air sac [SEE BELOW]. In this way, choking is prevented.

The esophagus related to the primary mouth and pharynx does not lead to the location where the six ancillary esophagi fuse, but instead enter the distal alimentary tract farther caudad. Although the primary mouth appears externally as two joined together at the midline, this is misleading, as it is single-chambered just beyond the lips. What was initially thought of as two separate tongues, one on each side, is in fact a single tongue for the single chamber, but with its terminal portion forked.

There are smaller but completely functional tongues for each of the separate ancillary mouths. There also appear to be taste buds for different discriminations among the numerous ancillary tongues, prompting the Martian to use specific mouths for specific tastes and textures of food and liquids ingested. Each mouth has teeth, clear but in the shadows appearing dark. Each tooth has a single fiberoptic tract.

The external proboscis-like cetaceous “blowhole” (main air intake) and its tract does not cohabitate with any of the pharyngeal area. Its trachea is a dedicated one-way route for air from the blowhole that distally trifurcates into the one central and two bilateral air sacs. The bilateral air sacs also exhale back out toward the blowhole, whereas the central air bladder has a valve such that it only exhales through its separate reverse tracheae when speech occurs.

The blowhole entrance that trifurcates distally into three separate tracheae ultimately end in two bilateral primary bronchi and one secondary central bronchus, the bilateral ones ending in multilobular air sacs on either side of the large central unilobular air bladder the central bronchus supplies. The bilateral air sacs provide oxygen by passive diffusion into venous lakes surrounding them, much like the placental systems in Earth mammals.

While the bilateral air sacs are for oxygenation, the central bladder, alternately, provides two functions:

1. It serves as a storage depot of breathable air that, through spillover (passive diffusion)seeps through its semipermeable membrane into the adjacent primary multilobular air sacs [SEE ABOVE]; and

2. there is a collection of hundreds of sphinctered tubules emerging from its posterior that coalesce into seven separate “reverse” tracheae [SEE ABOVE] that provide the expulsive impetus for speech through each of the seven mouths. The seven reverse tracheae each house a set of vocal cords at varying distances from their eventual target mouths, the variation of distance contributing to a wide variation of different tonal qualities (pitch, timbre, resonance). The Martian, linguistically, uses these variations in conjunction with the number of mouths speaking or singing to express nuance and/or emphasis. Whereas in the human the glottis is relative to the vocal cords, in the Martian the sets of vocal cords and glottises are separate from each other for each of the reverse trachea (“air routes”); each glottis is at its junction to its respective pharynx, to preclude food aspiration, using a valve for closure in lieu of the cords themselves as in humans. Even though the sets of vocal cords are at varying distances for effecting unique phonation qualities, each glottis is at the same position, i.e., the glottopharyngeal junction.

In summary, the blowhole feeds air to two bilateral air sacs and one central air bladder. The bilateral air sacs exhale their breaths the way they came in, through the primary tracheae; the central air bladder eliminates excess air by diffusing into the adjacent air sacs, but its main function is to blow air through a set of unrelated “reverse” tracheae through vocal cords. The only possible site for choking would be between the pharynx of each mouth and the termination of each reverse trachea, but this is precluded by the flap of tissue over each glottis.

NOTE: THE ABOVE EXPOSITION IS ONLY INCLUDED HERE BECAUSE OF ITS INTERRELATIONSHIP WITH THE CNS TO PRODUCE SPEECH. FOR FURTHER DETAIL OF THE RESPIRATORY SYSTEM AND THE OTHER SYSTEMS, PLEASE REFER TO THEIR RESPECTIVE SUBCHAPTERS IN THE FULL BOTANY AND BIOLOGY CONSORTIUM PRÉCIS, SUBSECTION, “MARTIAN ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY,” BY KEITH MILLS AND MARK ADRIAN.

Next: The Martian Central Nervous System

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