Gloves

The Glove

The glove is a smaller, more terrestrial relative of the mitten, descended initially from the water snuffle. Diverging from the mitten fifteen million years ago, it is similarly built, totally without wings, and has a snout covered in dexterous appendages. The hind legs are positioned further back than those of the mitten, much like those of its aquatic ancestor, and to balance it carries its body nearly vertically in the manner of a runner duck when running. The snout of the glove is even more strongly hand-shaped than that of the mitten, consisting of five cartilaginous appendages, three of which derive all from the upper jaw and two from the lower. These are structurally similar to those of the mitten but differ in each having a joint about halfway along their length and another about 3/4 of the way down the appendage, rather than flexing smoothly along their whole length, which function like three fingers and two opposing thumbs and can be folded together to grab food. The difference in mobility can be attributed to differing underlying skeletal structure; in the mitten, the tentacles are supported by numerous disc-shaped discs of cartilage which are attached by flexible tendons. In the glove, many of these discs have fused into rods, limiting mobility except at the joints. This makes the "fingers" of the glove stronger and more articulate, at the expense of flexibility.

Gloves also differ from mittens in that they are nocturnal. Their vision is still effective, particularly at seeing in the dark, but their color perception is even poorer than the mitten's and they are nearly color-blind, able to see only shades of gray and pale shades of the blue and yellow and ultraviolet spectrums. They are strictly carnivorous and feed on invertebrates and small animals that they can find on the ground. Small groups often can be observed moving through the undergrowth of the equatorial forests at night, carefully using their "hands" to turn over small logs and sift through the leaf litter in search of hidden prey. When something is discovered, the method of the glove is to pursue it and attempt to scoop it up with their hand, which can quickly be closed, bringing it to the mouth where it is quickly subdued with a crushing bite. Gloves are capable of the same basic chewing method used by their relatives through cranial kinesis. They will prey readily on any small animal that they can catch, including crickets, tribbets, mudwickets and the young of birds, but unlike the mitten find most of their food far from water. Their feet are completely unwebbed and so they are less capable swimmers. Their legs are also shorter than the mitten's, meaning they are also slower runners, but they serve well to carry their owner to safety when pursued in the dense forest undergrowth, allowing the glove to slip under low branches and dash to safety in thickets too dense for lankier pursuers to follow.

above: a male glove; the female is similar, with a smaller, paler mask around the eyes and a pale breast where the male's is rust colored.

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Gloves are serially monogamous but do not mate for life - instead, they court a new mate every spring. To win over a mate, the male glove attempts to appease a female by bringing her tidbits of food. She is typically very easily won over and will let many males feed her and then mate with them all. The only way for any one of them to ensure he spreads his own genes is therefore to guard her every move and ensure no other males find her for the duration of the mating season until she lays her eggs. Male gloves do this in a most novel way, by literally taking their mates captive and luring them into holding cells they have put together since about a month before the proper start of the breeding season, where they will now pen their chosen female up until they are brooding their eggs and no longer receptive to the advances of other males.

Gloves, unlike mittens, have not abandoned constructing burrows in which to incubate their eggs. The ancestral water snuffle started such burrows underwater with their beaks, taking mouthfuls of mud and spitting it out, eventually using the paddle-like feet to scratch and widen the burrow further. The male glove now uses its "hand" to start construction, demonstrating why its appendages have become so strengthened. Scooping with its "fingers" - the tips of which are covered in a protective keratin sheathe - into a suitably sheltered hillside, and eventually using its feet to kick out the loosened soil as well, the glove gradually digs out a secluded burrow as deep as fifteen feet. Only once this is done does he then go out in search of a female and attempt to court her with offerings of food. She usually accepts him readily, but to make sure she stays his, he begins leading her back towards his burrow by dangling pieces of meat in his "fingertips" just out of her reach, encouraging her to follow him. Once they reach the burrow, he invites her in. She goes in willingly, for she is naturally programmed to search for such a safe burrow to lay her eggs. She adjusts the burrow to her liking, producing a wide, rounded off room at its end to accommodate her in a brooding position while he carries away excess soil and brings her back twigs, grass stems and soft moss to line it with. She does not object as he continuously checks in on her, until suddenly he stops. When the female returns to the entrance of the burrow to check on him, she will find that she has been sealed inside by the male, with only a tiny slit left in the packed soil through which she can fit one, maybe two of her "fingers". This will be her only tie to the outside for the next two and a half months. Having mated with her, he now guarantees that no other male will get the opportunity. He brings her food and delivers it through the slit throughout the night from sun down to sunrise, resting during the day, while she lays and begins setting on her clutch. She does not escape, for she lacks the sharp "claws" on the tips of her fingers that the male used to dig and the tight confines of the burrow's entrance prevent her from turning and using her hind legs to do so. She is completely dependent on him until her young hatch and are two weeks old, at which point the male will instinctively break down the barrier and free the female to assist in finding food to feed them. If for some reason the female's eggs do not hatch or her young do not survive, she will spend all of her time waiting by the entrance calling, signaling for the male to let her out early so that they may mate and try a second time. In cases where the male is killed while the female is penned up, however, she is very likely to starve to death unless she can manage to free herself.

The glove's chicks are only semi-precocial at birth and do not leave the burrow for two weeks, during which time they are fed entirely by their mother, who regurgitates food she receives from her mate outside the burrow. Once they are freed from the burrow, they will spend several weeks more with their father while their parents part and their mother goes off on her own, leaving him to finish parenting. The adults will abandon the burrow; though the male may return to it the next season, just as often he will produce another, with the previous years' lodging often being taken over by other forest animals such as molodonts and other birds. The chicks are independent by three months of age and will be ready to breed the following spring.