Marsh Scorpodile

The marsh scorpodile split from its ancestor. They are the result of scorpodiles colonizing [[Maineiac Salt Marsh. However, the scorpodile needed to adapt itself to the marsh's murky and relatively shallow waters. It already was able to deal with the shallow water thanks to it living on the river/ocean floor. in order to 'see' through the murkier waters, its limbs are covered in microscopic sensory hairs. It uses these to feel around the bottom of the marsh's bodies of water as well as detect vibrations in the water. Its eyes have not degenerated much, as it still needs to see when it ventures onto land. It is still an ambush predator, but it uses multiple techniques to catch its prey. Most of the time, it will lunge at prey that stray too close to it and snap it up with its mandibles, but it uses a different approach when hunting field swarmers. Because field swarmers can only detect things that are above it, the marsh scorpodile uses its rake-like appendages to flip field swarmers over. With the swarmer flipped over, the swarmer's electrical current is grounded, allowing the marsh scorpodile to eat without being zapped. It uses its rake-limbs and its finlike limbs to bury itself in the mud. The rake-limbs, as well as its legs have fewer segments to increase their stability, as having too many segments would make things like supporting the marsh scorpodile's body impossible, and in the case of the rake-limbs, having too many segments would prevent the digging spikes from being positioned correctly, as the limbs would bend into positions unsuitable for digging. In order for their finlike limbs to achieve this, the fins are now made of chitinous plates instead of delicate rayed fins, which would be damaged if a scorpodile with this trait were to use them to dig.

Because the river lyngbakr now eats them, the marsh scorpodile had to find a way to escape them. So they evolved their remaining legs into walking legs. When they 'see' a river lyngbakr approach, they will quickly swim towards land and haul themselves out as fast as they can. They are able to breathe on land thanks to the evolution of primitive book lungs and spiracles. However, marsh scorpodiles are incredibly slow on land, which they accomplish by dragging themselves around with their walking legs. Despite being the same size as the coalskin skywatcher, the coalskin skywatcher will attack any marsh scorpodile that comes near it. However, because both species blend in with the volcanic mud, they rarely notice each other. marsh scorpodiles can only survive outside of the water for so long, as their exposed gills will dry out if outside of the water for too long. They do occasionally eat giant spiny wrigums, but they aren't very effective because of how slow they are on land.