The Northern Soglands

Imagine an endless soggy plain, not a spot of dry land for miles. Each step in the saturated earth is difficult, and you begin to sink if you stay put for too long. The humidity is a stifling 100% day and night, so that you can never really cool down. Biting insects - and sometimes worse - swarm over any and all exposed skin continuously, and at least once a day a massive thunderstorm shakes the earth with wind and hail and threatens to smite you with cloud to ground lightning. This is the soglands - and it is home sweet home for thousands of animal species across Serinarcta in the early hothouse. 

The Plants

The soglands are the embodiment of the hothouse age's principles. A biome of high productivity and rich biodiversity, yet hostile and with many challenges to endure. Sun and rain should allow all sorts of plant life to thrive in an eternal summer, but thorngrazers in herds numbering over a billion across the continent so totally dominate these landscapes that except in the most isolated places, no trees can grow. Thorngrazers feed so aggressively, cutting plants down to the soil level and moving in lines so that nothing escapes their jaws, that the only plants which can grow here reliably are grasses able to grow from their bases even when their tops are cut, and low-growing herbs that survive by sending out horizontal stems along the ground from which their short-lived upward shoots rise. Sogland vegetation stores all of the the energy it can sequester in the bright sun in its roots, and whereas forest trees would use it to grow to great heights, these plants use it to sustain constant rapid growth. By not even trying to avoid being eaten, but instead evolving increasingly disposable, watery-foliage that is not very nutritious and easily produced, vegetation in the soglands can grow more than six inches per day, allowing it to recover almost immediately from grazing damage. Puffgrasses dominate this habitat, and have adapted not only to tolerate grazers but to require them to reproduce; sogland forms now produce their tiny flowers just above the soil immediately only after being grazed down. For just a couple days before the leaves re-grow, the flowers are exposed to the wind and can be pollinated. Miniscule seeds, each attached to a tiny parachute of cotton-like hair, are formed in as little as a week, by which time the grass is tall and the thorngrazers will soon graze the spot over again. The flower stalks grow up rapidly now, above the height of the leaves, on a flimsy, wiry stalk. Each seed hangs so loosely on its stem that just the slightest brush of an animal will dislodge them and so send the sends flying away on the breeze, to settle and grow somewhere new. By sacrificing their leaves and timing the growth of their flower stalks just right, the grasses usually avoid their offspring falling prey to the thorngrazer's appetites.

Though very tall grasses grow in some parts of the soglands - some over 20 feet high - the only places that tall woody trees can take hold are those out of reach of thorngrazers upon steep terrain and, particularly, on top of glacial erratics - large, isolated boulders pushes far from their original resting places left behind by the glaciers of the ice age. Because thorngrazers cannot  - yet - climb well, seeds which blow or are deposited in the droppings of birds upon these rocks can sometimes germinate and manage to grow, especially if they can send roots down through cracks in the stone to reach the ground below. Though Serinarcta has few mainland trees, woody clover and sunflower plants have already diversified extensively in more southerly regions and these trees have reached these insular islands above the soglands, where they provide choice nesting sites for many birds and tribbats and vantage for hunters like moonbeasts to keep watch for prey scurrying down below. 

The Plant-eaters

Though sogland vegetation is not very nutritious, it is very easy to eat and widely available, so that many animals have evolved to feed on it, simply consuming it in great quantities to support their caloric needs. Seraphs descended from the pteese and other similar grazers occur in flocks of tens of millions, often following a day or two behind thorngrazers to eat the tender green growth as the cropped plants regenerate, as do snoots and other trunkos. Lumpuses are often exposed as the grass they hide in is eaten up, but many of them are left alone even by persistent predators, for they have many varied defenses. Some are poisonous, while others such as the unusual porcuplumpus, which can inflate itself when threatened and reveal retractable spines able to deliver a painful, though non fatal sting. Some snifflers, one of the only animal groups that sometimes still manages to catch and hunt lumpuses, have evolved long toes to walk easily over loose mud and floating vegetation, so that they can hunt insects and small fish in the shallows without getting their feet wet. Wumpos meanwhile have given rise to many new forms already, all of which remain close enough to interbreed and between which species boundaries are difficult to discern. Many animals feed on aquatic water plants, which are richer in nutrients than the grasses; this is the lifestyle of the pig-sized tribbybara, a semi-aquatic poppit molodont whose very high-set eyes let it hide in water while still keeping a watch for threats, and the swamp wumpo, which has evolved a colorful dewlap under its throat to aid in identifying its own species. The platyporp is one of the strangest sogland creatures; it is a porplet - a dolfinch - descended from the surfscooter which has become no bigger than a muskrat and so small it can easily leave the water to escape swimming enemies, as well as to find additional food which includes insects as well as plant matter.

Thorngrazers, the keystone species of the soglands, are its most apparent herbivores. From just one ancestor they have begun to separate into distinct new species, as some such as the solitary monstrocorns grow bigger and bulkier, with even more formidable armor, while others become somewhat more agile. The most diverse are a new group are known as crested thorngrazers, and include the extremely abundant rumbling helmethead, a nimicorn species which has lost most of its horns, but instead evolved a large, air-filled casque and bony nasal horns upon its head, which it now uses for long-distance communication with deep bellowing noises which are reverberated loudly in the hollow spaces. The crests of males of this and related species are further decorated with brightly colored patterns which are used to attract mates and intimidate other male rivals. These highly social thorngrazers are not as aggressive as their predecessors, for they are better runners and do not necessarily have to stand their ground against a threat, and they are more herbivorous, eating more than 90% grass, though they will eat basically anything that does not get out of their way. They now have six toes, four of which are splayed to distribute weight over wet ground and two that are kept raised off the ground except when running, when they provide additional traction. Their feet are hoof-like, each digit covered with a thick nail at the tips on which the animal stands. A very tall but lightly built trunko bird is often seen in close association to these thorngrazers; known as the watchtower wumpo, this descendant of the island wumpo has developed a symbiotic relationship with its former rivals. The wumpo, which always lives in pairs within a specific helmethead herd, is tall enough to scan the horizon for distant predators and will alert its group of the danger in time for them to flee or form a formation to protect the helpless calves. In return for its favor the thorngrazers provide it protection from another very different threat that the wumpo faces: lightning. As one of the tallest things out in the environment, wumpos are highly vulnerable to lightning during thunderstorms and so must lay down and take cover when they rise. Alone they would be left vulnerable to ambush, but the thorngrazers accept them as their own, sheltering them within their group as they do their own young. Watchtowers often move just ahead of the thorngrazers, feeding delicately on seed-heads before they are disturbed by the herds and catching small animals frightened by them from their hiding places in the grass. They even perform a grooming service to their partners which the thorngrazers seem to greatly enjoy, as the wumpo works through their fur and over their skin to remove nutritious blood-sucking parasites.

Parasites and Predators

The hot, damp climate has now caused most thorngrazers to lose the thick fur coats of ice-age species both to avoid overheating and remove places for pests to hide, but this has made it easier for other parasites to prey upon them. Flying insects chew on the herds constantly, and their blood-sucking is the number one killer of calves, which can be left emaciated and anemic. Flying vertebrates, though, are the bane of the adult hothouse thorngrazer, with verminfans, skewers, and nightbiter tribbats all feeding upon their hosts alive. Not just sucking blood, these animals feed on flesh, slicing strips of skin, cutting mouthfuls of meat, or boring holes into the muscle tissue to feed on a limitless high-energy food source which replenishes like the grass - in an ironic twist, the thorngrazers themselves have now become the grazed. Protected by fast reflexes and their wings, such parasites most often avoid the wumpos, which primarily feed on more sedentary pests. All the thorngrazers can do is endure and heal the wounds quickly to avoid infections - their immune systems are incredibly strong, but they are all covered constantly in pock marks and cuts in varying stages of healing. Their only relief comes from flapsnappers which follow their herds specifically to prey on the flying parasites, and so form the apex predator in a secondary ecosystem on which the thorngrazer is crucial to transfer vegetation into flesh and blood.

Thorngrazers may be the most dominant herbivore in this habitat in which they are the keystone, but they do not lead particularly comfortable lives - nor very long ones. Their existence is short, harsh, and fraught with difficulty. Adult females grow up fast and begin breeding early, becoming pregnant at just a year of age, and rarely live past the age of four, so exhausting is the wear of constant parasitism not only external but also inside their bodies in the form of worms. Most males do not breed at all - only the strongest of all can take claim over the female herds and bear calves, and to get big enough takes at least three years of enduring pests, diseases and predators that most cannot handle for so long. Trailing the more socially-complex female herds, the males are always lingering outside the perimeter, bickering with each other, and are always the most vulnerable to predators. Any male which can survive this for the time it takes to reach full size and strength demonstrates incredible fitness, and so the gene pool is kept strong. Yet this is a tiring role, in which the male must constantly defend his females against all of the other males, and on average a dominant male guards a herd of ten to twenty females for only six to twelve months before he dies. 

The turnover of individuals within the herd is high; a quarter die each year, yet even more are born - and this is all what sawjaws rely on. These pack-hunting biped tribbetheres feed almost entirely on social thorngrazers, trailing the herds constantly to pick off the sickest, weakest, and most injured. No thorngrazer dies of old age peacefully - whenever the parasites get too much, and they slow down even a little, the hunters take notice. They often don't have to bother to hunt those which can fight back with all their strength, if there is a sickly one near death's door to take instead. Females will protect each other, and their calves, at least until their fellows are unable to walk and keep up. Males, however, linger on the edges, alone, and when they fall ill they have no-one to fall back on. The herds turn a blind eye as these savage predators descend in numbers upon the weakest links, sawing their throats open and cutting them limb from limb; it’s a mentality of “better them than me.” Such abundant prey lets sawjaw packs now soar to dozens of individuals. Unlike many pack-hunting animals, each adult in a group mates and can bear young, but their numbers don’t swell too quickly because they have just one pup at a time, and wait as infrequently as two years between births. Young require a lot of parental care to learn to hunt, and even after they cease to cling to the adults’ backs for the first few months, they remain dependent on the adults for over a year. Indeed, it is due to highly developed, altruistic social tendencies that sawjaws fare better individually than their prey; they groom one another to affirm social bonds, which helps keep away parasites. Antibacterial properties in their saliva encourage wounds to heal, and licking one another helps keep the group not only socially unified, but healthy, too. With food not generally scarce, sawjaws rarely have significant fights among their own species, and as bonded individuals will actively care for injured packmates even when there is no chance of recovery, sawjaws can often live very long lives even years after losing the ability to hunt on their own, occasionally even if they are born with a physical handicap. Older or otherwise less fit members of the group often take on a mentoring role to adolescents, teaching appropriate social behaviors, and helping care for the youngest offspring of other adults.

Sawjaws, as small but highly unified apex predators, do not have enemies that will hunt them to worry about, but must contend with thieves. River dragons, several species of giant eelsnakes evolved from the migratory sea dragons that moved inland in the aftermath, lurk the murky shallows and will take big mouthfuls of meat from their kills if they aren't attentive. A swamp kittyhawk - an unusually large species of a normally much smaller genus of gravedigger descendants - usually climbs on boulders for a view of distant prey, then stalks through the wetlands on its own to ambush small trunkos and tribbetheres, but it is not opposed to scavenging the leftovers of sawjaw kills once they move off. One creature that they do not generally have to worry about, however, is the fishing triyena. These large foxtrotters resemble long-legged bears with narrow snaggle-toothed jaws, and they are indeed carnivores, but they feed almost totally on fish, which they snag from the shallow water with their hooked forearm claws.

Crow-like pickbirds, large-beaked descendants of bluetailed chatterravens, seem to steal with impunity from the sawjaws, perhaps because they are too small and agile to bother chasing off. Yet there is more to this relationship than meets the eye - sawjaws and pickbirds sometimes cooperate to take down thorngrazers, with the birds pecking the eyes of victims to distract them before the predators approach. Pickbirds live up to their names in another way, too - and not just with their closest allies the sawjaws. They clean the teeth of animals such such as river dragons, and remove parasites as well as stains of blood and meat from the fur or feathers of large carnivorous land animals. The birds advertise their services with a ritualized wing-fluttering dance which many animals have come to recognize. Pickbirds even perform this grooming duty for the unrivaled predator of the skies, the great-crested drakevulture - a massive, predatory aukvulture with a serrated bone-slicing jaw, which feeds most often on crested thorngrazers, covering itself in blood and guts that would quickly attract flies. Though it can wash itself in water, it still seems to enjoy the attention of the pickbirds, and will respond to their offers by bowing its neck and fluffing its plumage so that they may alight on its neck and groom it on the only part of its body it cannot reach to clean with its own beak. The cleaners will even sit on its massive beak and gently groom its head, almost appearing to nuzzle the giant predator - something many animals seem to appreciate even without any benefit of cleaning. Offering such appreciated cleaning and massage services, pickbirds are perhaps the most appreciated of any animal on the soglands, having made friends even of other types of birds that would otherwise likely eat them.