Sailmail

The sailmail split from its ancestor. It has adapted to eat the tower grovecrystal and thus lives in this flora’s biomes. The armor shell of its ancestor has grown in segmented plates down its sides; thus it retains some mobility while also having protection. The individual plate-segments have pointed edges for greater defense. The ventral sides of their armor have a single pointed edge that, when combined with a hip-check, turns their sides into battering rams; this is useful for shoving aside other flora in order to get to the tasty grovecrystals. Their eyes are oriented in 3 directions to allow constant vigilance. Their skin is lighter so that, combined with their bioluminescent spots, different sailmails can find each other in the dark and dense Lur Forests.

They are passively solitary, rummaging amongst the lurtresses; several sailmails may work together to break through particularly thick barriers. They tend to keep their bioluminescence turned off when alone, but if disturbed they have several communication signals:

-Slow blinking (2 second spacing) = "Hey bro, I'm here"

-Fast Blinking (half second spacing) = "You better watch it. I'm pissed"

-Cyclical flashing = "I'm on the attack!"

Individuals live for 20 years. They migrate to the Yokto Temperate River in the colder months to mate and lay eggs, allowing the young to hatch at the start of the warmer months. During mating season males grow spikes on their tails and fight amongst themselves for mating rights using their mouth, sides, nails and tail as weapons. Once a male and female mate they will leave their eggs, the male’s tail spikes dropping off after a few weeks. Females lay hundreds of 1 cm wide eggs in the water, which hatch in to 8 cm long tadpoles at the start of warmer weather. With so many other Glowturt tadpoles feeding on flora, sailmail tadpoles take advantage of this competition by eating the other tads’. Young leave the water after a month, and take another 2 years to sexually mature and fully grow their shells.