Acerax Pipent

The acerax pipent has split from it’s ancestor and moved into the North Polar Coasts. The main thing that has helped it survive here is it’s social bonding with others of its kind. the acerax has evolved an interesting behavior of sharing resources with others even when they aren’t related. In the harsh environment, these were the only nailfins that survived and thus the behavior continues.

Their ‘nailfins’ have become larger and now have many ridges along their surfaces. This enable acerax to pull it’s large body across snow and ice along the coast. Each ‘flipper’ can move independently and in the water this means the acerax is able to change direction in the blink of an eye. This is important, because their main food is now the Gilltail. Acerax must work in their family groups to coral the gilltail into small groups where they can be picked off with more ease. To supplement their diet they will also snack on floating vegetation they happen to find.

When the young are due, they cannot be born straight onto the ice as this would kill them. Instead, when a female is in labor, she will ‘bark’. The other family members will then get into the water and start to break up ice and use their flippers to agitate the water as much as possible. This briefly raises the temperature of the water and the female will slide her back half into the water to birth. The others of the group will also watch out for predators. The baby is now head first, as otherwise it would drawn. To keep it off the ice, the baby uses it’s fully developed flippers to cling on to it’s mother’s back. Other family members will also share this burden when the mother needs to feed.

They still tickle and laugh, and with the snow all around them, they seem to enjoy making ‘snow-pipents’ by dragging their flippers back and forth. This always results in tickling and laughter, strengthening bonds between related and even un-related individuals.