Cave Creeper

The cave creeper is an offshoot of cave night gliders that have readapted for simple ground movement. Due to this, it doesn't come into competition with cave night gliders over living space, so it hasn't replaced its ancestor. It can knuckle walk, crawl on cave walls, jump in short glides or scramble quickly on all fours. Its gliding membrane has receded, and its tail has shortened. Due to this its limb musculature has increased. Its heat sensing eyes have also re-separated and its biolights have disappeared.

It has supplemented its blood draining with blood from prey it kills itself. When it spots a victim, it creeps up slowly and low to the ground. When it is within reach, it scrambles quickly and pins it to the ground with its foreclaws. Alternatively, it can hang from cave walls and jump on prey when it passes by. When it has its prey pinned, it bites with its canines into a major vein or artery. Its canines are very strong, elongated, and deeply rooted into its skull. Even if its prey struggles, they won't break. Also it can open its mouth 120 degrees to be able to cut into more flesh, increasing its chance of hitting numerous large blood vessels. Once its prey is dead it starts to lap up the blood. If the blood stops flowing, it either chews on the wound to release more blood, or it uses the spiny projections on its tongue to make the wound deeper.

It raises its young in its pouch, but empties them in a safe spot when it goes to hunt or feed. After a few months, the young are weaned off of milk and onto coagulated clumps of regurgitated plent blood. After the young get bigger, they are brought half-dead prey to practice their killing bites on. When the young are forced to live on their own by their mother, they move into their own separate caverns, rarely coming into contact with each other.