Creature Seed: Pseudo-Hair.

Pseudo-Hair

This particular creature is waiting for us on the first planet we find whose life has a common ancestor with ours (so if panspermia isn’t real, don’t worry about it).  It’s an… interesting parasite: as you might guess, it infests a human’s hair follicles, effectively replacing a host’s hair.  The effect looks rather like normal human hair, except for the random wild color shifts and the way that Pseudo-Hair moves independently.  You can cut Pseudo-Hair without pain… to yourself; the organism itself doesn’t like it very much, although it won’t take lasting harm unless you do the equivalent of a depilatory.

Fortunately for humans, the stuff is easy to remove – growing your old hair back may be problematical – and doesn’t really cause a strain on human bodies.  In fact, some spacers deliberately get infected with it; people with Pseudo-Hair typically have less of an allergic reaction to a new planetary ecosystem. Plus, the random color shifts and hair movement both appeal to some people.

PS: No. No, it’s not just the hair on your scalp.  But that is a subject that is rather… delicate.