Slenderbill Bumblebeast

The slenderbill bumblebeast is the closest relative of the bigjaw bumblebeast, and these two species belong to the same genus. Both of them have some adaptations to walk bipedally, but their similarities largely end there. While bigjaws are megafauna hunting behemoths - by gravedigger standards at least - slenderbills are gracile, delicate omnivores, who use their faculative upright posture not as much to chase prey, but to walk through the shallow flooded sogland landscapes without getting their entire bodies wet, and to keep their forearms free so that they can stand motionless and ambush fish, hooking them out of the water with a sudden lunge. But it is an adaptable forager, and this is only a part of her diet, the rest of which it rounds out with many insects, especially ant larvae, and even with water plants, especially the crunchy tubers of certain puffgrasses. By walking upright, it can carry a surplus of small food items back to its den site without dragging it along the ground and leaving as strong of a scent trail. This helps keep away unwanted scavengers, which as a small, solitary animal it is ill-adapted to fight off. 

This species of bumblebeast is not a very fierce animal, but it is an agile one, thanks to its far smaller size of just around 70 lbs. It can outrun its larger cousin and also outmaneuver it when the two meet, which is a good thing, for the bigjaw bumblebeast would kill one if it could catch it. If this still fails, it can also climb well, something its robust relative simply cannot do any longer, and will seek safety atop the many scattered boulders across the soglands, from which these animals often rest to survey their territories.

Slenderbill bumblebeasts are highly intelligent, and are the first hothouse gravediggers to rediscover tool use. It may use a sharp grass reed to probe into holes to find food, especially insects. Social insects may cling to the stick and so be more easily removed from their nest, and it will simply lick them off and repeat many times until it has eaten enough to count for a meal. Both the arms and the beak are used to manipulate this tool, though the mouth is the more dexterous of the two. It may also poke them into narrow burrows made by smaller animals such as crustaceans and even molodonts, occasionally skewering one and being able to pull it out and eat the morsel otherwise out of reach.