Sanguine Squibis

A splendid scrounger, the sanguine squibis scrupulously sieves the shallow swamps for succulent shrimp.

Squibises are filter-feeding wading birds descended from shorescroungers that are found in northern Serinaustra's saltswamp biome and associated coastal wetlands. They are the closest relatives of squelicans, though diverged before those birds became so aquatic: they still have long legs and prefer to walk in shallow water rather than swim. Their four tentacles lack a connecting membrane but are lined with long pecten - keratin bristles that form a sieving surface through which the squibis filters small crustaceans, fish, algae, and insect larvae from muddy water and the sediment just below it. Feeding in small flocks with a characteristic head-down posture while the tentacles move in alternating clockwise and counter-clockwise patterns, it stirs up the sand and mud to catch tiny food sources hidden within. 

This lineage of scrounger is somewhat less intelligent than most others, perhaps because their food doesn't require a lot of thinking and planning to catch, and tool use or cultural learning isn't observed. They are shy and flighty animals, quick to run for cover in thick weeds if alarmed. Females and males may live together but have completely separate dominance hierarchies, and females are dominant to males. The strongest social bond is that of a male and his chicks, which lasts about a year; females take no role in childcare and leave their eggs in a nest made by the male, until he has a clutch of two to four. Females are sometimes polygamous and lay an egg or two each in the nest of several males, splitting them up to improve the odds of some surviving, though this comes at the risk of these eggs being destroyed by another female, more likely if she is a low-ranking bird.

Because the male does all incubation in these species, it is the females which are more colorful as well as up to 1/3rd heavier. Males of the sanguine squibis, for example, are reddish brown with dark heads, which lets them hide better while brooding eggs. Females meanwhile are white with crimson head and neck feathers and blue to violet colored naked faces; their color intensity is linked to their physical condition, and signifies their health to other females, which compete over males as a resource, since they require males to hatch their eggs. Females scuffle often to determine a position in a flock hierarchy, and those at the top get the most choices of suitors during the mating season while the lowest-ranking birds may not get to lay even one egg in a male's nest; if such a bird tries and is spotted by another more dominant female, her egg will likely be destroyed.

The bright color of the squibis' plumage originates from carotene in their diets, mostly sequestered from crustaceans, and is present in both sexes but masked by dark melanin pigment in the males' feathers, while brightly visible in the white ones of the female.