The Tundra Gravedigger

Gravediggers are a widespread species of sapient bumblebadger, found from the northern wastes down to the southern coastlines of Serinarcta in the middle Ultimocene 265 million years PE. So far only one small population of one subspecies has been explored, those of the South Serinarctan forest refugia and surrounding region. These are southern gravediggers, the most widespread race, which occur over roughly two-thirds of the continent at this time. Primarily black with white spotting and a small amount of orange on the face, flanks and rump, these gravediggers are the nominate subspecies. Much further north however, they gradually integrate into a second highly distinct subspecies known as the tundra gravedigger.

Tundra gravediggers live primarily within the Great Tundra Ring, from its southern borders with the harp steppe and towertree taiga, as far north as the ice sheets’ edge. They are adapted to survive a much harsher environment than others of their species, where winter’s harsh chill can last eight months of the year, rather than just a few hours per night, and where productivity of the landscape can be devastatingly poor. Food is in short supply for all but a couple months annually and all prey species are highly nomadic, forcing the tundra gravedigger to be equally migratory over vast regions and to limit their territories to smaller spaces around themselves that cannot be defined by environmental landmarks. Despite this they are the most aggressive of any of their species and have an even more reduced language than others. Tundra gravediggers rarely communicate with art as they do not use environmental landmarks as territorial markers, and also meet to mate much less frequently, with the young taking as long as two or even three years to reach independence versus the one year of all other gravediggers. Individuals rarely see one another, but when they do competition is intense, as males frequently target and kill one another over both food resources and mating rights, leading to a female-heavy sex ratio. They have virtually no non-antagonistic interactions of any sort, while females are more avoidant of one another.

The hostile northern landscape has forged the tundra gravedigger into a more formidable predator than its relatives. It is on average 30% larger, with a thicker feather coat to insulate against the polar night and longer legs adapted for long distance travel, though the much thicker pelage can obscure this. The jaw is substantially more robust and the neck muscles are stronger, both adaptations related to being more actively predatory. Tundra gravediggers are not reserved about killing prey with their own jaws, as they cannot wait for prey to be subdued in traps when other starved predators in these landscapes will rapidly come running at the sound of an injured animal. This subspecies is also distinct in pattern, being more white than black, with the orange of the southern form being replaced by a pale yellow, and the golden eye having faded to a bleached grey-green. The black beak became pale, almost white at the base and the exposed pink skin along the mouth is largely feathered, with what remains being nearly black. Feathers also cover most of the hind leg in the tundra subspecies where other gravediggers have scales.

The tundra gravedigger is not less intelligent than the southern subspecies, but its environment has forced it toward a more animalistic behavior than its counterpart. It has less time to devote to trivial pursuits, spending almost all of its time seeking food and trying to stay ahead of the herds. This environment does still favor high problem solving ability, as they must remake their traps far more than others, as their prey is always moving somewhere different, requiring them to stay ahead and estimate where they will be tomorrow in order to lay traps and capture them. Even if successful at doing so, they then have to rapidly bury their kills in the earth or the packed snow to protect them from other roving carnivores - circuagodogs - that trail the herds and will take their kills and devour them, leaving little but the largest bones left. It’s a very harsh existence, and the tundra population in general has a lifespan of just half that of the southern.

Despite being even less inclined to ever interact with its own kind than the southern gravedigger, even the tundra gravedigger has not lost all of its latent social instincts. Intra-specific aggression may be even more deeply ingrained than in southern populations, which might prevent any social culture from ever forming as it has begun in these relatives. Yet the tundra gravedigger does have social interactions, in some ways deeper than any southern gravedigger, as they were the first of them to forge a cooperative relationship with another animal species. A hundred thousand years before the antlear people made peace with the southern gravedigger, the tundra gravedigger began securing an alliance with its own partner species...