Dirt Grounders

subterraneus diafygí ( "Subterranean Escapers" )

The best way to deal with conflict can be as simple as avoidance.

Physical Biometrics:

Wingspan: ~6 inches / 15.24 cm

Length: 4-5 inches /8.89 cm

Weight / Mass: ~20 grams

Distribution and Environment:

They primarily live in the swamps of the tropical equatorial regions, underground. 

Description:

They spend most of their lives underground in vast burrows, up to several meters below the surface. They can often have larger spacious burrow that they call home, living with various other specimens that may or may not be direct relatives.

This tactic allows them to straight up avoid predation from most terrestrial predators. They surface mostly to bring back food, which consists largely of fallen leaf litter and various biomaterial scraps on the forest floor.  Dirt Grounders have developed a form of agriculture. They gather around mycorrhizal fungi root complexes and maintain / look after them  and the plant they grow within as a food source. Primarily, they encourage the development of legumes in a form of agriculture, though they also let it grow on other plants. They often set aside dead material for composting and fertilizer for the roots of the plant the fungus grows on, and their burrowing behavior further tills the soil. They facultatively consume the fungus, seeds / vegetables / roots that originate from the host plant, garnering various fiber and biomineral sources in their diet.

Interestingly, they are more social then other roach descended species, in that they cooperate with other specimens, mostly siblings as well as their direct offspring in gathering resources and burrowing. These families also defend their primitive "farms" if any other intruder moves into said territory.

Evolution / Anatomy:

Forelimbs are fossorial, adapted to digging, with the upward facing tibial spines modified into spade like flattened shovel structures, and the bottom facing tibial spines modified into rakes. 

Pronotum is sharpened towards the front to make it easier to move through tunnels. Interestingly they have intricate display patterns despite being nearly blind, likely because the coloration has no substantial effect on their survival and was retained through the generations.

They also have not lost their wings, although they have become shorter and much more poorly adapted for flight. Rather, the wings are repurposed into dirt moving structures, being much more sclerotized and hardened, they carry fallen excavated dirt on their backs before moving to another area and dumping the dirt by flicking it off their bodies with the wings.

They are one of the early lineages to have developed primitive hearing, being able to recept audio vibrations with their setae. They also have evolved convergently, similarly to real world Hissing / Burrowing Cockroaches, producing these sounds via forcefully expelled air via the spiracles. 

The males use this in a way to "sing", a trend in which intraspecific combat  and competition for mates instead occurs over less violent activities, encouraging social cooperation.

Known Descendants: 

( N / A, coming soon )