Aside—The Beautiful Horror of Naming Too Much

When we finished exploring the bottom of the ocean, we began exploring the complex set of vents veining the thin subsurface of the earth, knowing that this time, this place, was inexhaustable.

The vents are, after-all, excessively fractally (R3.587), making even lossless light-speed sensor technology an insufficient plumber.

Further, the vents have an unparalleled biodiversity, evolving unique organisms out of path-forks. The ecology of the place is so dynamic, unique, sequestered, that there are working isomorphisms between phylogenetic trees and the physical dimensions of certain branches! Wow! In the past 5 years, 80% of newly discovered species come from the vents.

The Biff-Tipped Tuner, a rare cave-bird, is one of these.

Though alas not illustrative of all the cave's creatures (there are certainly some losers. i.e., the gunk slug, the boring mole), the B.T.T. illustrates the bizarre life forms of the vent and tantalizes us with dreams of what we might yet find.

The B.T.T. is already widely admired, listed just after dogs—though it seems rather unfair to compare the highly specialized B.T.Tuner to all-possible dogs—in the D.B.A.'s latest survey of well-liked animals (2020).

They are translucent (unique among birds). Though originally thought to have no legs, they were recently shown to instead have an excess of feathers: the way the light refracted through the many layers causing a rather magnificent optical illusion.

The B.T.T.'s diet of deep-cave fungi has inspired the pervasive pseudoscience of avian psychotropics, an arid, lifeless domain.

Misconceptions abound about the B.T.T. I will set them right.