Falsejaw Sauceback

The falsejaw sauceback split from its ancestor, the glacial sauceback. When the ice age ended, the glacial saucebacks were pushed back to the remaining glaciers and volcanic areas, and were forced to adapt to the changing environment. Some intruded back into Drake, where a new, large and relatively unprotected prey organism had evolved; the sailshell. Taking advantage of this new food source, these saucebacks gradually evolved to become more and more efficient hunters, giving up their omnivorous lifestyle entirely. Becoming sleeker, without losing their fur, they adapted to run faster. They also doubled in size, but even then, it was difficult to bring down an adult 4-meter long sailshell. To do so, they became pack hunters, coordinating their assaults on their large prey. Their greatest adaption was the transformation of their tusks into mobile mandible-analogues. Gaining muscles to move the curved tusks, they could grip prey better and even grasp at objects. With tusks, they could only stab or tear; with mandibles, they can pick up prey more easily and manipulate their food with greater dexterity. Even with this greater manipulation, however, they avoid the seashellsnapper, as its shell is simply too difficult to crack. The seashellsnapper's undefended young, however, are prime sources of food for young saucebacks. Their larvae are deposited in Yokto Mountain Lake, where they filter-feed for nutrients until they are developed enough to begin attacking sailshell 'tadpoles,' at which point they begin to leave the water and come onto land in the moor, gorging on the yokto crystal found there to build up their chitin skeletons. With the absence of microorganisms other than the nitrogen-fixers, the larvae filterfeed the spores of the various crystal flora out of the water and act as detritivores until they mature.