Loopalopes

Loopalopes are small crested thorngrazers descended from rumbling helmethead of Serinarcta, that have evolved into gracile runners and now superficially resemble deer, with a bodyplan very similar to earlier, distantly related circuagodonts. They are the fastest of all thorngrazers, some forms able to reach top speeds of 50 miles per hour, using agility and speed to escape their enemies and in the process losing their defensive attributes. Loopalopes are mostly hornless and tuskless, with very long snouts adapted to crop grass with their beak-like tooth arrangement low to the ground, while keeping the eyes raised to spot danger on the horizon. Loopalopes are timid and easily startled, as their lives depend on running. Males of this group sport rounded, often interwoven horn crests from which the group's name is derived. A colorful membrane of skin connects the horns together, making the display surface even larger. Females in contrast have only small, backswept horns, and lack bright markings completely. The majority of species live in continental grasslands, especially the savannah woodlands, but there are very notable exceptions, such as the insular horns of paradise of the Isle of Zarreland.

The blue-hooped loopalope is a savannah-dweller size of a small deer, but though it can be found in dry uplands, it especially favors remaining areas of damp grassland, such as low-lying plains near rivers, and is equipped with wide-splayed hooves that let it stride over flooded grasslands without being bogged down in mud. Their fur is very short and greasy to repel water, and their hind leg is relatively long, so that is is not held vertically under the body but rather angled back when at rest, in order to improve stride distance over flooded ground. The crest of the male of this species is extremely vibrant, almost neon, and is fluorescent (but not luminescent), so that it reflects light and shines even at night under planetlight; whole herds glitter in the dark as they forage for food under the planet on clear nights putting on a spectacle. They can do this because their large herds provide protection from enemies, and their habitat lacks places to hide anyway so that being invisible to their enemies is difficult and for the males, less important than being obvious to the opposite sex. The horns of the male begin like those of the female but then as it grows curve inward toward each other, wrap around, and then grow out again as they develop, producing two hoop-like structures through which skin then grows to produce two flag-like structures. Very mature males may sport the beginnings of a third hoop as the horns continue to grow and turn back toward each other. 

Loopalopes have adapted more toward visual display than vocal ability; the song of the male blue-hooped loopalope is a simplistic trumpeting, while females - with small horns - can only honk nasally. Species which favor forested habitats where visibility over long distance is poor, however, usually retain more complex calls to communicate.