Compared to the pseudopod dominated south, the north of Dome 4 preserves much of its original two-legged dromaeopod diversity. Why the pseudopods never penetrated the north is a mystery, but it could have to do with the advanced endothermy its inhabitants had developed prior to the pseudopod-panspermia event, religating them to niches similar to those they occupy now, as inconsicuous burrowers and insectivores. Irregardless of what caused this, the northern inhabitants testify its effects. Elatignathes replace stilters, prybeaks replace munchers, and a wide range of predatory monstrocities replace the comparatively conventional true rammers and mantis storks.
Perhaps one of the best examples is the skewer, a clade of successful cursorial predators. At first sight, they seem like slightly derived rammers, but the toothed turret sitting atop their heads tell a different story. The rostrum initially mistaken for their mouth is instead a sharp extension of what can best be described as their chin, while their true head is reduced, now only serving to chew small bits of food. The bulk of mechanical digestion is done with this face-blade as well, with groups of skewers coming together to mangle their prey's exposed flesh, leaving a mutilated carcass behind. The chunks of meat they slice off are then carried to their true mouths with a long and robust prehensile tongue, which many gregarious species also use as a method of communication by twisting them into various shapes. The most well-studied of them, the signal skewer (Acrimentum infernuntius), has been reported utilising hundreds of unique patterns on their annual migration across the nothern-microcontinent. What any of them mean, though, is subject to further investigation.
Fossil records suggest that skewers are most closely related one of the most basal sprinter lineages, the elatignathes, which became the dominant megafauna in Dome 4 following the extinction of northern megapods. This explains their elevated head and prominent spike, but fails to even suggest for what ungodly reason they decided to become predators. The leading theory has that the north experienced a local geological catastrophe around 30 million years ago, a bit before when skewers first appeared in the fossil record, which effectively reset the biosphere of the north and killed off all of the megafaunal carnivores. In response to this, a clade of elatignathes might have made a horizontal leap not too dissimilar to that of Thylacoleo, descending from its equivilent of Diprotodontia. However, one is still left to wonder how skewers won the predatory arms-race with other rammer-like creatures derived from dromaepods with far better leg musculature, and more effective endothermy, which occupied similar strata as that of basal skewers. It is possible that the northern catastrophe, like the late Devonian extinctions on Earth, was triggered by two temporally separated events, the second of which was only survived by skewers for sheer coincidence.
Comments
Post a Comment