Dundigger

The dundigger splits from its ancestor.

Like most plents, a dundigger 'sweats' its liquid wastes from its skin. Unlike most plents, its wastes smell strongly of garlic breath and ammonia. The smell temporarily dissipates if washed with soap and water, but soon returns: it secretes its liquid wastes almost constantly. If frightened, its rate of elimination increases, making it smell even worse. Predators that pick it up in their jaws quickly drop it, for it tastes as bad as it smells.

The major components of its smell are trimethylamine and methanethiol. Even its internal organs and muscle tissue smell (and taste) like garlic breath and ammonia, if to a lesser extent than its skin. Oddly enough, the owl pellet-like dung it coughs up (as is common in plents) have virtually no odor. Due to its defense relying on constant "sweating", it has a greater need for water than its ancestor.

A dundigger's claws are sturdier than its ancestor's and as such slightly better for self-defense, but its small size and slowness still make it vulnerable. For this reason, its foul odor and taste are its primary defense if spotted. Still, it is skittish, and produces many young, allowing it to survive even should a predator find a way to bypass its defenses.

While twice the size of its ancestor, it is still smaller than most fauna in its environment. While usually deterred by its awful smell, desperate varants and tejdaws may still attempt to prey on it.

It mainly obtains food by rooting on the ground with its short, rumpled trunk, similarly to a hognosed skunk. When it finds food, it scrapes the items into its mouth with its wooden incisors. It uses its long claws to dig out vermees, bulbs, roots, and occasionally undergroundis.

Oddly, despite smelling like garlic breath, it refuses to eat things that taste like garlic. Due to this, it does not eat the rhizomes of indas, even though indas are common in its environment.

Dundiggers' long claws allow them to dig out small dens. These dens are located beneath crystambles that are surrounded by tall graminoid (grasslike) flora, such as puffgrass. Even abandoned dens aren't appealing to most den-using fauna, since it takes a while for the den to stop smelling like a dundigger.

It typically produces five to six young at a time, "birthing" them by coughing them up from a throat-womb. The young stick close to their mother at all times. They mature rapidly, and are able to reproduce in approximately a month and a half. At this point, they leave and make their own dens. However, even before they fully mature, the den can get cramped. Half-grown dundiggers practice their den-making skills by expanding the mother's den, giving themselves more room.