The Firstling

The beginning of a new species is something that can only very rarely be known. 

290 Million Years Post-Establishment

On the island continent of Ansteva, within the lush green glade of a tropical forest, strident songeese graze in a flock of fifty or so. The males of these pteese, with bright sky-blue plumage, stand just a little taller than the slate-gray females - neither even reaches knee height. Both have white head feathers, but only those of the male grow forwards toward the bill to form a rounded half-moon shaped crest. With short beaks, they pick through the grass. It is going to seed in this clearing, and these nutritious green seedheads - not quite ripe, and so not yet fallen to the ground from their stems - are what they are after. Descending in their numbers, they will get them now, before they can be found and eaten by the murds and other small ground-dwellers of the forest. They can afford to be selective in their diet, favoring foods that are higher in nutrition than the leaves of the grass itself, as they can take flight and travel great distances across the island to snap up such meals before other animals come across them. Most of their diet is this green seed, and the niche they fill is intermediate between a typical grass-eating grazer animal, which feeds less selectively, and a more typical seed-eating songbird, which feeds entirely on seeds, usually once they are mature and fall from the plants.

These descendants of the passager ptoose have a system to keep themselves safe as they descend into scattered clearings in the seemingly endless Anstevan forests to get their food. Sentries stand on the outside of the flock and keep watch of their surroundings as the rest of the group feed themselves. These pteese communicate with a rich repertoire of harsh, noisy calls, their voices metallic and sharp. Different tones indicate land or air based threats, to which the flock will react accordingly. Every few minutes, there is a shift change as the first sentries trade spots with others which have now filled their stomachs, and so everyone contributes to the group safety, but also gets to eat. Excellent eyesight, in all directions around the feeding flock, means that few enemies can sneak up upon them. The strident songoose thus has few natural predators, and whilst others watch their back, males within the group take time in between bites to flamboyantly flutter their long wings at females, and to posture up against one another to demonstrate their fitness. The male sports a pair of greatly elongated feathers at the base of each wing, near the elbow, which resemble rackets. He can vibrate them together softly, producing a characteristic clatter which is important for courtship. But he can also snap them together forcefully, producing a loud crack. This occurs when he takes sudden flight, and serves as the ultimate warning signal to the flock; follow me into flight now, or perish. Being taller, and the only sex with these specialized plumes, sentries are disproportionately male. From a biological perspective, it makes the most sense, as these pteese are polygamous, and one male can take several mates, so that fewer males are needed than females to support the population.

And unfortunately for one sentry today, he has been chosen by the flock to take a turn at the most dangerous edge of the group, nearest to a dark thicket. He is a younger male, and less dominant than the rest, which take safer locations.  He watches the forests' edge nervously, scanning for any danger left and right. But the wind is blowing this evening, and all the foliage moves and sways in the breeze. It masks the subtle movements of an approaching enemy, and it drowns out quiet footsteps. All the sentries, today, are on edge. They rush through their shifts, forcing others to feed quicker and come out to take their place.

Suddenly, two jets of liquid erupt from the nearest bushes and strike the hapless low-ranking sentry in the eyes, and the world for him goes murky and dim. Venom - but from where? He leaps into panicked flight, skipping all vocal warnings and clacking his wing feathers with the ultimate warning that sends the others erupting into terrified flight throughout the clearing. But it is already too late for him. His vision swirls and bright spots of light flash before him with sharp pangs of a burning heat. He flutters disoriented a few feet into the air and then crashes downward into a growing, endless pool of darkness. And then it approaches. Supple and slinking, darting with a bursts of frightening speed through the grass, and covering the distance between the fumbling, blinded songoose and the tree line in a second. With a lightning-quick bite, it snaps the bird's neck with a tumultuous shake of its powerful jaws, and immediately it drags away the kill back to cover. A rikkitikki.

The rikkitikki is not just any predator. It is a specialist bird hunter. It is a skuzzard, a type of skuorc descended from the woozle. This one is less reptilian than most, resembling more a mongoose than a lizard, for though it is still cool-blooded and conserves its energy most of the time, it is now long-legged and capable of brief bursts of frantic activity, during which it moves with astonishing speed and agility, pouncing from cover to ambush flying birds. But the strident songoose was hard to catch even that way - too many eyes, always watching. But this rikkitikki, through the chance accumulation of new mutations that always appear in any population, has acquired something to tip the scales in its favor. It has evolved a long-range weapon. It is both the mongoose and the cobra in a new story now being written in the book of life.

The rikkitikki's venomous saliva naturally collects in hollow grooves in its upper jaw, normally forming a storage of the weapon that can be injected in large quantity in a bite. But this individual has a new ability. It found, early in life, that it could squeeze it out forcefully by contracting a muscle in its jaw. And, having now been independent and hunting on its own for a while, it has learned to do so strategically, for this is not a mindless hunter, but a relatively clever one, able to learn and improve its technique. It has learned to aim for the eyes of its ever-watchful prey, and "bite" them from far enough away that they cannot escape from it in time. It attacks after sneaking close and taking each swift step nearer only while every sentry is looking another way - if for only a single second, then freezing again so as to appear as if nothing has moved at all, except perhaps the wind. The prey cannot alarm for every single breeze, and so they grow nervous, but don't take flight. Then, when no threat immediately appears, they calm down. And then, when their guard is down again, they are blindsided, for his skill is strange and not yet expected.

Before the flock of songeese has even risen above the trees, the ill-fated sentry is gone - swiftly carried away into the shadows - and so is the danger. They never so much as saw what it was. Maybe it was just a false alarm - for no one really remembers who among them gave that first alarm clatter. Maybe they'll even return to the same clearing in the morning. After all, there was still much to eat. This new kind of rikkitikki, quiet as a breeze and running like the wind, will be patiently waiting with its still-secret weapon. For the moment, it holds the lead in this evolutionary arms race. And it will take advantage for as long as it can, until its descendants are so abundant that its prey must either grow wise to new tricks or perish. Either way, such a good deal, like everything else in life, will not last forever.

So, best to enjoy it now, thinks this hunter, as he tucks in to feed on his latest prize. For now the only animal on all the archipelago to employ this new way of hunting, all his meals will come easy; not until after his time will the prey learn to avoid these tricks, too, and a balance will be restored. Luckier than most creatures, he will make the most of his privilege as not an endling, but something opposite. The beginning of a new kind. Just as each species one day ends, so too must each one day arise. Only rarely, however, does the beginning of a new kind appear so strikingly demarcated as this; only in exceptionally uncommon cases can the firstling of a lineage truly be known.