Muckwater Fraboo

Splitting from its ancestor, the muckwater fraboo has spread throughout the mud-ladden shores of waterways found across the Darwin-Dixon supercontinent. Over the centuries this species has evolved a larger, more robust form, as well as specialized clasping forelimbs - equipped with simple grooves lining along their sides - for manipulating objects. While this is useful for males when it comes building their nests out of smooth pebbles and various, odorous materials like rotting corpses, they in turn prove in more useful for holding onto the mates they will assuredly attract with their romantic display. After mating, females will lay their eggs within the nest before heading off, contributing nothing more to the raising of the offspring. The male, meanwhile, will continue to tend to the nest and attempt to attract more females, until eventually the eggs hatch into larval worm-like organisms. They will gorge upon the feast of decaying flesh and vegetation their fathers leave for them, until they mature and pupate into miniature versions of their adult stage within one to two weeks. Following this they will leave the nest, living solitary lives and eventually reaching full size within a few months time. Their flesh is now slightly toxic, which they display to would-be predator with their bright, contrasting colors.