Steppe Lizalope

As time progressed and new kinds of predators evolved on the scene, the Grazing Gossalizard would experience more intense selective pressures. One population would begin to become better adapted for speed to flee from threats, rather than relying on their ancestral bulk. This would lead to the Steppe Lizalope, a species that would quickly begin to thrive and spread into many areas of Drake.

The Steppe Lizalope’s spend most of their time grazing on a wide variety of flora. The species now naturally travels in small groups, though they have no social bonds and only travel together due to the fact that traveling with others decreases the chance a predator is going to select any one individual. They are always on the move, staying in one area until food becomes hard to find before moving on to other feeding grounds. They often feed on the abundant vegetation in the Drake Tundra until it becomes too cold during the winter months, moving south into the Polar Scrub and High Grasslands of Drake until it warms up once more although some populations stay in the Drake High Grasslands all-year-long.

Since they are primarily herbivores, never hunting and only scavenging if vegetation becomes scarce, their ancestral silk glands have been completely lost. Due to their longer legs which help with running also giving them extra height, it becomes more awkward to lean down to dig with their fangs to uproot nutritious tubers from things like sproutstalks and so they rely on their forelimbs to dig instead while the fangs have reduced in size.

Due to their more active lifestyle and more limited digging ability, the Steppe Lizalope no longer digs a burrow for them to lay their eggs. Instead they dig a mound for the eggs, where they add vegetation to keep the eggs warm as the collected flora decomposes. After the eggs have been laid in the mound, the mother will then abandon them to their fate. Once the young hatch they eat their way out of the casing and dig their way out of the mound, although this can take around 10 minutes or so due to their more limited digging abilities compared to their close kin.