Interbiat

The interbiat split from its ancestor. Though its ancestor was traditionally a glider, the fact that its wings were also its legs and the way it used them to parachute to some extent led to it developing a keel and powered flight. It has gotten smaller and therefore lighter, as it is still not yet a very strong flier. Its tail remains long, as shortening it would potentially mean reducing its lungs, which would be disadvantageous to flight. It uses both its tail and its ears as stabilizers in the air. Notably, to make it lighter, its pinnae are shorter; however, its hearing remains the same, as its ears now also have flight feathers on them which can funnel sound into its ears just as well. The protrusion of the interbiat's hip which normally helps support a sauceback's pillar-erect posture is tilted upwards, increasing the flexibility of its hip joint for flapping at the cost of it requiring more energy to stand upright.

The interbiat is named for the fact that it has characteristics of all four lineages of Terran fauna which evolved flight: insects, pterosaurs, birds, and bats. It has insect-like jaws and evolved from arthropod-like ancestors, it vaults from the ground and walks on erect wings like a pterosaur, it makes use of feathers instead of membranes like a bird, and it uses its ears as stabilizers and to generate lift like a bat.

Being able to see, the interbiat’s echolocation ability has continued to diminish, though it is not yet completely lost, especially as the dark forests within its range can sometimes be difficult to navigate by sight alone. It can detect nine primary colors (six of them in the ultraviolet spectrum) and can distinguish over 700 distinct mixed colors (including made-up ones comparable to magenta) using its “eyestrils”, as well as millions of colors in between. It uses flight to pursue prey and will fly up into trees to avoid predators. Though it doesn’t have proper grasping feet, it is able to balance on branches and rocks regardless using its hooves, similar to a Terran goat.

The interbiat uses its beak-like jaws to consume various small organisms. It may rummage around in the dirt, grass, and leaf litter for vermees, kruggs, gundis, and teacup sauceback larvae, as well as gobble up shrooms and berries it finds around its range. It will also pick parasitic floats off of flora. When startled, it will leap into the air and take flight; it’s only about as good at flying as a chicken, so it can’t fly especially high or over long distances, but it can get into a tree fairly easily.

Like its ancestor, the interbiat forms social groups that nest together. They nest on the ground, usually among trees or bushes where they are not too visible to predators, using leaves, twigs, feathers, and tufts of fur and plent cotton for warmth and comfort. Its leg feathers assist it in incubating its eggs and chicks. Like its ancestor, it lays hard-shelled eggs, but unlike its ancestor its babies do not hatch completely helpless; rather than larvae, they hatch as chicks covered in downy feathers which are already capable of running. This is because, being small and nesting on the ground, it is rather vulnerable to predation, so its babies must be able to run if they have to. This is similar to many Terran birds that nest on the ground such as chickens, geese, and ostriches.

The interbiat takes on a dark coloration over most of its range due to the dominance of obsidian trees. However, there are subspecies which have lighter colors, such as yellow, to blend in with the ground in more open biomes.