Guangu

A passable evolutionary design can only go for so long, especially when it is easily preyed upon by most predators. The final straw that triggered the fat lizatokage’s replacement was the arrival of the agropspyt, which made it harder for it to acquire enough food for itself. At that point, it had to evolve into the guangu.

One of the first adaptations that the guangu went through was its coloration changing due to their ancestor’s original green coloration making it stick out like a sore thumb against the purple flora and various colors of dirt, which constantly put the fat lizatokage’s entire population under threat of extinction. Instead, the guangu has purple stripes on its lower half and its entire skin is colored like the soil it lives around; guangus living in the Vivus region have a more black-colored skin to blend in with the volcanic terrain, while those in the Dixon-Darwin region have golden skin. This type of coloration helps the guangu blend in with its environment, providing a small amount of protection that the fat lizatokage lacked.

Along with coloration, the guangu enhanced its speed with several small adaptations. The first of these is that the guangu takes on a semi-sprawling stance, which gives it a speed advantage over sprawling organisms. To further enhance this stance, the guangu’s feet are raised further up than its ancestor’s, helping it pick up speed at a quicker rate compared to several of its relatives, including its ancestor. It is not only capable bursts of speed, but it is also capable of galloping similarly to a terran Australian freshwater crocodile (As seen here). Lastly, to help protect its limbs from injury, the guangu has evolved osteoderms on its forelimbs; these are white on the Dixon-Darwin guangus, while they are a dark gray on the Vivus guangus.

In the events it is otherwise unable to escape from predators, the guangu has evolved the capability of autotomy. Autotomy allows the guangu to separate itself from its tail to make a quick getaway. However, this method is not only costly in terms of needing more food to restore its tail back, but it also makes it trickier to gallop without the tail to help balance it, and it can only do this once; therefore, this defense mechanism is only used as a last resort.

The last, but most important, adaptation that the guangu made is that its stomach is divided into two chambers to help it extract as many nutrients from its food as possible, even if it is considered inadequate for most other herbivorous organisms. The first chamber is a hot-spot for microbes that help with fermenting the chewed up vegetation and breaking down the cellulose further. After this fermentation process, the food is regurgitated, chewed again, then swallowed once more, where it goes into the second chamber. The second chamber acts similarly to the average stomach by digesting the heavily-broken-down food, saliva, and microbes and providing the guangu its required nourishment. This allows the guangu to feed on all kinds of plants that the agropspyt would hardly ever bother feeding on, though even the guangu will feed on fallen fruit sometimes. However, in order for the microbes to thrive properly, the guangu is a mesotherm, which helps it maintain a minimum body temperature, making it easier for it to raise its body temperature compared to an ectotherm.

To defend itself, the guangu does the following; first, it will hide among the dirt, rocks, and flora with its rudimentary camouflage. If this fails, it swipes its tail tipped in sharp osteoderms and gallop away from the predator. If the predator persists, it will try to flee into coarse vegetation that can protect it or deliver a nasty kick covered in sharp osteoderms. But if it finds itself in a near-hopeless situation, it will detach its tail as mentioned earlier.

Similarly to its ancestor, the guangu still smell to watch out for predators and find food. The guangu also utilizes its fat storages for energy during leaner times, which gives it an advantage against those desperately seeking food during times of famine. The guangu also uses its colorful dewlap to express general needs and emotions, though its patterns are less elaborate compared to the fat lizatokage’s. The guangu typically has its dewlap as a lighter shade of its skin color, but when excited or attracting mates, the dewlap becomes a brilliant lemon-lime color and it bobs its head up and down in a nodding motion; when angered or heavily distressed, its dewlap becomes an unmistakable hot pink color and it holds its head up high. During mating season, guangus gather in territories and males compete by flaunting their dewlaps to gather as many females as possible. If tension between the males arises, they bite one another, and occasionally swipe their tails at one another until the other relents. Once mating is successful, the females gather leaf litter to lay their eggs in mound-nests similar to those of terran alligators and guard them from egg-eating predators. Once the young hatch, the females do guard their young until they have grown to be 30 centimeters long. Once this occurs, the females no longer raise their young as their parental instincts go no further than that; fortunately, the young are capable of taking care of themselves at this point. Finally, guangus can live up to 15 to 20 years.