RE: heavy metal !!!!!

G'day

>Actually, remaining close to the ground should not be 
>necessary, so long as they remain horizontal.	

It will avoid many of this issues of being heavily armoured (either with
endo or exo skeleton), lifting your centre of gravity up can be a
killer....
though their equivalent of chiropractors may make a killing out of it ;)

>BTW: what would you use for poison on a metal-eating, 
>acid-breathing organism? 

a) Oxygen
b) Radiation?? Thinking more of the effect of EM-like pulse on the rest
of
their working (but bit out of my depth there, so radiation itself may
not be
exactly what I'm after)

>As far as I can tell, there is no reason why a 
>creature with an exoskeleton can't have lungs.  

Then it becomes a problem of growing tubules to the right spots to get
the
"respiratory" material around the body. Endoskeletal armour may be the
most
viable alternative in the long run.

>However, if the Oijuan do have lungs, and a cardiovascular 
>system, they would probably pop. 

Not if their lungs are actually fluid filled. Which is an option in a
heavy
atmosphere enviro anyway to increase efficiency and give extra strength.
The
main reason many deep sea ones do is due to gas bladders etc.

Cheers