The Mudmuncher

Molodonts by now have conquered all habitats available upon Serina from the treetops to the sea. With a highly successful, easily modified jaw structure that makes them especially competitive feeders on most foods from nuts to branches and even flesh, they have risen from obscurity and become major competitors of birds in a wide variety of niches. Molodonts are now one of the most easily recognizable and apparent animals in any given environment.

But not all of them are easy to see anymore. One group of molodonts, evolved from the poppits, are now strictly fossorial and spend their entire lives underground, never coming to the surface. Their eyes have diminished with disuse, shrunk and grown over with a thin layer of skin. Their ancestors hibernated in the cold, and many have built upon adaptations originally allowing hibernation to substantially lower their metabolisms and approach ectothermy. Because burrows deep enough under the ground will stay a relatively consistent temperature through most of the year, a hot-blooded metabolism becomes unnecessary and relying on ambient temperatures greatly reduces their caloric requirements, allowing them to get by on less and conserve energy. Some species have lost most of their hair, since there is little heat generated left to retain, save for very long vibrissae on their faces that allows them to feel their way around in pitch black darkness deep under the earth. Some species have also developed similar whiskers on their hind ends, letting them better navigate both forwards and backwards through their burrows and to detect the vibrations of other animals approaching behind.

Known as smols, these fossorial molodonts evolved to feed on roots and tubers. Digging tunnels with an extremely recumbent, spade-like, flattened lower jaw, they used their sharper rotating upper tooth to slice chunks from vegetables and masticate them before swallowing. They stored extra food in larders deep underground, below the frost line, and relied on these stores to feed on through winter when the upper soil layers where plants were growing were frozen and difficult to access. Species like this are commonplace today across Serinarcta.

Most herbivores are somewhat omnivorous in practice, feeding incidentally on small invertebrates while consuming plants, and smols are no different. They occasionally consume insect larvae and other pests infesting the roots they graze. A few species have even evolved to favor animal food, including one of the strangest of all, the mudmuncher.

Mudmunchers are primarily carnivorous smols that feed on insects and crustaceans. Their jaws, though still used to dig, also function to easily crack the shells of protected prey. A very ugly animal, the mudmuncher is completely ectothermic and entirely bald except for its front and hind whiskers, and has an oversized squared-off head with only tiny vestiges of either external ears or eyes. All food is found with the senses of touch and smell in total darkness, yet the mudmuncher is actually notable as it is one of the few smols that does feed outside its burrows. This particular species makes its home preferentially in wet low lying areas, always close to water, with exits going down directly below the water line. In the dark of night this aberrant little molodont emerges from its tunnels and into the water, where thanks to a very dense body, emptied lungs, and heavy bones, it sinks.

Unable to swim, it simply walks along the bottom sediment and scents for food by blowing a single air bubble in and out of its nostrils to collect scent particles. Adapted to the low oxygen environment that forms in deep subterranean tunnels, the mudmuncher is extremely tolerant of hypoxia and can hold its breath for up to twenty minutes as it forages for food. And it is there that it finds its favored prey - crayfish - which once spotted it engages in battle, striking in quick lunges to grab their pincers and clip them off to render them defenseless. The mudmuncher then skitters away with them, still alive, back to its burrow entrance and out of the water. It hauls them deep into the tunnels and down into its larder, and only then releases them. The crayfish are unable to fight back without claws, but still try to escape, so to keep them in place the mudmuncher begins gnawing off its remaining legs one by one, eating them as it goes. The crayfish is eventually left entirely legless but still very much alive - totally unable to move, they join others in a similar state as a supply of fresh meat for later meals. The air in the larder is humid enough to allow the crayfish to breathe, and they can survive in this way for weeks; if they begin to dry out, the mudmuncher may urinate on the larder to provide just enough moisture for their continued survival. It is a very unfortunate situation for the crayfish, but an ingenious solution to periodic food shortage for the molodont, and one that can save it from starvation during hard times. Indeed, these larders are very attractive food sources to other animals too, particularly other mudmunchers. They are less social than their ancestors, highly territorial, and do not share willingly except with their own young offspring, so any interlopers in one's larder are viciously attacked.