A land of isolation and stunning variety of habitats, Serinaustra 275 million years PE is a varied, tropical landscape of swamps, forests, hills, and coastlines. The climate is just as rainy and damp here as elswhere, but since here are no molodonts here - including thorngrazers - trees are widespread, their growth unrestrained. A world cut off from the rest by a vast oceanic distance, only a few land animal groups are found in both ecoregions.

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Life can only cross the gap through sky or sea. Some 2,500 miles separates Serinarcta from mainland Serinaustra now at their closest points, and ocean currents are unfavorable for transit between either, moving rafters instead out into the endless depths of the unbroken ocean and into still waters of very little productivity. A few groups rafted in earlier times at the end of the ice age, crossing on shallow, sinking islands now lost to time. Skuorcs reached Serinaustra this way almost five million years ago, not too long after the foxtrotter, sea lump and gupgop. No southern groups, however, have managed the trek north. This means Serinaustra's ecology is very different from its northern counterpart, hosting a wider range of habitats. Different predators and prey sometimes converge on similar niches, but often with very different body shapes and behaviors. Sealumps have begun to speciate into several types of new terrestrial herbivores alongside large seraphs, some of which are now flightless as adults. Large burdles are currently the dominant predators, taking down their prey with sheer force, while foxtrotters and the descendants of snowscroungers now fill smaller and more agile predator guilds and demonstrate more complex cooperative behavior to hunt prey.

The first environment we come to on our travels is the coast. The most northern shores of this continent are marked by sandy beaches stretching for hundreds of miles. These open shorelines may lack cover, but the sea brings a bounty of food as waves wash carrion up from the depths and drop it, ripe for the taking, for any creature quick enough to get it before someone else does. The beaches of Serinaustra are the domain of the shorescrounger, Lolligoconeus littorvenator (the beach-hunting squid-stork), a quick and curious scavenger evolved from the snowscrounger in a world now white with sand, not snow.

On the northernmost edge of this strange new land, it is early morning, and a family of these animals emerges from their den to forage for food. These tentacle birds are still recognizable and sit in the same genus as their predecessor, but have grown much scruffier and lankier in a climate that no longer favors compactness and thick insulating plumage. The adults' faces are now featherless - and colorful in the male - taking on a display role. They are still mostly carnivorous and are much more social than they could afford to be in the ice age, but don't hunt large animals as much as some of their relatives have learned to, nor do they really cooperate in packs. The bulk of their diet is crustaceans, small fish, and snarks that they catch along the ocean in addition to a variety of carrion which they locate with a strong sense of smell. The main family unit of this species is a monogamous male-female pair and one brood of one to three offspring, which are dependent for three years and require significant attention. Though they can walk within a few days of hatching, baby shorescroungers are very helpless and must be taught how to find food, which can involve many different techniques such as shucking shellfish with stones, digging out worms from their tunnels, and dispatching larger prey either with their beaks and claws alone, or with sharp sticks or driftwood clubs. These chicks are three months old and only just beginning to explore the world beyond their den site. They play together and explore with their tentacles, which they have yet to fully learn to control, and everything they see is the new most exciting thing they've ever found. They toss sticks and chase them, falling on their faces in their enthusiasm, and getting up to do it again. Splashing in the waves is great fun, and where one chick goes, its sibling must follow right behind. One spots a small isopod scurrying across the sand and watches with rapt attention. Their father sees something much more promising emerge from the surf, however - a fat adult sandlubber.

The sandlubber is a species of gupgop, semi-terrestrial snarks which rafted here from the sinking Meridian Islands five million years ago. Weighing up to fifteen pounds, the sandlubber is one of the biggest to live on shore, and is well-adapted to spend most of its life near the high tide line. It is sedentary and prefers to spend its time buried in the sand with only its bristly, worm-shaped antennae exposed. Flicking these tentacles as a lure, it seeks to lure in small birds, other snarks, or crabs within striking range of its extensible mouth. Normally the sandlubber, if it must move over land, does so under cover of darkness. Yet this individual has gotten washed out from its tunnel and became disoriented. It first swam the wrong way, out to sea, and then had to swim back. Now the sun is up and it is exposed without a burrow to hide in. The lubber is fat and slow on land, and without any toxic defenses its ancestors once used to roam the shore with impunity, its chance of finding shelter are now slim. Its back is hardened with bony denticles, and provides some defense against attack from above, and its only chance now is to retract its eyes and try and keep itself upright as the chicks kick and pry at it with talons and tentacles, and hope they grow bored. They are enthusiastic, but have no life experience. The snark would survive their curious poking and prodding. The male shorescrounger, however, knows what to do.  He runs off to collect a big stick, and then pries beneath the sandlubber, easily flipping it onto its back. It flops helplessly for only a moment before he finishes the job. Tearing the carcass open, he then steps back and allows his kids dig in to the very first meal they helped to procure for themselves. Every hunt from now on, they will apply learned techniques and become more competent hunters. But adulthood is still far on their horizon. With their bellies full, the young scroungers return to their world of play, where struggles of survival are not yet theirs to overcome, and life is still just one big game.

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To the east and west the open beaches are gradually overtaken by trees and vegetation. Jagged, irregular shoreline there allows for the formation of many bays and small, sheltered alcoves that blunt the brunt of the sea's force and allow plant life to take hold in calmer waters. Here, in the saltswamp, semi-aquatic grasses and trees can root and grow in a widely ranging variety of salinity, from the fully freshwater marshes formed by draining inland rivers to brackish bays and even full-strength seawater in calm stretches between islands. Within the saltwamp, pools of drinkable freshwater may be found only meters from harsh saltwater waterways, as rain collects in depressions on higher ground.  This freshwater even near the sea is a lifeline for animals that may not be otherwise adapted to drink saltwater, and allows both marine and terrestrial organisms to make their homes here. Just a few feet above the ocean, land plants and trees can grow with their roots tapping into these freshwater ponds, so that the salt swamp is really a tapestry of many small islands of different forms of life all living in close proximity - marine, brackish, freshwater, and upland, all together. For small life, a single patch of preferred habitat less than a quarter mile wide might be the only place they will ever live. Large animals, however, need large territories to find enough food, and so megafauna move freely between the "islands". 

Many varied forms of sealumps now dominate the low-lying, flooded regions of the continent, with huge green bloblumps - still strong swimmers - mowing down water grasses in herds while smaller and more agile forms, better adapted to run on land, dash along the drier ground. The 200 lb hoglump, Porcuvolucris fossorfacius (digging-faced pig-fowl) feeds on anything at all, using hardened bony knobs on their facial flanges and a blunt keratinized claw on their trunks, all adaptations that help it to dig through the dirt for edible roots, tubers and worms. Hoglumps also sport small bony projections on their snouts and foreheads which are used to battle for dominance and defend against smaller predators. They are social and typically live in small bands for protection, though occasionally young males disperse alone to find a new group to which they are unrelated.

But going alone can come at a high price. Huge and bulky descendants of the burrowing burdle are now Serinaustra's apex predators, and they can burst from cover at any moment, often targeting those who travel alone without other eyes to watch their backs. Multiple species exist, but the atrocious brute, Decerpocheirus atrox (fierce snatching-hand), is the biggest and meanest of all. A bear-like carnivore, the brute can grow to weigh 800 pounds and stand five feet tall at the shoulder, and though it is not fast over distances, it is an ambush predator capable of brief sprints. When hunting it lies in wait and pounces from thick cover, often favoring areas near water as it is a good swimmer, and it seeks to trip its unwary prey and drag it down by grasping it with its hooked forelegs, then to bite its skull with its immense bill, crushing it easily. For one unfortunate young hoglump, the story ends today. Yet as massive and domineering as the brutes may be, their days too are numbered, as the ecology of these southern landscapes changes, and faster, smarter, and more effective killers will soon begin to emerge from the woodwork to take their place. The future of the burdles here will ultimately favor the small.

Generalists that are able to eat a variety of foods do well in the saltswamp, where foods of many kinds might be found anywhere from under the sea to up a tall tree. Some foxtrotters, using their dexterous hand-like paws, have learned to climb trees to escape enemies and find food out of reach of the bigger animals. The whitetip brushtrotter, Arbovulpex apprehensus (grasping tree-fox), spends most of its time in areas where escape up a tree is just a few bounds away. It eats anything it finds, including fruit, seeds, and small birds, but one of its favorite foods is fish, and it comes down at night to wade into shallow swamp waters and try its luck pouncing upon aquatic prey. The brushtrotter is more social than the glacial foxtrotter that it evolved from, living in small family clans of up to eight, usually with several dependent young which all the family help to raise, but these groups usually split up to forage and meet in the day to groom and share a den site. The hair along the spine has become very long and stiff, forming an erectile patch of bright white bristles which can be raised to express alarm to other individuals in its group and to make itself look bigger to intimidate enemies or rivals.

Almost all of the trees of all the different saltswamp habitats were once low-growing clovers - ramblerooters - their seeds carried south by birds that fed on sweet fruits. They have now exploded in size to take advantage of unlimited sun and water. They are usually short-lived, fast growing trees with a vertical growth habit and very soft, flexible wood that together form forests that average over 180 feet in height. The tall but skinny and very shallow-rooted trees often grow close together and so support one another as their branches intermingle, which helps keep them from being uprooted in storms. Instead, the entire forest merely sways back and forth in the wind, lending this group of trees to be known as dancing trees (family Ballobrataceae  - "dancing tree") Many species continue to grow clonally so that over time many individual trees grow from a single rootstock, meaning entire forests may be comprised of just a few old, sprawling individuals tens of thousands years old. Conditions have been stable for millions of years, so that the most primordial of these clones may have sprouted here over a million years ago. In a single lifespan, whole species have evolved within their branches, and some of them may have already died out.