Bulldozears

Antlears just barely survived the end of the Mid-Ultimocene by the skin of their teeth. By 290 million years PE, these animals are still not very diverse, but species which do exist are distinctive, and they include some of the largest living terrestrial molodonts. 

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In the northern swamps of the upperglades lives a beast known for its aggressive nature and incredible strength. Weighing almost a ton, it plods through mud and muck, pushing its way through dense vegetation, and strong enough to knock down small trees. Very territorial, every so often the beast proclaims ownership of its territory with loud, low-pitched bellows, but the wake of fallen trees and destroyed vegetation left behind it is the primary way it makes its presence known. This is the bellicose bulldozear, one of the largest hothouse circuagodonts.

Bulldozears are a family of robust antlears so named for their habit of using their antlers - which could also accurately be described as ears or as arms - to push down vegetation, both to allow them to eat the branches otherwise out of reach, and to clear a path to walk through thickets otherwise inaccessible. Though some bulldozears are still savannah animals, and all evolved from them, the largest species now lives in the thick swamp forests of northern Serinarcta, and belongs to a clade of forest-dwelling species. These bulldozears have gotten over their ancestor's dislike of wetness and now use water to help support their large body sizes, often wallowing in mud and even swimming, as unlike the similarly-built thorngrazers they lack osteoderms and are buoyant enough to float. They feed mainly on plant matter, ripping it down in huge clumps with their antlers so they can then crop it at leisure at head height. These antlers, as in all antlear circuagodonts, are mostly solid bone with a keratinous skin covering, and are powered in these animals by massive muscles in the neck. They provide strong defense against enemies; bulldozears can punch predators, as well as rivals of their own species, with a force of 4,000 pounds, or the equivalent of a car crash at 40 miles per hour. This is enough force to kill a large cygnosaur if the strike is placed against the skull, meaning that even these belligerent giants are inclined to be careful in pushing their luck against this tribbethere which poses a far greater threat than the thorngrazers with which they are more familliar.

The male bellicose bulldozear is brightly colored to be visible to females, which are duller. Though both sexes of this animal are solitary, only males are aggressive against rivals - females are merely avoidant. Males advertise their presence year-round with calls and destruction of trees, leaving a path right to them for receptive females to follow when they want to mate. But females also leave signs when they wish to mate, mainly in the form of scent marks left on tree trunks produced from liquid secretions that dribble out of their ears during their estrus periods. Males follow these signals too, and when multiple trail the same female, they are likely to fight fiercely, throwing punches at each other and locking antlers, trying to push the other over. Occasionally these fights result in the breaking of an antler - a crippling injury, which leaves the loser unable to ever compete for a mate again and significantly handicapped at foraging for food. Such animals seem to know they have lost their chance and tend to lose most of their dimorphic coloring, fading to a female-like coloration, possibly to try and avoid further aggression from other males.

Female bellicose bulldozears give birth to a single calf and raise it for two years. They typically drive it away when their second young is about to be born, and with good reason; bulldozears of this kind are opportunistic omnivores and occasionally eat defenseless animals, like newborn calves. Social bonds are weak between individuals of this species, even related ones, and there is no recognition of kinship except between a mother and her calf, meaning females must treat every other bulldozear as a threat, even their older offspring.

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The savannah bulldozears are the group from which the forest bulldozears originally evolved, but the living representatives do not usually look more primitive, for they have continued to evolve too. Though they are slightly smaller, only reaching a maximum of 1600 pounds, they now typically sport more ornate antlers than their relatives as a result of no space constraints in their more open environment. Males of species such as the beauteous bulldozear are particularly beautiful, with wide, arcing antlers with many points, the underside of which is marked with vibrant splashes of blue, red, black and white. This species has the widest antlers of any member of its genus, which can spread outward some 15 feet. Despite their size, they are just as mobile as the smaller ones of the bellicose bulldozear, and can fold up neatly at the sides of the face, hiding their patterns almost completely - they are also used to cover the face as a bony shield to defend against threats, such as the whip-like tails of gantuans which could easily take out an eye.

Bulldozears of more open environments have to cope with many larger, more aggressive rivals, mainly cygnosaurs, which have already demonstrated a fierce dislike of the distantly related thorngrazers and led to them evolving either faster, to flee these enemies, or more armored to resist them. It is so that these bulldozears, too, must defend themselves. Their wider antlers are used more to slice than to punch, the very long tines being sharp and hooked to slash at attackers from a distance. Unlike forest bulldozears, they are also social, and travel in small groups of one male and several females, so as to better defend themselves and their young from dangers. Unlike in the bellicose bulldozear, adults don't typically pose a threat to calves in this species, which is not generally predatory and eats almost exclusively plants - mainly because meat is simply less available as a food source on the savannah, a much more crowded environment with more competitors. Though females will only actively protect their own young from attackers that single one out, males will defend all members of his herd, and females will cooperate to protect each other indirectly by forming a ring around all of their vulnerable offspring when predators approach the herd.

All bulldozears are adapted to browse, like their ancestors, and their narrow hedge clipper-shaped jaws are not well shaped to cut grass, meaning they feed only on low-growing bushes. They are somewhat destructive feeders, knocking branches off of trees as they forage in order to reach leaves above their head height, but as they don't graze foliage below their own standing height, the damage they do is limited and trees will typically sprout new shoots and continue to grow, unlike when plants were grazed down to the root by the larger thorngrazers of the early hothouse. As a result, bulldozears don't dramatically alter their environment in the way those animals did, causing short-term damage that is likely to recover completely in a few months time. This is further ensured by bulldozears being less common than many contemporary herbivores, as the savannah has a limited availability of low-growing bushes and immature trees to sustain them compared to both the grass that thorngrazers usually feed on and the mature trees that gantuans browse. To avoid depleting food resources, bulldozears are highly nomadic and rarely stay in one place for long.

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High on the plateau of the firmament lives the smallest of the bulldozear circuagodonts, the excavear. Weighing around 250 pounds, excavears are short, robust, and very strong. Their antlers are very mobile at their base but, like all members of this family, have virtually no fine dexterity, the whole structure being supported by solid bone, including the tips of the tines. Excavears are grazers and eat mainly grass, with a messy feeding method involving ripping up sod in chunks, roots and all, and lifting it toward the jaws to be processed dirt and all; in this way, this species is similar to some species of thorngrazer which are not well-represented on the Firmament, due to the steep slopes being hard for those animals to cross. Excavears leave a trail of torn ground and deep furrows where they have fed; though this appears destructive, in moderation this tills the soil, allows other plants to take root, and also provides food to smaller animals which trail the excavear to catch worms and insects exposed by its digging.

A solitary species, excavears don't usually socialize, and except for a mother and her single calf, they may fight if they are forced into close contact. This ensures they tend to space themselves out, and so the damage they do to the grassland is limited. This antlear is one of just a few which is still an avid burrower, despite its size. Using their long antlers as shovels, they scrape out the soil and rocky material of the firmament to create dens in which they sleep, and in which females hide their infants until they are strong enough to leave. These burrows can stretch up to fifty feet deep, and are usually built into south-facing slopes which retain the most warmth. Excavears are aggressive to one another but usually indifferent to smaller animals, so that their large shelters become homes for many other species including small birds and tribbetheres seeking shelter from predators or a safe place to raise their own young.