Skungarus of the Savannah

The giant gantuan skuorcs of the grasslands influence the lives of everything else which lives there, plant and animal, as ecosystem engineers. For some, relationships have evolved between them and other species that are very unexpected - and sometimes somewhat gross.

Blue dungaroos, a large skungaru species, have adapted to use cygnosaurs and their relatives as a source of food, but not in the way that the parasites have. Weighing as much as 220 pounds, they are fast animals, moving with kangaroo-like bounding at speeds of up to 35 miles per hour, and often gathering in herds of hundreds. But it is not grass that this animal grazes - at least not directly. These gregarious, social skuorcs spend most of their time in proximity to herds of gantuans, and they feed on the droppings of these larger animals, a habit shared with the other members of their genus, and earning them their common names. Gantuans are not efficient feeders on plants; they evolved rapidly from small, much more carnivorous animals in the early hothouse, and have never developed a specialized gut, compensating by eating massive quantities of plants nearly continuously. This means that much of their diet passes through them only partially digested, and in immense quantities. Repulsive to us in principle, as far as droppings go, cygnosaurs' wastes are mostly semi-fresh plant material and so are not especially offensive in smell. And to the blue dungaroo, they present a smorgasbord of opportunity. Their droppings represent a ready supply of plant material, pre-chewed and including types of forage otherwise inaccessible to these ground-dwelling animals. Cygnosaurs are indiscriminate feeders, taking any plants in large gobbling bites, and as a result what comes out the other end can also include abundant undigested seeds, their hard outer coverings partly broken down, leaving them manageable to be cracked by the relatively weak beaks of the skungarus. Cygnosaur dung is so abundant that the dungaroo eats little else, though it doesn't favor the fresh deposits nearly as much as those which have aged long enough to be colonized by insect larvae - giving it an additional nutritional boost. Adults are entirely featherless, which surely aids in keeping their bodies clean as they pick through their food source. Chicks, though, are born with fuzzy down plumage which persists for nearly a year; for them, the benefit of staying warm before their bodies are big enough to easily maintain their body temps must outweigh getting dirty, and further, their diet at earlier ages is dominated more by the bugs that are attracted to the dung than the dung itself.

The blue dungaroo relies on the cygnosaur not just for food but for shelter, too. Dashing under the immense, slow-moving bodies of the gantuans, they avoid aerial predators as well as most ground-living ones which do not wish to face the ire of the powerful and aggressive animals. Too fast to generally catch, and too small to pose a threat, gantuans leave the skungarus mostly alone, and are benefited by their presence in their own way: as their waste is processed through the digestive system of this foul-mouthed skuorc, most of the gantuans' gut parasites are killed, as the dungaroo's body temperature runs hotter and its stomach acids are far stronger. These traits have evolved because skungarus without them would not survive as long eating such a diet, but now it means that the dungaroo effectively sterilizes the landscape of diseases, and keeps it a healthier place for the giants to live. 

~~~

Blue dungaroos may be near the size limit for animals to efficiently travel with leaping movements, and so most species are smaller than 200 pounds, often significantly - the lighter they are, the less energy they need to use to hop. The kangglider is a spectacular species of skungaru that has evolved perhaps the most energy-efficient terrestrial locomotion of any animal that has lived. It has combined the kangaroo-like leaping movement of its ancestor, in which energy is stored between each push of the legs and relies on little muscular exertion, with a lightweight avian frame, to become one of the strangest gliders in all of life's history. It is a huge, (for a glider) seven foot long animal, and the biggest of any animal to evolve to glide without a (recently) flying ancestor. It lives on open grasslands and takes advantage of the high speed it can attain while bounding over them - up to 50 miles per hour - to spread its arms at the height of its jump, and soar on extended flaps of skin as high as thirty feet above the ground, for up to 450 feet in favorable tailwinds. The kangglider is effectively a living kite attached to a spring, able to rest and let the wind carry it once it reaches its top speed and so escape enemies or travel in search of food on a fraction of the energy of other animals. When it loses speed and glides down to the ground, it falls back into its hopping gait for a few cycles and repeats the process. Even in windless conditions, the kangglider can more than double the distance of each leap compared to if it didnt have patagia, and overall has to hop an average of just 20% as often to move the same distance as other skungarus of similar mass.

Kanggliders stand up to four and a half feet upright, but weigh only about 30 pounds, with many hollow bones and abundant air sacs lowering their weight. Their legs however are strongly-muscled to support long-distance leaping, and the bones here solid throughout and so more resistant to damage with the repeated shock of landing.

Kanggliders live in gregarious flocks, converging upon flushes of short green grass and herbs to eat, often migrating a few days behind low-grazing armored thorngrazers to feed on the new leaves that sprout after their grazing. In addition to these soft plants they catch insects, feed on fallen seeds, and occasionally predate low-flying birds. Kanggliders are an exceptionally socially-complex skuorc, forming life-long monogamous pair bonds that are established with elegant leaping rituals in which they spread their wings and leap in circles; sexes are mostly similar, with the membranes of the male a bright orange and the female a soft yellow. Just one large chick is born once a year, one of the lowest reproductive rates of any skuorc, but it is actively cared for by their parents. The male and female both defend their young from predators and scratch up food for them, though the chicks can catch it on their own without being fed directly. Young kanggliders can keep up with adults from birth, with proportionally extremely long legs and fully-developed patagia, but they have less endurance. They may cling to the back of the adult when very young, and so be carried along, even as the adults glide. 

~~~

Another skungaru of the southern grasslands is the whiptip. This species is less flighty than the kangglider, both figuratively and literally; it is a sturdier creature that lives life with its feet firmly on the ground, and one that will defend itself before running from a foe. It is heavier, approaching 160 lbs, and though the blue dungaroo is even bigger and still manages to leap, the whiptip has lost some of its muscular specializations as it has grown in size, so that  it does not typically hop any longer, but rather usually walks or runs. Its tail has become narrow and extraordinarily elongated, over twice the length of the rest of its body. It is now used like a whip to lash predators, the thin tip of the tail swinging coiling in a loop and ultimately striking outward at an incredible 780 miles per hour - faster than the speed of sound, and so producing a loud crack as it briefly breaks the sound barrier. The air isn't the only thing that cracks when this tail strikes it; it is more than sufficient to break the bones in a sawjaw's face. It does not break itself on contact because the distal third of the tail lacks bones, being composed of flexible cartilage that deforms without fracturing on impact. Like a miniature version of the similar tails of the distantly related gantuans, the whiptip has experienced a similar shift in personality to those irritable giants, becoming belligerent and highly confident in their skills to the point that they do not react as predators would expect them to. While other skungarus bolt and flee when a carnivore approaches out of the grass, small herds of whiptips stand and look at their enemies quizzically, almost goading them to try their luck. The confident defiance is an effective defense in and of itself - anything that can act so brave must be dangerous, and so the whiptip can often bluff its way to safety even without having to demonstrate its very real weapon. If push does come to shove, however, they will form a ring formation around their young and face their tails outward, forming a barricade of slashing, cracking whips that few will dare enter. Why the whiptip has abandoned hopping for running is likely due to its specialized tail. Though the whiptip now might not readily run from danger, its ancestors would have still done so until they developed the modern whip-like tail, and it would have been easier to lash out with their tails to hit pursuers while fleeing at a run, whereas trying to do so while leaping up and down would more severely affect their balance. 

Whiptips have converged in another way with the cygnosaurs; they have developed a new taste for red meat. Most skungaroos in its sub-clade eat a mostly plant diet. They lack sharp beaks or strong jaws to kill more than the smallest animal prey, so it is by necessity. The whiptip, though, has evolved a killing weapon, and now puts it to offensive use. Yet while gantuans remain dim-witted despite adding meat to their diets, killing only through easy opportunity and brute force, whiptips are getting smarter. They have learned to hunt with calculating skill, accurately using their tails to swat small birds out of the air, and to catch larger ones such as the sparrowgulls or snoots that follow the larger herd animals by surprise. As they pick through the grass with their beaks down, they keep a close eye on birds following behind. When they are least expecting, the whiptip strikes them across the head and stuns them, allowing them to snatch them up in their claws, pull them apart, and eat them. It is almost too easy - prey doesn't recognize them as a threat until it is too late, for they do not hunt like other hunters. They never stalk their victims, but let them come to them. They always seem disinterested until their tails strike out, so long as to be almost operating independent of their bodies, and going undetected by their victims as they sneak up and make their mark. The evolution of the whiptip from a mostly herbivorous one, to one which now eats up to 60% flesh, has occurred so quickly that the animal exhibits few obvious physical adaptations for this new diet. Its beak is even noticeably blunt, rounded with fine serrations to crop grass. But because it kills with its tail, and opens carcasses with its hand claws, there has been no strong selective pressure to change. There may even be a selective pressure not to. After all, if it looked more like a predator, its prey might learn to avoid it. One of the only significant anatomical differences between this species and its ancestor are its stronger arms. Unlike many skungarus, the whiptip has arm and leg proportions that leave it capable of walking on all fours. The real reason for the longer arms, though, isn't for locomotion. It is because they are better able to pick up and run away with carcasses - or occasionally, to sneakily snatch up the babies of other, smaller skungarus when their backs are turned. Young whiptips remain with their mothers longer than most, learning different skills they will use to attain food as adults.

It might be shifty and sneaky, but in the late hothouse, in the final hours of the world's last relatively peaceful era, this sort of adaptability in behavior and diet will only do it favors in the times soon to come.

~~~

There is another skungaru that demonstrates clever behavior beyond which is expected among the skuorcs - but in its case, it is more innate than learned. A species of skungaru closer related to the northern ticklemonster than to any other savannah lineage it now lives with, the jackanape is a larger animal common across less northerly latitudes and in more open wooded environments. Weighing up to sixty pounds, they stand over 30 inches high and can stretch about six feet in length, much of this a long tail. It is more attractive than most animals related to it, with bright colors, striking markings, and somewhat thicker pelage that covers much of the body. Its feathering is longest on the back, but it retains featherless scaly legs, face, and tail, save for the tuft at the end. 

The jackanape is remarkable among skuorcs for its tool use. These animals feed on a variety of hard to access plant and animal food sources. Eggs are perhaps the most notorious, and a favorite meal - the jackanape will stalk brooding birds for hours or even days and wait for the moment they get up, then take as many eggs as they can hold, and run away to crack them open out of sight with a rock. But they also feed on tree nuts, snails, and the larvae inside ant nests by smashing them open in this way.  Their forearms are better suited to hold objects than any other birds, and the jackanape's shoulders are muscular, letting it lift rocks weighing up to fifteen pounds, and use them to smash open protected food sources so it can access the food within. The jackanape instinctively picks up rocks - pebbles at first - and drops them on food, without social learning, and does so from infancy, but takes up to two years to competently wield them in the most functional way. Juveniles hunt insects and small prey, using tools only supplementarily at first, but grown adults use them nearly exclusively. In addition to opening hard foods, they may use rocks as a weapon to kill small animals and rarely, even those as large as thorngrazer calves, by hitting them over the head.

Despite its use of tools, the jackanape is not especially intelligent relative to other skungarus, especially the whiptip which can hunt with adaptable behavior. They cannot learn skillful rock-smashing by watching another individual, but must learn on their own through trial and error; this reflects their nature as a truly solitary animal without parental care or strong social bonding. Yet while young animals are quite poor at aiming their throws and often miss their targets, adults can develop very refined dexterity and can use these tools in different ways for varying prey. Food like nuts and shellfish is best positioned against a flat, heavier stone before striking - like an anvil - and only then crushed with a second smaller one - like a hammer, while ant nests that cannot be moved are attacked with just the hammer. Individuals will carry around an ideally shaped stone wherever they go, allowing them to hunt outside environments where they are readily available, and these stones may also be stolen or taken by another when the original owner dies. In this way, some of these stone hammers may travel thousands of miles over many generations, and become heavily worn until they take on a distinctive blunted striking edge and even a handle-like shape, where many animals' hands and claws have worn grooves on their top sides.

Brightly colored male jackanapes impress drabber females by bringing them food, pre-opened. Many skuorcs only interact socially when the female is receptive to reproduce, but not the jackanape. Females always encourage the advances of males, even when not in breeding condition, in order to gain food without any effort on her own part. In this way, the sly females may only have to spend half the time foraging as males do. She will let most of them mate with her afterward, and gives no indication she isn't currently receptive to be fertilized, letting each male think he will father her offspring. When the time actually comes, however, she will only accept the most colorful and fittest males when she is actually looking to reproduce. When that time comes, his appearance and the intensity of his blue and orange hues is much more important to her than any gifts he may bring. These rarer, oldest, strongest males don't need to spent time or energy collecting extra food to mate like the smaller ones do, having already done that earlier in their lives.