Cygere

Cygeres are similar both to gerenuks and ground sloths in their feeding adaptations. Like the gerenuk, it has a long neck and a narrow muzzle, (or beak, in this case) and can even stand to reach high leaves. Like the ground sloth, it has plantigrade feet and a thick tail that supports its weight when rearing up to eat leaves. When standing up to feed on leaves, cygeres prefer to lean on a stout trunk with their forefeet. If they cannot, their forefeet slowly paw the air in an amusing fashion, something like a cat kneading. Their increased range allows them to feed on tasty towering grovecrystal leaves that are out of the reach of sailmails. Cygeres only feed on food sources they can reach by standing on their hind legs. Anything at head height (when quadruped) or lower does not register as food. In this way, food sources are partitioned among younger and older cygeres and sailmails, avoiding competition. While cygeres are usually herbivorous, gravid females may occasionally eat phylers they find nesting in lurspires or grovecrystals. The extra protein helps their eggs develop, giving the tadpoles a nutritional head start over their competition. The competition consists of sailshell tadpoles, who also eat twinkiiros. It also allows them to mature to their land-living stage faster, giving the carnivorous sailmail tadpoles less time to eat them. In experimental conditions in which a limitless supply of dead phylers was available, as much as half of a gravid female cygere's diet can consist of phylers. In the wild, phylers can comprise only up to thirteen percent of their diet, for in the wild, the parents object to their babies being eaten. Phylers often peck at the delicate and unprotected eyes of a cygere trying to eat their babies. As cygeres have no eyelids or brilles, their eyes are especially vulnerable. They can even die of blood poisoning if their eyes are pecked out by an unclean beak. Phyler-eating by gravid females occurs more often in areas of high sailmail density or where towering grovecrystals too tall for sailmails are unavailable.