Specialized Seedsnatchers

Often considered the most typical molodonts, seedsnatchers are no less evolved than thorngrazers, antlears, or sawjaws, and contain a large amount of morphological variation by the late hothouse 290 MPE. Pictured here are four different clades, each only distantly related to the other.

Clade one is comprised of 1, 2, and 3. These are the ratracers and relatives. These animals, along with many small seedsnatchers, are common rafters. They are specifically ancestrally native to sky island forest peaks, often located along coasts, and occasionally subject to collapse into the sea, meaning they are especially likely to end up on seagoing vegetation rafts that sometimes wash up on other shores.

1. Drummol, an arboreal leaf-eating molodont native to the Trilliontree Islands, slow moving and generally nocturnal. Male drummols rapidly clack their upper teeth against hollow tree trunks and logs to produce a drumming sound that serves to attract females and claim territory against other males. Both sexes have prominent manes of bristly hair which can be lowered or raised at will, depending on mood. Though they arose as a display structure, these hairs are very sharp, barbed, and detach easily; they are not only used for communication but also a functional defense against occasional predators, which the drummol will headbutt if cornered, lodging its bristles in its attacker's face.

2. Common ratracer, a fairly generic molomouse with a varied diet of plants, seeds, insects and occasional small animals. Native to sky island forest summits, these animals are good climbers of both cliffs and trees, but also comfortably on flat terrain; they regularly leave the peaks to disperse to other islands, and so they remain very fast and agile runners on the ground. Subject to heavy predation losses, with little defense besides their agility, ratracers reproduce quickly and often; it is in this respect that they are differentiated from any other: females can become pregnant while still carrying an earlier litter, the two broods being held in separate placentas and overlapping for around half the pregnancy's length. Up to six young may be born at a time, which are relatively large and semi-precocial. They are able to walk and climb shortly after birth, but dependent on food from their mother for around 21 days.

3. Brawlmawg, a very large ratracer species very closely related to, and possibly descended from, the common ratracer. Brawlmawgs are predatory, having evolved very rapidly under island gigantism in the Trilliontrees. Brawlmawgs mostly consume nesting seabirds and tribbats, often swimming to reach them on sandbars and islands not normally inhabited by land predators, filling niche similar to a soghog thorngrazer, but exploiting their much better ability to float and so to traverse open water from one feeding site to another. Their huge jaws easily crush nests full of eggs and pulverize flesh as well as vegetable matter.

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The next clade of related species is comprised of 4. and 7. These include the largest seedsnatchers, and some of the most specialized. They are herbivores, feeding on grasses and low-growing leaves and shoots. Unlike most grazers, early forms of this clade did not lengthen their necks; instead, they fed by pulling up greens with their forelimbs, keeping their head up to watch for predators. They have now become cursorial, fusing three of their fingers into a single hoof-like digit while losing their two outer fingers completely, yet they retain their two inner fingers for dexterity, letting them pluc tidbits of food without ever lowering their heads to graze. These animals are not widespread nor overly successful; two species exist, both of them completely endemic to the Trilliontree Islands, where they face fewer competitors, as there are very few thorngrazers here.

4. Greater handelope, a 4.5 foot tall animal that is strikingly bizarre. With a short, blunt snout and down-angled beak, its face is shaped ideally to always keep an eye out for enemies while quickly plucking food from the ground and filling its mouth. Greater handelopes live in small, cohesive herds for further protection; litter size is unusually small, and just two babies are typical. Though the young are born small, they are able to cling to their mother immediately, and hold on beneath her chest with their finger claws for several weeks, safe from flying enemies, and regularly fed regurgitated food; they remain with their mother for up to six months. Greater handelopes are also capable of browsing, standing on their hind leg briefly to reach up and pull down leafy branches, though this is less common, as unlike grazers, other browsers are well-established competition on the islands they occur on.

7. A diminutive version of 4, the 2-foot tall lesser handelope closely resembles its ancestor just a couple million years ago. Faster and even more wary, they are less gregarious and live only in very loose groups, and prefer to hide in tall grass, which makes up most of their diet, between its leaves and its seeds. Bolting quickly from one patch of cover to another, they combine the behaviors of a small antelope and a rabbit. Young are raised in a nest, rather than carried, and develop quicker than their larger relative, being independent within only one month, when nearly half grown. Both sexes of this species have an unusual purse-like skin fold on their rumps, from which they can erect a crest of tall white hairs quite suddenly, startling an enemy as well as alerting others of their species of danger. This crest is retracted back into a pouch, completely out of sight, when the danger has passed.

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The third clade here includes 5. and 6. The molmos, these arboreal seedsnatchers have lost much of the crushing force of their jaws and now feed on softer diets. Most species favor fruit, but not all.

5. Fangtooth molmo, a nocturnal cat-sized carnivore of the nightforest that evolved to hunt insects with a narrow, snapping jaw, but now also feeds on blood from very large animals, such as cygnosaurs. Their blood-feeding is opportunistic, not required, and originates from a tendency to leap onto passing animals and hunt their skin for other parasites as a source of food. The upper tooth of this molodont has evolved two sharp points, which it uses to bite into the thick hide of the giant skuorcs and produce a wound on which it can feed at leisure. These 'fangs' are actually worn in place by the lower tooth over the animal's first few months of life, as that tooth comes to rest in a notch in the upper tooth. This means only adults can bite into hide effectively to draw blood, but this is no issue, as parental care is prolonged and the young is not independent until well after this notch has developed.

6. Queen molmo, the largest species of molmo, and unusual in general that it is the female which is ornamented rather than the male. Native to the peaks of sky islands in southeast Serinarcta, 35 pound Queen molmos live in pseudo-eusocial matriarchal clans ruled by a single individual who tends to grow larger than the rest and then suppress their hormonal development so that only she reproduces, while the rest aid in caring for her young. Fertile females  - the queens - are aggressive and fight if they meet; they develop bright white manes of fur on the neck and frills along their ears, which make them appear much larger, while subordinate females and males are a dark brown to black with no white pelage at all. Queen molmos are omnivores that favor a fruit diet, like most other species. This species is arboreal but must disperse over the ground to reach new islands to colonize; males do most dispersal and will be welcomed by unrelated females elsewhere, though females will be evicted if they challenge their queen and lose, and face a much harder challenge to find a new place to live, as no other female will accept an unrelated arrival into her clan.

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The fourth clade is made up of 8. and 9. These are the grabbits, narrow-jawed animals with forceps-like teeth, evolved as hunters of insects on the ground. Several species exist in varied habitats across Serinarcta, including:

8. Racingstripe grabbit, a basal species of its clade native to the savannah which dens in burrows it digs out into the soil with its well-formed forelimb claws, and comes out at night to hunt bugs that crawl over the ground, but also still to collect scattered seeds, occasional fruit, and small tubers it digs from the soil. The jaw is narrow compared to other seedsnatchers, but robust for a grabbit; it has little crushing power, and its bite is weak, suited to pick up small food morsels but not to pulverize them. Food is thus swallowed mostly whole, and to aid in its digestion, grabbits swallow small stones as gastroliths as many birds do. Racingstripe grabbits are solitary and rarely interact; females give birth to four to six small, undeveloped young underground and nurture them for around 8 weeks.

9. Golden grabbit, a large, derived species that is exclusively carnivorous, this animal is endemic to the hyperborean raindesert and shows several adaptations to favor its survival there. This animal's ears are massive and dense with blood vessels, serving to cool it in the hothouse age's hottest biome, where sunlight reflecting up from the light sand night and day during the polar summer can bring daytime temperatures as high as 110 degrees. Like a mix and match animal somewhere between a dog, a rabbit, and a sandpiper, these jackal-sized molodonts feed on small animals that they find scurrying on or just beneath the sand. Their big ears also serve them well to pick up faint noises of animals digging under the surface, which they may catch with a sudden pounce, sticking their recumbent teeth into the dunes and coming up with some wriggling creature in their grasp. Because the dunes provide no stability to build permanent burrows, golden grabbits have smaller feet and claws than their relative and are more cursorial, traveling long distances in search of food. Diurnal by summer, they must hunt by night during the polar winter.