Logworm Sauceback

The Logworm Sauceback split from its ancestor. It is the smallest sauceback to exist thus far. It no longer fills much of a niche at all as an adult, only maturing to breed once before dying. The entire lifecycle of the Logworm Sauceback takes place over the course of a single year, making it an annual species. It no longer has tusks, as they only grew in at adulthood and are no longer needed since adults don’t eat. Its "sauce" plate is fully internalized like the rest of its exoskeleton in adulthood, unlike its ancestor.

Logworm Sauceback larvae, as their name suggests, are ectothermic worm-like detritivores which mainly consume wood. They do not produce their own cellulase, instead depending on microbes in their gut and in the wood they eat to break it down. They gnaw through wood with their teeth, eating constantly for most of their lives. When the time comes, they eat so much that they become like fat hairy sausages before burying themselves to undergo metamorphosis safely. While adults are reddish to blend in with the local soil, larvae tend to be very dark in color, blending in with the abundant obsidian wood.

After emerging, adult Logworm Saucebacks live for less than a day. Lacking vision, they locate one another through vocalization and echolocation. Males have tall manes of stiff feathers which, while cryptic to the eyes of a predator, serve to reflect more sound to boost their visibility in sonar, allowing females to locate them more quickly. A male will mate with several females, but if only one arrives, he will settle for simply mating with her repeatedly, often hundreds of times, until he dies of exhaustion. If no female arrives at all, the drive to mate is so great that males will try to mate with other males, other species, or even inanimate objects. Similar behavior can occur with lone females, but to a lesser extreme as their main drive is to find a male to mate with them rather than to actually initiate mating. Females will lay thousands of eggs on or near logs, or just about anywhere in the more forested parts of their range. They will also lay eggs in shrog nests, as those are made almost entirely of logs and are essentially a feast for their larvae; though they won’t survive longer trips and don’t have an established “ocean” population, this has nonetheless also caused them to be present on the nearby Hydro Island.

The breeding cycle of the Logworm Sauceback lines up with the seasons in the northern hemisphere, even in the tropical part of its range. Adults emerge, mate, and lay eggs in the fall. The larvae hatch before winter, and in the temperate part of its range they hibernate to avoid the frost. The larvae are active throughout the spring and summer, consuming lots and lots of wood. As fall arrives, they grow exponentially in size, becoming fat hairy sausage-shaped creatures before metamorphosing into adults, using all that stored energy to properly develop their adult features and produce a massive number of gametes. The adults emerge, mate, lay their eggs, and die, repeating the cycle.