Gorsegouti

The gorsegouti is similar to a small horse. It grazes on short flora that blanket the ground, it has poor vision but a good sense of smell, and it uses speed to protect itself. Unlike a horse, it can't sleep standing up. Thus, it must resort to sleeping in the open. When it must sleep, it kneels among a dense patch of pioneeroots, keeping its body as even as it can with the surrounding flora, and its long ears bend forward to cover its conspicuous smelling-eyes and real eyes. The vaguely pioneeroot-shaped and pioneeroot-colored bulbous growths on its back camouflage it, delaying recognition by means of an irregular outline. By human vision standards, the growths on its back are poor imitations of pioneeroots. However, the gorsegouti's camouflage does not need to be perfect. Its predator, the baron signaltail, cannot see colors as well as humans can. The gorsegouti's camouflage effectiveness is boosted by its habits of only sleeping in especially dark patches of the rainforest floor, where color cannot be distinguished so well. Each gorsegouti's camoflage pattern is unique. This means that even if a baron signaltail commits the camouflage pattern of a specific, unfortunate gorsegouti to memory, the same search image will not work when hunting other gorsegoutis. Furthermore, with time the bulbous growths wear out and are shed. This means that even if a baron signaltail has perfect memory of the appearance of the gorsegouti that escaped it, within two weeks that search image will be totally obsolete. Gorsegoutis also use the sleeping protocol whenever they are being chased by a baron signaltail. While gorsegoutis are fast, and even have hoof-like claws that are partly fused, once they are ahead of a baron signaltail it will lay down in a suitable patch of pioneeroots to rest. If all goes well for the gorsegouti, the baron signaltail (if it even catches up) will have no idea where the gorsegouti is hiding. Though its camouflage is fairly sophisticated, it prefers to sleep in burrows made by painted uksors. Burrows big enough for a gorsegouti are rare, and thus in high demand. Gorsegoutis with a burrow tend to forage near that burrow, so they can defend it from other individuals seeking a burrow. Gorsegoutis produce many babies and reproduce frequently. More survive to adulthood on account of its camouflage, but this also has a downside: with too many gorsegoutis, they may over-graze patches of pioneeroots, making those areas useless as places to rest or eat. Gorsegoutis are not especially smart, so they often do not migrate to only the lushest pastures. Thus, on some years gorsegoutis will rest in a patch of pioneeroots at only half the density necessary for effective camouflage, making it fairly easy for baron signaltails to find and eat them. Population "booms" occur roughly every seven months, equivalent to February and September. Their ancestor, the plentgouti, lived mostly in the shade and thus relied less on photosynthesis. The gorsegouti has even less reliance on photosynthesis, to the point it gains only an negligible amount of energy from it.