Lutrine Skueasel

A hunter of stream, swamp, and shore, the lutrine skueasel resembles much earlier ancestors, but now exhibits an increase in social complexity.

The lutrine skueasel is a semi-aquatic skuorc with a very wide range over Serinaustra's wetland habitats and coastal areas, from the seashore through the saltswamp, and even reaching into the polar depths of the longdark swamp. With a heavy paddle-like tail, short legs and webbed feet, its shape is very similar to the ancestral skuorc of the ice age from which all skueasels descend. Its markings however betray a much closer relation to the banded skueasel, a terrestrial species, and the swimming adaptations of the lutrine skueasel are in fact secondarily acquired with the common ancestor of both animals being mostly terrestrial. Indeed, despite these differences, both skueasels are classified in the same genus and can even interbreed, albeit rarely and with little hybrid fertility. Both animals are attractively marked with sleek coats of short orange-brown plumage and dark bands, with the lutrine skueasel also sporting a dark mask over its eyes. The lutrine is almost twice as heavy, however, and the two have very different habitat preferences that limit how often they meet. 

While banded skueasels hunt prey such as murds in the undergrowth of upland forests, their relative stalks shorelines for waterbirds and catches fish underwater. It is robust and sturdy, able to occasionally tackle prey larger than itself including young sealumps, particularly when associating with other individuals and working as a loosely coordinated mob. In this respect, it is much more social than most skueasels and other" primitive" skuorcs, though these aggregations break up when the food is eaten and go their own ways. Individuals dig out solitary dens in riverbanks with an underwater access hole in which to sleep; females give birth in these dens and then abandon them to make a new one for themselves, providing their precocial newborns with a safe hiding place when they are at their most vulnerable. Unlike many skuorcs including the banded skueasel, they are not regularly cannibalistic, with juveniles emitting a sharp and distinctive distress cry if threatened by an aggressive adult that signifies their status as a fellow member of their species, which usually causes the adult to leave them alone.