Rumpipe

The rumpipe split from its ancestor. It has shrunken slightly to adapt for the forested environment. True to its name, its woody pipe-like butt nostrils are tightly curled against its rump, making them less conspicuous to predators than in other buttpiper species. Its external sacs have been visually internalized as well, though technically its rump has grown to envelop them, as they are internally covered by what amounts to a pair of bellows-like tails encased in skin. This is because being conspicuous to attract mates was judged by evolution to not be a good trade-off for camouflage in its particular case.

The rumpipe's scientific name--'Aurisus polyauris'--means "ear pig many ears". This is because of its vague resemblance to a pig, and because it has a ridiculous number of ears. Plent leaves can be easily reduplicated in most groups, and the outer ears of phylaurans are just modified leaves; therefore, the outer ear can be reduplicated as well. The many ears form a pair of ridges down the rumpipe's back, which break up its shape in the forested environment with aid from its many vertical stripes. The "ears" can also be raised and lowered in sync to communicate emotion, which is important for this social creature. Only the front-most pair leads to the middle ear, and therefore only they can detect sound.

The rumpipe is social, much like its ancestor. Its pipes are used not only to attract mates, but also to communicate with its group, producing complex whistling and honking sounds including warning calls (a disharmonious "HROOOOONK") and social noises (gentle whistles nearby and short toots at a distance). To attract mates, they "sing", much like a Terran songbird, using their four pipes to produce chords.

Rumpipes are nomadic, as they lack any means to protect themselves in nests or burrows. Like all ambulatory plents, they mate mouth to mouth and give live birth. Their offspring are fairly developed and can walk and even run within an hour of being born, despite their small size stemming from the limitation of having to squeeze out of their mother's mouth. This is so that the group doesn't need to stop to care for young, which would put them at higher risk of predation.

The rumpipe was so successful that it has outcompeted the buttpiper within its range. This is because its camouflage is more effective than the buttpiper's within Barlowe's woodland biomes, thus the buttpiper was eaten or chased away from its food source more often than the rumpipe. The buttpiper still exists in other biomes.