The Uplands
Serinarcta in the early hothouse is known for the widespread sogland biome, but higher elevations do exist where water drains away and the land is much drier. These upland regions include the upland plain and arctic plateau, which share a lot of animal species and so can be explored broadly as a single biome. As the boundary between upland and sogland is indistinct, and animals can move across either toward favored habitats, they are not entirely distinct eco-regions from each other, and species overlap exists. Uplands in reference to Serinarctan land regions however are usually hilly, grassland habitats with a lower water table than soglands.
Less sodden ground in the uplands means running fast is easier, and many plains dwellers are more cursorial than sogland relatives. Another difference is that Cementrees grow here much more readily, forming isolated stands in places that don't flood and where large animal herds are less likely to trample newly-developing spires - growing most densely upon the sides of hills. Though many predators live on the plains, the density of animals is lower than on soglands, and pictured above are only two small carnivores known as chatterchasers (Caerufugens versatilis) a type of ground-dwelling chatterraven, that pose no immediate threat to the other animals nearby.
Animal life of the plains is closely related to that of the lowlands, with species evolving and becoming reproductively isolated by habitat preference. Animals like thorngrazers quickly diversify behaviorally and become incompatible with very different social behaviors that inhibit hybridization; these male battering helmetheads (Galeocornus infarcus) fight each other with hardened domes of bone on their skull; though they remain very closely related to their sogland-dwelling sister species, the rumbling helmethead, their evolution toward physical confrontation instead of display prevents the two from interbreeding.
Wumpos on the other hand hybridize frequently, the complex, malleable social behavior of many closely-related new species making fully effective behavioral reproductive barriers difficult at a time where no genetic barriers exist. Though each species becomes more distinct over time, hybridization remains commonplace, and boundaries between species are sometimes difficult to pin down. These jumpo wumpos (Proboscirostrus somnocursor) are one of the most numerous herd animals of the uplands. They don't like water and live on the high ground, but that doesn't stop some types of sogland wumpos from passing through, interbreeding, and producing hybrids of intermediate characteristics that may go on to evolve into distinct additional species.
Indeed, some wumpos effectively exist as gene banks for multiple other species with which they interbreed and from which they descend. Such "species" may look similar across the continent despite having drastically different genetic contributions from other species, making their classification almost impossible beyond genus level. The "swarm wumpo" is a term used to refer to an extremely numerous morph, two of which are seen at center, that comprises a wide-ranging and highly genetically diverse population of animals that all readily mate together. They also mate with almost all other wumpo species, accumulating their genes and spreading them back into other species. In biology, this is known as a hybrid swarm, and that between wumpos is an exceptionally large and widespread example, for it bridges together most of the genus.
Because two individual swarm wumpos can be less related to each other than to other, more distinct species in their ancestry, they cannot be assigned a proper species of their own. Instead they are assigned as an ecotype of the Proboscirostrus genus in general, and their scientific name written only as Proboscirostrus "SW". As can be expected from their diverse genetic background, these animals can exhibit any of the characteristic traits of any wumpo species, though usually less distinctly, but are usually mid-sized and mostly brown. They live socially, most often in small groups of other swarm wumpos, but very frequently these groups mingle with any number of other species in a variety of habitats. Though they are less specialized to any one habitat, they are more adaptable to environmental change than pure forms and have stronger immunity, which has favored their survival as a generalist alongside more distinct species.
Other wildlife prominent to the uplands include kittyhawks - including the previously seen crested kittyhawk - as well as new forms of carnackles, poppits, and skuorcs.