Glideabovi

When some Treedundis from the Darwin Savanna started to wander into the boreal forests of Dixon-Darwin, they found an abundance of food among the branches. The main drawback, however, was that they often needed to descend down one tree to the ground and then climb back up a different tree to access the food on that tree, which can prove dangerous due to the abundant numbers of predators on the ground. Since there are more trees in the area than in places like their ancestral home of Savanna, sometimes the branches of a different tree may be only a few horizontal yards away. This tempted some treedundis to risk falling to their doom by jumping across gaps, which would then favor individuals able to cover larger distances in their jumps as well being able to soften their fall. This resulted in the already long limbs of these populations to become connected by large membranes of skin, allowing them to catch air and act as a parachute or even glide. This would lead to these populations splitting off from their ancestor and giving rise to the glideabovi, the first species of Nodent to take to the air.

Glideabovis have not changed too much from their ancestor in terms of anatomy once you get rid of the membranes. The two buck teeth of this species still act as grinding plates to help crush up their food into small pieces for their back teeth to then further process. The main difference of their dentition is that the first pair of back teeth on the upper jaw, which were vestigial nubs in their ancestor that did not aid in feeding, have grown in size and became similar to canines in terms of shape. While the glideabovi does use the two canines to kill prey on occasion, they are mostly used for intraspecific combat since glideabovis are solitary nodents and do not like to share with their neighbors. The large ears of the glideabovi help listen for potential predators like local species of Falcophreys or to detect the sounds of prey like a Xenobee flying around.

The main differences of this species from their ancestors are in the limbs and the membranes of skin connecting them. The membranes of the forelimbs go all the way up to the tips of the fingers, which themselves have become longer to increase the size of the skin membranes they can bear (except for the fifth digit, which has become reduced in size and is the only digit on the forelimbs that is free of the membranes). The large membranes on the forelimbs does sacrifice their ancestors ability to grab things with their hands, but the hindlimbs do not have as extensive membranes which means their feet can still grab pretty well.

Glideabovis almost never go down to the ground, since there are plenty of predators on the forest floor and their membranes become a handicap when it comes to moving on substrate. This, of course, is mitigated by glideabovis not needing to come down to the ground since they will instead move to the next tree by jumping. When they launch themselves into the air, the glideabovi will open their membrane up to their maximum extent to slow their descent, effectively acting as a parachute. The membranes can also allow the Glideabovi to glide for a moderate distance, though they can’t control their path very well and thus must aim their launch before they take to the air. Once they land on a tree, they will scamper up the surface to make up for the vertical distance lost in their descent.

Glideabovis do not have any caste systems, with the species instead having just males and females who can breed. To keep up with predation rates, the glideabovi females will produce large litters of offspring. While the youngsters are capable of living on their own from birth, their smaller size means they can’t make the jumps between individual trees so they spend the first few months of their life on a single tree.