Mangal Sauceback

The mangal sauceback split from its ancestor. It moved out to the beaches and mangal biomes, where it hunts small creatures found among the substrate, much as its ancestor did—except that it has a preference for those found in water.

The mangal sauceback swims with a left-right undulation of its tail and seeks out benthic sea creatures, such as burraroms and scuttlers, by touch, as its echolocation is mostly ineffective underwater due to it only being adapted to use it in the air. Its “gums” are very sensitive and much of its face naked to aid in this. Once it finds what it’s looking for, it snatches it with its four jaws full of conical denticles. A strong swimmer with a strong bite, it can pull even the largest burraroms from their burrows with enough force to tear them in half in some cases. The shells of scuttlers are no problem, as once it has them in its grasp it can use its jaws and feet to turn them upside-down and rip into their soft underbellies. It will also hunt vermees in the beaches and on tiny mangrove-formed islands, where it also lays its eggs.

The mangal sauceback’s jaw teeth are elongated and each bear several conical denticles which act similarly to the teeth of a crocodile to maintain a secure grip on their chosen prey. The four swallowing teeth are set further back and difficult to see when looking into the mouth. The jaws can no longer be fully retracted, but they are still capable of some back and forth motion to manipulate food. Though the external gum-lips are covered more by skin than mucous membrane, the mouth still does not fully close at the front, leaving a roughly square-shaped gap which leaves it prone to water loss. However, this is not really an issue, as the mangal sauceback is aquatic.

Much like its ancestor, the mangal sauceback has dramatic mating practices. Females will climb onto the beach, mangrove logs, or tiny islands formed around mangroves and advertise their receptiveness with ultrasonic chirps, attracting any males nearby. Multiple males may fight to the death over a potential mating opportunity. Once the winner has mated with the female, the remaining males will mate with one another to reduce their aggression and hormone levels so that they can cease fighting and move on. Older males which have been in many mating battles often have scars, particularly taking the form of holes through their ears and gum-lips from other males biting their faces and puncturing them with their denticles. Like its ancestor, the mangal sauceback is fertile throughout the year, but unlike its ancestor, it does not hibernate.

The mangal sauceback lays around 200 eggs at a time and offers no parental care. The larvae are detritivores which eat the wood and chitin of dead trees and shrubs in the mangal and beach biomes. They reach adult length before metamorphosis, in which they bulk up into “fat hairy sausages” so as to not starve before their transformation into an adult is complete. In the colder parts of their range, larvae brumate over winter. This results in larvae taking longer to reach adulthood further north, as they cease growing during this time. Temperate populations take one year to reach maturity, while tropical ones only take 8 months. The mangal sauceback can live for 6 years, thanks in part to repair done to its damaged telomeres as it evolved, though many are killed by predators long before then.

Plentiful and ravenous and most associated with the seaside, mangal sauceback larvae present a serious problem for seafaring shrews in the region, as they infest nests and cause damage faster than the shrews can repair it. This has particularly resulted in the disappearance of the seashrog, the wolvershrog, the topship shrog, and the shailnitor in all beaches and mangals which the mangal sauceback occupies. Wolvershrogs also vanished from inland in Barlowe and from Lamarck Temperate Woodland, as they are tied to the beach and not a true population. Though more shrogs can arrive by the will of the ocean currents, if they need to build nests or do repairs they are unlikely to ever leave once mangal saucebacks find their nests and will eventually, whether by exposure to the elements or predation by pirate waxfaces, die without establishing a population, especially wolvershrogs which can easily overheat in the temperate summer.

The mangal sauceback prefers to stick close to the mangroves, as it is blind and dependent on echolocation, and navigating open water without mangroves close by to create echoes is rather difficult especially with its relatively small ears. Nonetheless, it is very common for it to get lost and cross open stretches of water, and if it isn’t eaten, it can arrive on and colonize more distant islands. This has resulted in it reaching many isolated islands surrounding Barlowe and even crossing to the mangals and islands surrounding southeastern Lamarck.