Scamps
The Flourishing Forms of Forest Foxtrotters
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290 million years PE, Serinaustra's continent-spanning tropical forests are inhabited by a wide range of tree-climbing foxtrotters known as the scamps. Ancestrally lemur-like, this group of animals evolved from small, generalized animals related to the brushtrotters of 275 MPE. Fifteen million years of evolutionary radiation has split them up into many distinct families, each distinct from the other. Some resemble monkeys, others bring to mind birds, and some even resemble frogs. Far from just the prey of the longdark swamp's top predators - though many certainly fall into this role - the scamps are one of the southern foxtrotters' most successful living lineages.
Treelings are small, marmoset-like scamps of the late hothouse which weigh just a couple of pounds and generally live high in the canopy of northern serinaustran forests, most often at latitudes where there is no polar night, for most - but not all - species are diurnal. They are relatives of the bubblerumblers; both groups are mostly carnivorous, though treelings eat some tree sap and fruit, and have inflatable gular pouches used by males to amplify their calls, though that of the treelings is covered in fur. Treelings are all very sexually dimorphic and live in harem structures led by one male which is always more colorful. The male crested treeling is distinctive for his very long hair that runs down his back like a cloak, and for the erect bristly crest of red hair on the back of his head in addition to the bare blue and green skin around his eyes and nose. Females are duller and lack the long hair used by males in display, though still sport attractively banded brown and white pelage.
Crested treelings feed mostly on wood-boring insects and have a specialized tusk-like lower tooth at the distal tip of their lower jaws which they use like a dagger to cut and pry up bark to find their food. The rest of their teeth are either sharp pegs to hold onto and puncture squirming prey or shearing molars to break into pieces, though these molars are much blunter than in other canitheres and more adapted to crush hard exoskeletons than to slice. They are nimble and run along branches like squirrels, relying on their lightweight bodies to shelter on very thin branches most predators cannot follow them on to.
Like most arboreal foxtrotters, baby treelings ride on their mothers' backs, as well as those of their older siblings, which learn parenting skills in the process. Very rarely young will also be attended by the troop's dominant male, though usually not for long as he has more important matters to attend in defending the group from rivals. Males proclaim rights over territories vocally, as in bubblerumblers, but their calls are higher pitched and more melodic, with varied and complex rising and falling sequences of notes which are learned from their fathers and sometimes modified slightly by adolescent males, leading to identifiable family lineages based on the structures of their calls, but also unique sounds to every individual.
The bubblerumbler is a very derived species of scamp, about as big as a rabbit and entirely carnivorous, with limbs and spindly fingers well-adapted to grasp insects and birds, eggs and snails and pretty much anything else meaty that they can find in the treetops of the longdark swamp's forests. Though most scamps are social, the bubblerumbler is normally a solitary, territorial hunter and intolerant of competitors. This changes only during the mating season, which occurs near the end of the longdark winter when the sun just begins to peer over the horizon and twilight begins. Males assemble themselves in large aggregations and begin to display, inflating a massive bubble-shaped gular pouch below their chins and producing surprisingly deep, loud booming calls which can be heard over a mile away. The throat sac of some males may be as large as their entire bodies, and is faintly blue but appears white in the dark - the brightest color for visibility in low-light conditions. The mating season lasts just two weeks, during which time the males sing continuously and barely even feed themselves, to the point that many succumb shortly after. For the most successful, loudest and biggest males, their death at least comes with assurance that they have passed on their genes. Yet as with all animals which breed at leks, where the fitness of every male is immediately compared to all others by potential mates, the vast majority of males do not get to mate at all, with most offspring in a group sired by just a few of the most attractive males.
This has led to the evolution of a cryptic female-mimicking male phenotype which does not develop a gular pouch or the ability to call. Allowed to move freely between male territories in the gathering, he blends into the female crowd, and sneakily pairs from the side with females as they crouch down for more attractive males on the opposite side, not paying attention to him. The job is done quickly, and he usually escapes after, before she notices she did not pair with who she thought she did. Such males, as they do not devote nearly as much resources to mating, usually live longer than others. Yet there is a trade-off - when there are more than just a few such individuals in one place, females grow wise to their tricks and will not allow them anywhere near. This morph can thus only persist at very low population levels, about one in two hundred males.
Firefoxes are a small family of aberrant scamps of the middle hothouse 290 million years PE that are significantly herbivorous, with several unique adaptations for such a diet that is rare among foxtrotters. They are named for the generally red to golden fur color of all species. With just six species - two of them each being the only one in their genus - they are not especially successful, but are diverse and have a range across a vast size range. The smallest can weigh as little as 15 lbs, while the middle three, closely related, top off between 80 and 150 lbs - already very heavy for an arboreal animal. The last species though is much bigger still - this would be the greater firefox, the most derived firefox species of all, which stands up to eight feet high and weighs 300-450 lbs. It is so very large - an adaptation to maximize its efficiency in digesting a plant-based diet - that it has had to return to a life upon the ground and is no longer arboreal at all.
The greater firefox feeds to some extent on a variety of plants, and plant matter in general makes up 98% of its diet, more than any other canithere. Its teeth are adapted to this, with its molars blunt and built for crushing and grinding with no shearing surfaces, while its other teeth are peg-like and designed to shear leaves off of twigs and stalks. The claws are large and useful to dig up roots and to pull down leafy branches from a height of up to eleven feet when balanced upright upon their large hind leg, so that even though adults are too bulky to readily climb, they are still able to browse. Roughly 60% of the diet is made up of just one type of plant, however. Polepoa (Saccharopolus sp, literally "sugar-pole") is a genus of tall cane-forming puffgrass which grows in dense bamboo-like stands in swampy areas and is its primary food source.
Though these very tall grasses, which can reach past 100 feet in height, resemble bamboo they are much more nutritious, as they grow in a fertile, a warm environment fueled by the long summer days near the south pole. The hard stalks have a soft and energy-rich interior once the outer shell is broken through. Polepoa grows clonally from huge underground rhizomes, and adult plants, which may cover an acre or more of land through their offshoots and underground roots, produce abundant sugars in the high carbon dioxide atmosphere. The plant stores this extra energy as large amount of sucrose in its sap for the purpose of fueling rapid growth of new stalks from the rhizome; polepoa canes in old, established colonies are the fastest growing land plant ever known to exist, able to erupt from the ground in the morning and reach over six feet high and four inches across by evening, due to these huge stores of energy. The greater firefox favors these young canes, which are still soft and watery and sweet as sugar, but will consume all parts of the plant at all of its life stages, using their molars to crack the stalks and access the moist and nutritious interior.
Greater firefoxes have some adaptations in common with Earth pandas, including a wrist projection that assists in holding stalks without a thumb. But unlike the panda's bamboo diet, polepoa is a high-energy food comparable to fruit, and it is not difficult to digest. This has allowed the firefox to remain active and relatively intelligent and to still live in social groups without competing for limited resources. The basis of their social structure is troops led by single males, sometimes with lower-ranking subordinate males related to the dominant one, and containing many females and their young. Other males live in bachelor groups until they can form a harem of their own.
Though foxtrotters cannot produce anything equivalent to milk as pandas must do to transform their coarse diet into nutrients usable to their babies, polepoa is soft and nutritious enough to be eaten as-is even by newborn firefoxes, who take it pre-chewed from their mothers before their teeth erupt. Yet though it is a good source of energy, this plant lacks substantial protein for growth in its stalks as well as its roots. Greater firefoxes thus time their mating season to the annual flowering cycle of the plant, so that their babies are born just as they set seed. Polepoa seed is nutrient-dense and contains most of what a young firefox needs to grow, and adults, especially the bigger males, begin knocking down the canes to get to the seed pannicles born at the very top of them a few weeks before they dry and fall to the forest floor on their own, at which time they will have already been picked through by birds and other animals. Though this green seed is slightly lower in calories overall, it has a higher percentage of protein to sugars and so is more nutritious for the growth of their offspring than mature seed would be, as well as being easier for them to eat. Stuffing it in their mouths by the handful, it takes 2,500 seeds to weigh a single pound, but fortunately there are billions of seeds during the fruiting season, for polepoa is adapted to flood all its seed-predators with such excess that some will surely sprout and grow.
Though they are overwhelmingly herbivorous, greater firefoxes consume insects incidentally as they browse. Among animal foods they seek out directly, they are known to chew bones for minerals which are sparse in their diet, and to occasionally eat water snails. Their sugary diet, combined with the roughness of cracking open the harder outer stem tissues all day, would quickly rot the teeth of mammals, yet as tribbetheres, these foxtrotters do not have to worry about that. Their teeth replace themselves twice-annually, with new ones pushing out the old continuously throughout life before they weaken enough to begin to decompose.
Lesser firefoxes, though distantly related to the huge, terrestrial greater firefox, represent an earlier evolutionary stage. They are still quite small creatures weighing less than 20 pounds in most cases, which spend their entire lives in the forest canopy without touching earth. They are brachiators, with flexible shoulder joints that let them raise their arms vertical over their heads to swing from branches at a high speed. Greater firefoxes were brachiators once too, but are now too heavy as adults to climb trees. With long grasping fingers and three bird-like talons on their hind leg, these scamps have excellent dexterity to grasp, and rarely miss their mark.
Firefoxes, which are much more herbivorous than most foxtrotters, all have specialized grinding molars that no longer slice and shear but simply pulverize, letting them chew leaves and other plant matter before swallowing and improve their nutrient uptake. The lesser firefox still has eight sharp canine-like teeth, while the greater firefox has transformed all of its sharp biting teeth into blunt, peg-like ones that strip leaves. This species still uses these fangs to catch small birds to supplement its diet, but it eats over 80% fruit, seed, and leaves. Its single incisor on both jaws is broad and used to chisel into the shells of seeds and to quickly cut thin green branches which it uses to make nightly roosting nests.
About 50% of the lesser firefox's diet is green leafy matter, but only the newest and softest growth of the trees will suit this firefox's picky palette - it rejects anything old and coarse in its salad, for its stomach is not specialized like its relatives to break down tougher vegetables. When very small the young are fed mostly on pre-chewed seeds and nuts, which are rich in nutrients and high in calories; the slurry regurgitated by the parents after eating these foods is nutritionally similar to mammalian milk.
Lesser firefoxes live in social groups based around a dominant mating pair and their young, which take several years to gain independence, but unrelated animals may join. It is not rare for two females to share one male, especially sisters, and to also share a social rank and raise their young together, though lower-ranking females and males are suppressed and do not reproduce in such a clan, expected to help care for the young of the dominant ones. No territories exist except small, moveable personal space bubbles around each individual as they move throughout the forest to forage, in which only a mate or relative is allowed and others will be chased away. Both sexes look alike, without external differences, but juveniles have black coats with white tails - a social signal that gives the kits much more leeway than adults get, even among strange adults, which understand the striking coat color difference to mean they are only babies, and not yet fully aware of how to behave. Once their coats turn orange around 18 months of age, they are expected to act their age and will no longer be tolerated by individuals outside their own social group at common feeding sights.
The diets of different scamps vary widely. Firefoxes may be herbivores, but others hunt insects or small animals, many seek the rich fruit that forms on the highest twigs, and some even pollinate the trees as they sip their nectar. Dryads, however, tend to have a unique favorite food in tree sap, which they access by trailing scrabblegrabbers, more specialized birds that chew holes for their own consumption of this sugary treat, or by chiseling their own, cruder taps into the bark with their sharp incisors.
The tiny, big-eyed dryad is the most basal treeling, lacking colorful ornamentation common in other species, such as the one seen above. It is one of the only nocturnal treelings, and getting to this energy-rich food source can provide just the boost they need to survive the long dark winter and the seasonal decrease in the forest's productivity. Yet the dryad lacks the especially large chiseling teeth of more derived forms, leaving it unable to chew holes into the bark of the trunk. To get its sap fix, this rat-sized animal may steal from other animals, but on its own can only chew up the young twigs of the trees with its molars, pulverizing them to suck out the fluids and then spitting out the pulp. It thus has, by necessity, a more insect-based diet overall than its relatives do, and only eats sap as a supplement to its hunting. Though weighing only ten ounces the dryad is fierce and competent, jumping from branch to branch at high speeds to corner the many crickets, beetles, and other bugs that emerge in the winter time. It chews up small ones whole, but has a strange manner of feeding on the biggest ones. Coming across some nocturnal insects that grow heavier than itself and defend with sturdy chitin armor, it cannot simply kill them like it can smaller prey. But by targeting the gaps between the joints of their exoskeletons with needle-like canines, it can bleed them of haemolymph, the blood-like circulatory fluid of arthropods - and parasitize them by licking up the liquid as it drips from the wounds. By capitalizing on a different liquid food sources than its relatives do, the dryad has found a novel way to sustain itself through the winter.
Dryads are very gregarious and share tree hole dens with as many as ten close friends. These foxtrotters have the unique ability to enter a dormant, hibernation-like state - and yet do so not in the winter when might be expected, but to survive the middle of summer, when an increased number of visiting predators can easily spot them in the light. Well-fed from a winter of bug-biting and sap-sipping, dryads may sleep for weeks at a time in their safe dens in the sunlit time of year and so greatly reduce their overall risk of predation.
The last scamp we meet today is probably the most spectacular, for it is the second vertebrate upon Serina - not counting the canary, which came to this world with the ability - to evolve powered flight, after the tribbats did so in the Pangeacene. A tree-hopping insectivore, it has evolved more elongated, interconnected, insect-catching bristles on its fingers to transform a net into an airfoil. Each of its fingers, except for its innermost clawed digit, is now lined with stiff hairs that are hooked along their edges, coming together like velcro to hold the structure in shape. Each of the six flight fingers of this blackbird-sized flittering flutterfox is now structured similarly to a bird's feather. The fourth finger on each wing attaches to a skin membrane 3/5ths of the way own its length. Lacking a tail, more bristle-like hairs zip together on the lower back to connect both wings above the body and produce a complete flight surface and a crude approximation of a tail fan to assist in landing and maneuvering, while the hind leg with opposing claws folds up beneath the body in flight.
Very social flittering flutterfoxes live in close-knit family groups that cooperate to forage and to raise their young. They still hunt insects as their ancestors did, living in treetops and pouncing on their prey. But now even winged insects cannot escape, as they are pursued with frantic flurrying flights out of the branches, caught mid-air with the wings and pulled into the jaws. The little animal starts to free-fall as it swallows, only to spread its wings and catch its fall, circling back around and flapping upward into the safety of the trees, again and again. This is the most primitive flutterfox now alive, and is very similar to the form from which some thirty other species already descend, each of which seems to only improve on the skill of that before it in conquering the air. Speciation is rapidly occurring, for there is perhaps no way to faster become isolated from the rest of your kind than to take flight and cross the wide world above all obstacles and carried by the winds. Truly volant flutterfoxes with tightly interconnected wing bristles suitable for powered flight appeared some two million years ago. They have since spread across the world, the only scamps to escape Serinaustra's shores, crossing the ocean to find new homes in the north. Most species are still broadly alike in their diets and behavior, for very little time separates them from one another, but already most differ greatly in color. A few are more divergent, feeding more on fruit or seeds and experimenting with other diets. At least one favors nectar, and one even hunts fish. Longer time apart will cement these new species further as distinct lineages, as occasional interbreeding of different forms becomes increasingly rare in the time to come.
Yet in the millions of years to come, the green, wet world the flutterfox now knows will change. The more the varied populations of this new and exciting animal can adapt to make use of new food sources, the better the odds that some will weather the changes. Yet out of all the scamps, thanks to their great freedom of mobility, their odds are now the best to survive what it to come.
Phylogeny of the Scamps and Their Relatives
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