Bargeskin

Descended from the shipper buoyskins that began to venture further away from the coastlines, the Bargeskins have completely split away from them and have since become fully aquatic in nature. Such a change in habitat has of course led to several notable changes in their morphology, the most prominent of which is the reduction in size of the eponymous bubble-like skin protrusions that cover their hides in order to become more hydrodynamic. Another major evolutionary adaptation is the structure of their feet - no longer adapted for terrestrial movement, the toes have become more flexible and are now connected to one another by a thick webbing. Finally, and perhaps most drastically of all, the bargeskins have lost the more specialized diets of their kin, and need not consume large volumes of blood to sustain themselves, instead taking to hunting prey like other marine predators do. Such a shift in diet has allowed them to become larger and bulkier than the shipper buoyskins, as they now able to sustain larger fat reserves to only provide themselves with warmth and protection, but also to sustain themselves during leaner times where other bubbleskins would have starved to death with their nutrient-poor diets. As they no longer need to return to the land, not even to give birth, bargeskins have had to adapt to this behavior accordingly. Their gestation periods, for example, have become much more prolonged. Now lasting upwards to a year and half in length for the mothers, this lengthier growing period gives ample time for the both the limbs and internal organs - the lungs most importantly - of the fetal shrew to develop and mature to a point where they are capable of swimming within seconds of being born. This drastically increases their chances of survival, which are only furthered by the nurturing behavior of their mothers. They will aid them in this vulnerable moment, helping them breach the surface by lifting them up upon their heads, so that they may take their first breath. Lungs filled with air, they will go one to stick close to the sides of mothers for the first year of their lives. On rare occasions the adult males may also take part in raising the young, though for the most part they often part ways with females soon after mating. Juvenile bargeskins are known as Skiffs. As they are raised by their mothers - and on occasion, their fathers as well - they learn a variety of valuable skills, such as how to hunt and how to socialize with others of its kind. Playful and all too curious to the point of exploring seashrog nests and trailing lyngbakrs, they are rarely confronted, for they almost always under the constant supervision of their all too protectives mothers. So fierce is the bond between mother and child that few creatures would dare try to get in-between them. Those that would do so, or dare to even attempt to harm the young Skiff, will quite quickly learn the error of their ways as they suffer a vicious mauling from an all too protective mother who is willing to take on predators nearly thrice her size.