Billdeka

The entire upper jaw of the billdeka is covered in a hornlike cuticle. It builds onto the upper jaw of the billdeka to form a shovel-like bill. As expected from its shape, the billdeka uses its bill to dig through rocky and even frozen soil. The cuticle is constantly growing to counteract the wear of frequent use and maintain a shape suitable for digging.

The billdeka digs by jabbing its bill into tough soil to break it apart. Then it pushes the soil aside with its forelegs. It may spend hours digging at one spot to make its burrow at the base of a large blackflora. When the burrow is big enough for it to completely hide in, it eats the roots around it. Its small size, low metabolism and solitary living means it will take a while for it to eat all the roots of its host flora. (Should it succeed at all; the flora’s roots could regenerate to the point of producing a stalemate.)

While it specializes in eating the roots of blackflora, it does not live around colony stalks. It lacks any defense against the irritating spore dust of the defense phytids, so it cannot stay there long enough to dig a burrow. Indeed, in most situations a billdeka will avoid approaching colony stalks. The only situation in which it would approach colony stalks is when desperate from immense hunger. Its largely subterranean life protects it from the heat of the desert. It acquires all the moisture it needs from its diet of roots. Its signaling patches have moved from the sides of the body to the cheeks. These are usually cyan, but may change color to communicate with others.

Females grab any cryobowls they find with their mouth and carry the cryobowls inside their burrow. The female billdeka lays her eggs in these cryobowls, which are protected from evaporation of their contents and competition. (should the cryobowls be unoccupied at time of acquisition) Male billdeka will offer cryobowls to female billdeka in an attempt to gain her favor. An amorous male may spend much time on the surface looking for cryobowls to offer. In these situations, their shoulder spines come in handy as a form of camouflage, for the shoulder spines resemble sunstalks. However, the stalk-spines are only useful if the billdeka partially buries itself and does not move.

At the time of its evolution, its primary predator is the snapperky. It split from the rootdigging thornback in the Fermi Tundra biome. While the population has made forays into the Fermi Desert, they are routinely outcompeted by the whiskerback over food access and adaptation to the local predators. Thus, there are no long-term populations in the area.