The coastal lowlands stretch across much of what was once Antarctica and Zealandia. A vast stretch of marshes of varying salinity ranging from a foot to 50 feet deep the vast array of aquatic vegetation supports a wide variety of life.
Various modern groups can be found here, including Lepisosteidae, Osteoglossiformes, Anguiliformes, Galaxiiformes, Salmoniformes, and Batomorphi, which partition different levels of the water column.
Part of the biome's success stems from the Dancing Rice Willow. A massive species of aquatic rice plant that can reach up to 50 feet tall and weigh hundreds of pounds each.
On the surface, the Rice Weed appears delicate its fluffy top swaying gently in the wind, the thick mat of stems at the surface creating floating rafts for small animals to walk over and cross across otherwise open water.
Under the surface, the stem is armed with thousands of tiny spines that render it unpalatable for most animals. However, the spines are not sharp enough for animals to swim through the tangled mess of vegetation.
Many predators make their home in the reeds ranging from small fish the size of a human hand to the massive Lungestrikes as large as a crocodile.
Stalksters are one clade that takes advantage of the cover provided by these plants. Evolved from the Doomcarid there are some of the largest Arhtropods to ever evolve. The Oil Spill Stalkster measures 12 feet long and a weight of 100 pounds and it’s not the largest of the clade.
The smaller size stems from specialization as a piscivore with less powerful raptorial arms lined with interlocking spines to snare fish.
It prefers to hunt at night when fish are less alert and its own poor sight is made up for by its sense of smell and taste.
During the day it lays nearly motionless at the deepest parts of the marsh and as the marshes aquatic herbivores begin their daily foraging.
Snurtles are one of the most common smaller herbivores.
Mostly aquatic sockhops, notable for the evolutionary innovation of thicker shells. Unlike other snails, their shells interlock together forming a turtle-like carapace that rests tightly around their body.
This shell has shifted their center of mass forward, swimming with the head region sticking straight out and moving with a frog-like bounding motion on land. This reinforced shell protects them when feeding on aquatic plants, the evolutionary pressures that led to the evolution of the stomach shells proved significant.
The scraping of algae provides a cleaning service to many aquatic herbivores, but also predators. Lungestrikes and Stalksters let them eat off their backs, making the shells more of a hassle to eat than they are worth.
One of the animals that frequents their service is the Steller's Sea Krakow, which absolutely dwarfs the 1 to 7-pound Snurtles. Growing over 45 feet long and weighing up to 25 tons these massive Manasquees are the biggest Terra Squid alive, outweighing the biggest Parade Squids by several tons.
These Squid feed around the clock 24/7. Their round blimp-like bodies make them buoyant and allow them to float leisurely. Adults are invulnerable to even the largest Sharks or Marine Blish.
A short trunk lets them crop the tops of aquatic plants and push them into their beak. A diet of soft plants requires minimal chewing on their part and relies on a lengthy digestive tract that stretches over 500 feet when laid out. Even with how rich the waters of the Coastal Lowlands are, there are only so many of these aquatic giants the ecosystem can sustain.
Without any predators, the limiting factor is their incredibly slow life systems. Calves stay with their mothers for up to a decade and aren’t sexually mature until 20 and females only breed every half decade.
This means that these floating giants are rare on the landscape. Females live in small pods of 3-6 individuals of similar age that they may spend more than 70 years with.
Males are solitary but in wonderings of the lowlands well gain a vast knowledge of the topography of the area and the pods that live there maintain relationships with females and other males even if they only see each other every few years.
Related to the Manasquees Squippos are also thriving in the late Ice Age.
While Manasquees evolved to swim freely, the Squippos maintain their ancestral body plan as adept bottom punters and feed on shallow water plants and low-growing land plants.
And where Manasquees are generally passive animals, Squippos are ornery and bad-tempered animals. Groups of females and their young are guarded by territorial males that frequently fight against one another. This hostility extends beyond their own kind, being frequently hostile to other large animals around them.
They are especially hostile to Lungestrikes and Large Silver Swimmers with even the more passive Lunge Gars and filter-feeding Silverswimmers not escaping their hostility.
Stalking the herbivores of the wetlands the Marsh Stalkster is the largest of their clade reaching an astounding 15 feet long and 180 ponds.
Their size is specialized in the hunting of aquatic prey, an adaptation in response to the increased diversity of Lungestrike’s Lung Fish that grow larger than them and exclude them from open water.
Oilspill Stalksters hunt in deep water well Marsh Stalkers hunt large fish and secondarily-aquatic herbivores well to avoid competition with more generalist Lungestrikes.
Their claws are significantly wider than other large Silver Swimmers lined with straight spiked barbs allow them to nearly fully embrace prey items
With their heavy weight and the shell that makes them less buoyant, they aim to ambush prey and then sink them to the bottom of the marsh where prey either drowns or is dismembered alive.
Away from the marsh's deeper channels, many animals are tied to the water but aren’t necessarily good swimmers combing the shallow waters for their daily bread.
The Swamp Stalker is one of the most numerous of these shallow foragers.
These swan-sized Aardfowl wade through reed beds in the thousands to feed on aquatic invertebrates pulling them out of the water with a long barbed tongue. Despite living in wetlands, they are relatively poor swimmers in open water. Their limb proportions instead lend them to short sprints underwater in a cormorant-like fashion.
When accosted by predators the flock dives in unison into the deeper reeds, Most of the marsh's land hunters are slower than them in a short water chase and are unlikely to pursue them if they don’t manage to grab one. Raptorial Blish however can get around their defenses somewhat circling above and waiting for them to return for air letting them potentially snag one from the surface.
Also found in the shallow reedbeds are the Cancer Arachlobsters, a highly diverse family of Arachlobsters ranging from the size of a fingernail to as big as a dinner plate.
These Silverswimmers have arrived where many crustaceans have before by folding in their tail under the abdomen creating the classic crab-shaped body. This family is mostly detritivorous, being more aquatic than most Arachlobsters. They face competition with true crabs, but their metabolism and respiratory system are like other Arachlobsters which are more advanced similar to actual arachnids, allowing them to grow faster and larger than other crustaceans. Of course, this does mean that true crabs need to eat less so overall it’s a give and take between the two.
Blademanders are also a common family of Fingerphibians ranging from a few inches to a foot long.
There are fairly unremarkable animals dragging themselves through the mud with their front limbs and eating a variety of small soft-bodied prey with sharp but unspecialized teeth. Their most notable feature is the last three pairs of fin rays derived from their sea robin ancestors have become fully encased in keratin.
When attacked they’ll flip onto their back thrusting their claws at their attackers' eyes and face. Even against enemies far larger than themselves, this can be enough to drop them and let them escape into the reeds. These claws can also be employed against each other. Males in particular, will employ their claws against each other in territorial bouts although hissing and displaying the claws is often enough to get one male to back down.
As one might imagine, the tides greatly influence the coastal lowlands. At low tide, many sandbars are exposed, and many more permanent islands are connected, allowing creatures to walk to places they normally can’t reach.
As one might imagine, the tides greatly influence the coastal lowlands. At low tide, many sandbars are exposed, and many more permanent islands are connected, allowing creatures to walk to places they normally can’t reach.
Black Squears are one species that take advantage of this brief abundance.
This species is not endemic to the lowlands; in fact, it is the most widespread member of the successful genus Ursateuthis, found across all of the supercontinent outside of true tundra and desert, and despite the name they come in multiple skin colors with various shades of black, brown and even rarely white or cream.
They are the smallest and most arboreal Squears and also the most herbivores with up to 85 percent of their diet being plant matter, especially fresh grasses, forbs, and fruits.
The populations living around the coastal lowlands also incorporate a large amount of seafood in their diet, swimming offshore at low tide to feast on bivalves, crustaceans, and wetland plants.
This abundance of marine food and a climate much milder than most of the Ice Age world means this population produces the largest and healthiest members of the species with large males reaching up to 600 pounds.
Another heavy-weight species is the Shumbo Jimp, a massive Soil Sifter, and the largest Arthropod alive at this time.
At 9 feet long they are not as long as the largest Stalksters but are much heavier, with big females coming in at an astonishing 230 pounds.
Their weight makes them incredibly slow dragging their bulk slowly across the floor of shallow waterways and muddy banks, their limbs entirely hidden underneath their shield-shaped head segment.
Their shells, up to 10 inches thick around their head protect them from all but the most determined large predators giving them free rain to lackadaisly graze on detritus on the floor.
The Jagraken is the apex predator of the Coastal Lowlands, a Kraken Cat descending from the Panthraken that weighs up to 450 pounds.
All residents of the wetlands fear their bite. Like other Kraken Cats, their beak is strongly reinforced and anchored by powerful jaw muscles, the strongest of any Tera Squid.
However, the Jagraken must use its weapons in unique ways.
The wetlands lack most of the large herbivorous Tera Squid and Strideraptors that form the diet of their relatives.
Rather than severing the spines of their prey, Jagrakens can be messier, simply biting into smaller prey like Snurtles, Swamp Stalkers, or large fish causing catastrophic damage to various bones and organs.
With much of the large prey being low-slung long-bodied arthropods and Lunge Fish, the most efficient method of restraint is to pierce the brain via the back of the head, something that they employ on more traditional prey for their clade like Squears and Squippos.
They are the most aquatic of the Kraken Cats, frequently swimming between islands and ambushing resting prey on sandbars making them the perfect predator for traversing this environment.