Oceanundi

The oceanundi split from its ancestor the riverundi and moved to the Flisch beach. It still lives an amphibious lifestyle living in big colonies along the beach and going into the sea looking for its food. Physically it looks very much like its ancestor except for a few small changes. Its trunk-weapon has slightly changed in shape for better cutting, it has changed its color to be more camouflaged in the sulfuric sand, its top pair of eyes and ears moved slightly to the top to be more suited for swimming with its sensor organs outside the water, and its breathing organ moved slightly more towards the head for the same reason. They are also slightly larger than their river relatives. They still build their colonies from floral material and wet sand and now instead of large dams they will build massive nests along the beach. Each colony has one queen, a few male soldiers, and many workers. The soldiers mainly protect the workers and the colony and are used for mating purposes while the workers are the ones that gather food, build the colony, and raise the young. The queen spends her whole life mating and giving birth. In order to choose her mate every week a group of powerful soldiers will fight to the death and the winner will get the mate with the queen. When the queen dies a strange and unique thing will happen. Again a group of powerful males will be chosen and this time the winner will be taken by the workers and would be given to drink their unique urine that contains powerful female hormones. It will then become a female, will grow much larger and become the colony’s queen. The queen gives birth every week to about 8 babies. They are altricial and need much care from the workers. It’s not until they are adults they will learn how to swim so they can gather food outside the colony. The colony nest contains many chambers. Some are resting places for workers, others are for raising the young, one big chamber is for the queen, and most are for storing food. Their main and only food source is the seashrub's leaves. The colony will strip the leaves bare and use the stems and trunk as part of the colony. In return they will leave their urine and dung around the seashrub and fertilize it, thus they never completely kill off a shrub after harvesting it. This is dormant behavior left over from when their distant ancestor grew cropshrooms. They now use their puffy cheeks to stores the leaves, and when they return to the colony they will spit it out. They have their ancestors’ see through eye-lid so they can see while swimming. The eyelid is vertical rather than horizontal. Their ears can seal water tight as well which means they are deaf when underwater. In order to get to longer distances they will often swim with their upper eyes and their ears above the water, paddling their way until they dive to the coastal floor to get to the seashrub. They still use their trunks to cut off the leaves they feed on and to protect themselves. Their squeaks are ultrasonic and hence inaudible to larger animals; they however cannot communicate underwater due to their sealing ears.