Digging away from fate
Fern dominance in the antarctic landscape has disrupted the soil composition, leading to the extinction of a large number of ground invertebrates. Lots of insectivorous birds and mammals were affected by this, including bellydruggers, a group of fossorial penguins.
Only one species is known to have survived the END, the molava (Aviantrus lavatalpoides), a 15 cm long bellydrugger that has survived in two Green Refuges.
While the Willowcoal population rapidly went extinct due to the excessive predation pressure of geotters, a relatively large and healthy population is found also in the predator-free Pocket Islands. This volcanic archipelago has maintained for the entire END event a nearly complete flora association, with positive effects for the fauna.
Despite the similar appearance to primordial bellydruggers, molavas possess several derived features, like its more omnivorous diet (rhizomes and rotten fruit can potentially become part of their diet) and the retention of eggs inside a special external pouch located between its feet, similarly to emperor penguins but more protected from external agents. This last adaptation enables molavas (and before the END, other derived bellydruggers) to move and search for food while caring for their future offspring, which are born extremely precocial.
Because of the dynamic geology and the large sea-level oscillations of the early Cambiocene, Pocket Islands frequently connected to the mainland, enabling its fauna and flora to disperse, including molavas; instinctively adapted to face the few predators remained on the continent, this fossorial bird gradually expanded its range, following forest expansion.
While surely unable to take advantage of empty terrestrial niche as fast as other less specialized vertebrates, molava's descendants will surely flourish again like in the past epoch.
