The Loopalopes

290 million years post-establishment

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The loopalopes are among the most remarkable looking of the hothouse era's crested thorngrazers, at least equals to the spiral-horned unicorns, and covering an even wider range of species diversity. Loopalopes, which diverged from ancestors closely related to the spiral sirenhorn, are named for their crests which often spiral outwards or upwards, sometimes meeting in the middle and forming a loop. This is the case in the crest of the eponymous blue-hooped loopalope, the species for which this entire clade is named. Over evolutionary time, thorngrazers of the hothouse generally tended to smaller, faster body shapes in order to avoid the aggression of larger competitors. Loopalopes take this trend to its full potential, with most species being fast, highly mobile animals, to a degree not seen among the molodonts since the circuagodonts of the Pangeacene. This adaptation to cursoriality is seen in the loopalope's specialized foot anatomy; along with the related unicorns, these are the only molodonts to have fully-developed weight-bearing hooves.

Loopalopes evolved on upland grasslands as grazers, and most species, excluding the uniquely isolated horns of paradise of Zarreland, still dwell in open habitats today, and most eat little besides grass. Unicorns have infiltrated deep forest regions successfully in ways loopalopes have not, and in doing so varied their diets much more, but as the fastest and most widely-ranging clade of thorngrazers on the continent, loopalopes are still able to competitively exclude unicorns from most grassland settings. There are only a handful of habitats where both species occur together in similar niches without one eventually displacing the other.

A sampling of varied loopalope diversity, excluding some even more divergent forms already explored, is seen below:

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1. Scarlet Kingcrest, a large and highly abundant herding thorngrazer common to northwest Serinarcta's upland plain. A basal loopalope, this species and its nearest relative, the sogloop, form a sister group to most other loopalope species, with the desert heartabeeset at the very base of this lineage on the thorngrazer family tree. Robust, with a sturdy head and very flashy, wide-spread crests, the male kingcrest produces deep rumbling calls to attract mates and drive away rivals. The largest and most stable herds are led solely by females, with adult males following at the perimeter or traveling in groups of their own away from mates outside the breeding season. Herds migrate annually up to 1,000 miles south in the autumn, when day length decreases, following the sun to places where the grass always grows most vigorously, and avoiding the influx of nightforest herbivores which leave their northern territories at the same time when the trees shed their leaves and the forest becomes scarce in food. They then return just in time for spring to rejuvenate the depleted plain with new green growth.

2. Frosthopper, a mid-sized and uncommon thorngrazer native almost exclusively to the firmament, only occasionally venturing to lower elevations, where they are now less suited to survive. Descended from the fanfaloot, it has adapted to a colder high-altitude habitat and sports thicker fur over its body than in most relatives to let it comfortably tolerate frequent nighttime frosts and occasional snowfall in the hothouse's coldest biome. Its unusual crests, like those of its ancestor, have six nostril openings, which have each become a round, ball-shaped valve able to close independently of every other one to produce a wider variety of calls. Frosthoppers use their voices to tell each other about predators, using syntax in the form of differentiated call sequences to describe different dangers and the specifics of each one; different enemies will result in differing responses, and their reactions will also change based on whether an enemy is moving alone or moving in a group. This communication suggests the frosthopper to be among the smartest thorngrazers, yet its isolated habitat has left it poorly adapted to survive outside the firmament. In hotter, wetter climates, it is prone to illness and exhaustion. The frosthopoer is nocturnal, and thus has less bright coloration than many loopalopes, but it is far from plain. Like the fanfaloot, the frosthopper is bio-luminescent, with symbiotic nasal bacteria lending light that shines through the thin, expansive skin of their sinuses. These flashes of color are used for synchronized nighttime communication between males and females during the mating season; though both sexes cultivate the bacteria, males have a much larger and more swollen snout, able to hold more of them, and so can flash a much brighter light. The thick hair of the snout obscures the light when the sinus is deflated, letting the animals vanish into the night and avoid being detected by predators if approached by their enemies.

3. Sogloop, a giant loopalope and the largest of them all. Growing to 700 pounds, this basal loopalope is a cow-like animal and still shares much in common with earlier helmethead ancestors. Favoring remnant sogland habitat in northern Serinacta, it is widely distributed but always locally uncommon throughout the upperglades. Small mixed-sex groups are the typical social unit, led by experienced females but defended from predators by adult males. The diet is dominated by water plants, mainly marsh grasses. Extremely loud, disorienting calls are utilized by males to frighten off would-be predators, though if threated by especially large enemies, the sogloop will flee into deep water. A poor swimmer, it sinks rather than swims, but can hold its breath for over 30 minutes by sealing its nostrils and storing air in its crests, letting it hide motionless standing on the bottom of murky swamps until the danger has moved on. A rare hybrid between the sogloop and the scarlet kingcrest of its same genus sometimes occurs along a narrow overlapping range; the hybrid is fertile, healthy, and combines the vibrant color of the smaller parent with the size of the larger. Yet such hybrids survive very poorly once independent of their mothers, and most die early in adulthood from drowning, as their nostrils cannot generally form a tight seal to allow them to hide underwater, yet they still respond to danger by diving, like their sogloop parent. Such drastic behavioral differences in even closely related thorngrazers help to limit hybridization, and indeed very few thorngrazer hybrids fare as well as their parent species.

4. Ledgeleaper, an early offshoot of the very widespread Circoronus genus which it shares with blue-hooped loopalopes and some horns of paradise. With elegant arcing horns and similar blue facial markings to its relatives, this loopalope lacks the fully interlocking, looping crests of more derived cousins. It is a habitat specialist generally restricted to large cave entrances, where it climbs down steep, rocky terrain to feed on vegetation that grows there sheltered from less agile herbivores. Only males are colorful, with females small-crested and cryptic. When threatened by typical grassland predators, these thorngrazers swiftly take shelter in the caves, running first down into the darkness and then up the interior walls to find safety on small rocky ledges. Unlike most loopalopes, it is an omnivore, feeding on bird’s nests it may find on the cave walls, and even on the remains of carcasses of animals that may fall down into the caves and there die, or find themselves killed by larger carnivores. Fast and very agile, the ledgeleaper itself fears such cave predators little, as it can usually outmaneuver them. An ability to live on the edge of two very different habitats and exploit each one for food and safety gives this specialized loopalope a competitive edge. 

5. Desert Heartabeest, a small and noticeably short-snouted loopalope of the Hyperborean Raindesert, named for the lovely head crests of the male. A basal relative of the sogloop and kingcrest. Timid and very quick, heartabeests bound gracefully over hot desert sands to flee enemies, taking shelter in the abandoned burrows of other animals like clodloppers. Generally solitary, they feed on coarse grasses and vegetation that grows in dune valleys; their high-speed movements and flighty nature often mean they bolt right into the grip of the pitpoacher plant, the heartabeest’s most common predator. Heartabeests nonetheless sustain their numbers with unusually rapid breeding, with females bearing up to three litters of two young each year. Males sing short, pleasant songs to impress females and to declare territorial claims to keep away rivals; their unusual crests rise backward and then sharply turn forward; connected by a membrane of skin, they acquire heart-like form at maturity when viewed from the front. Very long ears help this thorngrazer to stay cool in the desert summer.

6. Floatloop, the only semi-aquatic loopalope, and one of very few thorngrazers truly good at swimming. A denizen of the marshy upperglades, the floatloop has evolved a most unique manner of keeping itself afloat, despite the generally dense, thick-boned body it shares with most thorngrazers that renders it a poor natural swimmer. Its crests connect to a system of air sacs in a membrane running from its nostrils to its back, a trait independently evolved with the related sensational sailgoat, letting it fill itself with air and providing it an inbuilt set of pool floaties to keep it at the surface when crossing spans of open water during seasonal flooding. An expert at buoyancy control, the floatloop can control the amount of air it holds in its crests precisely to enable it to reach neutral buoyancy, and so easily kick its legs and propel itself down below water to browse on submerged vegetation, then quickly rise back to the surface to breathe, almost as if it were flying underwater. Able to seal its nostrils, it too can dip below the water and hide from enemies, breathing the oxygen from its stored air for up to 10 minutes while waiting for danger to pass. In shallower water, it opens its nostrils and uses its crests as snorkels to breathe freely as it floats on the surface of the water and grazes on leaves hidden just below. Both sexes have well-developed crests, but those of the male are longest.