Bobbysoxer


 * "Is that rock wearing shoes?"
 * "It appears so Sir, I believe those are Terran shoes & 1950s frilled bobby socks Sir"
 * - Sagan 4 Geological Survey Team, First Impressions

Sitting still in the shallow waters, appearing to any onlooker from the coast as one rock among many, the female Bobbysoxer lies in wait. Below the water her legs look like they are "kneeling backward" on her heavily padded heels, appearing to be wearing a pair of "shoes" where her toes should be, framed by the frilled feather-whiskers similar to the ones on her face. spurred into action as the slightest motion in the water is felt by her sensitive feather-whiskers, she raises a foot and launches it towards the passing morsel, the top of her shoe separating from its sole like an opening maw, revealing a pair of toes stretching down underneath it, the shoe and the toes close shut on the target like mandibles, ensnaring and squeezing the life out of the target. Her "shoe", an exoskeletal sauce-like structure extending from the top of her metapodial bone and covering the toes of each of her feet, evolved from neotenic retention of the opposable pseudo-thumb on rockshorian larva. While it does not move on its own, muscles at its base can expand and contract to control its flexibility, allowing the shoe to flex on top of the toes while walking or standing & stiffen when used as a claw. By leaning on her padded heels, cracked from a lifetime of weathering abuse and rough terrain as they are, she frees up her shoe-covered toes to act as claws at a moment's notice. While her shoe-claws greatly expand her potential feeding envelope, she'll rarely use it for herself. Like the Rockshorian ancestors that her kind has replaced in their range, she carries her nest in her rock-shaped sauce-shell, its feather-covered outer walls filled with carefully placed eggs, sleeping larva hanging with their claws, while other larva feed or try to catch their own prey along the pier like rim. Carefully placing the morsel in the corner of the pier, squeezing it, and mashing it with her toes for good measure, she taps the rim with her toes to signal the placement of food to the excited young. For herself, she prefers much more modest prey. As with all females of her kind, when she neared reproductive age her tusks withered at their roots and eventually broke off, leaving open cavities into her mouth where they once stood. Reaching into the water with her large lips, she moves her tongue to create suction, pumping water into her mouth through and redirecting it out of her tusk-holes, the teeth of her oral ring crossing over one another to create a net while rings of muscles at their base now squeezing out the water. By specializing in filtered, adult females do not compete for the same food with their own young, expanding their combined niche for prey of both the macro and the micro and leaving more food for both in the process.

A couple of her dozen outcrop sisters raise their long necks over their sauce-shell to listen and sniff out potential dangers while the outcrop's adolescent Bobbysoxers jump from shell to shell. Old enough to hunt on their own but still lacking a fully developed shell for protection or camouflage, they seek out the more active prey that might not be so easily enticed by the adult's shadows. At the first sound of danger, they'll scuttle between their mothers, many submerging under the water while breathing through their spiracle tubes or pulling the tubes down in an enclosed fist to hold their breath.

Listening from the shore, a large bull is on patrol. Covering a harem of 3-5 outcrops and bypassing disputed coastal territories, he is constantly traveling further inland than his female counterparts. Ex communicated from his childhood outcrop in puberty, as with all males of his kind once they become too aggressive to live cooperatively, he has spent his life adapting to roam the rocky shore and ground rather than past the water line. Having to camouflage himself from all directions, his down feathers have taken an earthly tone. If he senses incoming danger or is just in need of rest, he will lower himself to the ground, using his shoe-claws as a shovel to entrench his thick legs in place. Hiding his spiracle tubes between his rocky sauce-shell and tail club, he'll fold his tail into the space at the back of his shell. Pulling in his head, he'll raise his rock-textured tusks to complete the illusion, enclosing the front of his shell, and providing protection and camouflage from all directions. Unlike his female counterparts, his shell has no room for nesting, but for the space for his neck and tail, the rim of his shell folds tightly around his body along his sides, and it's quite a bit thicker. He is built to survive a lifetime of clashes with other males, whipping their tail clubs, ramming their tusks, kicking and grabbing each other underneath their sauce-shell with their shoe-claws. His diet has also adapted to his land-bound life, he will use his feather whiskers to listen to underground motions, seeking out burrowing critters & eggs with his tusks and shoe-claws and sucking them in with his narrow lips and sticky saliva. By curving his separate niche, he does not compete for food with the females or juveniles of his territory.

By covering 3 different ecological niches between juveniles, adult females, and adult males, their kind was able to become as prolific as the rocks they mimic, populating the continental shoreline.