Tunnel Rustling

The tunnel rustling split from its ancestor and moved into the Barlow Desert, following the pionferruses. It has shrunk to half its size, both to make its subterranean lifestyle easier as well as to prevent it from exhausting its food source.

It has become teardrop-shaped to increase its "terrodynamic-ness". Its limbs have changed also: the front pair act as scoops to push away the sand (looking like a combo of the breaststroke and butterfly stroke) and the back pairs flap like flippers. Its frontal horn has gotten shorter and stubbier, and thus more durable.

However its feeding habits are what have changed the most. Its mouth-tube has lengthened and now is housed within a series of hollow segments just behind the chemo-sensing segment. When it finds an pionferruses, it will dig its way up close, then extend its tube up to a stalk to feed. Whilst feeding its metabolic rate slows down so it won't burn off the nutrients it obtains. Once it has drained the stalk it will dig away to find a new one.

Individuals live for about a decade. They will begin produce egg-buds at about 5 years; each egg takes about a year to fully mature.