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- "Kris? Th hell are you looking so nervous for?"
- Kris doesn't move, just stares at susie with soulful eyes.
- "Agh, alright. If you're so WORRIES about this dumb project, then we can see how Noelle worked out hers. Than maybe do some light... note... taking...."
- Susie looked over at Kris, and sighed under her breath, "Well thta got them smiling."
- Which leads them to now, with Noelle, Kris, Susie, and unfortunately Berdly on a grand quest in Noelle's house to figure out how in the hell they would work on their project.
- "So that's basically it." Susie told Noelle, to which Berdley let out an offended gasp.
- "SUSAN!! That project is only two days away, are you two neanderthals mad?!?!"
- "SHUT UP BERDLEY!" Susie snapped, before turning to Noelle, "But we were thinking, what did you do your project on? It would help to get some ideas."
- "O-Of Course!" Noelle stuttered, "We did ours on Digestive Systems!"
- "Digestive Systems, huh? Well, we know about that, eh Kris?" Susie nudged Kris's shoulder, who didn't react.
- "Well of course, we all have them, fahahaha!" Noelle chuckled, "But we did ours over the diversity of them."
- "We all got stomachs, right? That should be it for a digestive thingie."
- "That's where you're wrong dear susan!-" "Not my name..." "-There are three seperate digestive tracts among the animal kingdom!" Berdley pushed up his glasses.
- "He's right, sorry Susie," Noelle smiled gently, "The first one is easy. They don't have any digestive tract! These would be sponges."
- "Huh???? Then how do they eat?" Susie sputtered, but Noelle was eager to explain.
- "They have these tiny little tail like cells called Flagellated Cells. These trap food into a water current, and then use their sticky protrusions to bring them to the cytoplasm! After which they carry the food off in vacuoles, then amoeba-like cells to the other patrs of the sponge."
- "Woah, so like, they don't work like humans or monsters at all." Susie paused, "So their food must be really small then, right?"
- "Yes! Their food is mainly really tiny particles that are floating around."
- Susie smirked, "Alrighhht. See, Kris? You were worried for nothing. We got this project in the bag!"
- Berdley let out a caw of laughter, "If you think that just from learning one thing, then you're sorely mistaken, Susan..."
- "...For this next one, is just plain weird!!!"
- Susie and Kris both deadpanned at Berdley, who cleared his throat in an attempt to not be nervous, "Well. . . I certainly think so! This next type is called an Incomplete Digestive Tract, and it's plain bizarre! I mean, only one opening? Are we serious?!"
- Sensing Berdley's crashout, Noelle put a hoof on his shoulder, "What Berdley means to say is that he's just not used to it! These digestive tracts usually arrive from things like flatworms, or cnidarians. And it's usually referred to as a Gastrovascular Cavity."
- "Gaster-vascular? Uh, okay? Why's it called that?"
- "Hmm, I'm not actually sure. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Anyway, the Gastrovascular Cavity, or GVC as I like to refer to it as, is just that. A large digestive chamber that extends throughout the animals' whole body!"
- Susie raised an eyebrow, "? Then how do they do anything else? What about their muscles and their lungs and stuff??"
- ". . ." Noelle and Berdley both looked at Susie like she grew a second head.
- "Susie do you even know what Cnidarians and flatworms are?"
- "Yeah! They're like. . . the worms you find underground and the. . uh. . ."
- Sensing that Berdly was about to make fun of Susie, Kris and Noelle Quickly intervened. Kris, moving as silently as possible, physically restrained Berdly and put their hand to his beak. Meanwhile Noelle quickly started explaining.
- "Well, you're kinda right! Flatworms are worms, just not he kind you're thinking of. These are the flat, colorful worms you find at the bottom of the ocean, while cnidarians are a group of either immobile (sessile) or movable (motile) carnivores, being your jellyfish, coral, or sea anemones! They're just kinda like that. . ."
- "Yeah! That's what I was thinking! I just couldn't put it into words." Susies totally not real tail was totally not wagging right now.
- "Well it's important that you do, you're the one that'll be telling us all your info, remember?"
- "Right, right.. now what were you saying about the gaster-vascular chamber?"
- Berdly, from sheer birdness, was able to break his beak free from Kris's grasp, "It's Gastrovascular Cavity!"
- Susie threw a piece of charcuterie at Berdly's head.
- Noelle sighed, "A-Anyways, the lining of this cavity secretes digestive enzymes, and it absorbs nutrients, which then diffuse directly to all different parts of the animal!"
- "Yes, my dear Noelle, but you forgot one thing!"
- "Oh deer. ."
- "This digestive tract only has one opening! Which means that food goes in one hole and out the same hole! It's disgusting!"
- Susie snorted, "I dunno, it sounds kinda familiar. Besides Kris seems delighted to learn about this."
- Noelle continued, "But the one we did our project on was the complete digestive tract! That being the main processes in which food is processed."
- "So what, like eating?"
- "Kind of! Theres different ways that animals eat though!"
- "Right, yeah!" Susie smiled, "You could like, drink someone's blood, or do like what those sponges do and just wait for the food to get to you!!"
- "Ah, so you do pay attention in class." Berdly smirked, "I was beginning to think you were a lost cause."
- "Well yeah bird brain, I only pay attention to the cool parts!"
- Noelle's face droppped a little, "You don't think Biology is cool?"
- "I do, I do!" Susie frantically reassured her, "It's just that not everything catches my interest. That's okay though! That's what I got you for."
- Noelle blushed and Berdly and Kris did a simultaneous gagging motion.
- "♡ Get back on topic." Came Kris's hollow toned voice.
- Noelle shivered, but proceeded nonetheless, "Ah right! Anyways, Susie what you described was the first part of food intake, being ingestion! The way these guys go is typically through Suspension feeding, which is what those sponges do, Fluid feeding, like mosquitoes or vampire bats, bulk feeding, that's what we do, and substrate feeding, which is what caterpillars do!"
- "What's substrate feeding?"
- "Oh, that's when an animal eats directly through a food source. For instance a caterpillar doesn't eat off the leaf its on, but ight through it!"
- "Ohh, I see, I see. But wait, don't we have our neighbors that digest their food before eating it?"
- "Hm? I'm not sure what you mean."
- Berdley, however, did. "Oh yes, you mean Patrick Star, don't you? That fellow and his whole family are so weird when eating it's why my mom doesn't invite them to cookouts anymore. They evert their stomach out of their body through their mouth and onto it's food and then when they get their weird digestive juices all over it, they absorb their food whole!!!"
- "Oh, wow..."
- "And I thought humans were weird..." Kris nodded in agreement, human were weird.
- "Yes, well, let's get back on topic, shall we?" Noelle flattened her ears, "Our next step is Digestion, and it's a pretty important one too. Susie can you tell me why we chew food?"
- "Uh, so that we can actually eat it?"
- "Yes, good job Susie!!!" Noelle and Susie beamed at each other, "It's both that and chemical digestion, which breaks up the chemical bonds of your food by adding H2O."
- "I've heard of that.. Enzymatic Hydrolysis, right?" Susie smiled when Noelle nodded.
- "A good part of digestion is how good the jaw structure is. Like uhh," Noelle grasped for an example, "Take you, Susie!"
- Susie pointed to herself, "ME???"
- "Yes! You have a very large jaw and sharp canines to boot, so you are able to chew, rip, and tear your food into small pieces really easy!" Noelle was getting flustered just thinking about it, "aheh. . but there are also jawless animals, in which case their diet is limited to the size of their esophagus."
- "What jawless animals even are there?" Susie pondered.
- Berdley looked at a nonexistant camera, "Look chat, she doesn't even know what Hagfish and Lampreys are, how sad and unfortunate!"
- Kris and Susie shared a look, both knowing what the other was thinking, "What the hell is he looking at?"
- Noelle sighed, "Oh, Berdly just, does this sometimes..."
- "Uh, well if you say so. . ." Susie shook her head in disappontment. She both expected and didn't expect this from the bluebird, "Was there anything else you worked on? Because I think me and Kris are golden now!"
- "Oh yeah! There are a few more things! First is Absorption, that's when the digested nutrient enter into the rest of the body, which are absorbed into nutrients! These then go around to the circulatory system. Any further absorption can happen in the large intestine, which will mainly be water and metabolic waste products."
- "Next are adaptations of the digestive system! All of these are differences you see in everyday animals and monsters! For instance, carnivores and herbivorse have different jaw structures, herbivores have longer portions of a digestive tract (for fermentation and water reabsorption of course), avians, crocs, and earthworms have seperate stomachs like a Crop, PV, and Gizzard."
- "Quite right, Noelle! I have all three. The Crop is used to store food for later digestion or regurgitation" Berdley elaborated and ignored the 'gross' that Susie threw his way, "the PV which secretes my acids and digestive enzymes, and my gizzard, which grinds up food with swallowed pebbles."
- "Yep, that's right Berdly." Noelle gave a tired smile. "I'm pretty sure that's everything we have for our project, so you should have a good grasp on what to discuss."
- "Awesome, thanks Noelle! And you too berdly (I guess)." Susie gave a bright smile, "Come on Kris, we gotta go get us a computer and type this all out!"
- "Oh, wait!" Noelle called out, to which Susie stopped in her tracks, while Kris only looked behind them. "Uh. . you know that's only a small portion of your project right? You still need the circulatory system, the respiratory system, the for an fuction of animals, and animal diversity & evolution!"
- Susie smirked, "Then we'll ask around! Shouldn't be too hard, right Kris?"
- Kris stared at Susie knowingly.
- "See?" Susie grabbed Kris and threw them over her shoulder, "We got this! See you later, twerps, we gotta project to finish!"
- Susie then slammed the door behind her and took off running, while Kris looked unbothered, flailing about like a sack of potatoes.
- Noelle sighed, "Do you think Susie and Kris are gonna be okay?"
- Berdly scoffed, "It's those two. They'll be fine so long as they don't listen to each other."
- The two stared straight at each other before giving into a realization. Horrified, they ran after the duo, scrambling.
- "WAIT!!!!!!!"