Twinpaw Twintail

Since the scrambled shrew itself, the chasing twintail lineage had been plagued with genetic mutations such as their iconic duplicated tails. One population would once again undergo a major change when a chance mutation caused the partial duplication of their forelimbs. Since their ancestors had already adapted to survive mutations that would prove fatal in other organisms, these mutated individuals were able to not suffer health problems. The duplicated hands restricted rotation of the wrist, meaning the feet don't twist out from under it when running after prey. This adaptation proved beneficial, allowing the mutation to spread among several populations until they diverged into a completely new species. This new species are simply known as the twinpaw twintails. Much like their ancestors, the two tails present on the twinpaw twintail result from the spine splitting at their shoulders, resulting in a double spine running down their back and ending as the iconic twintail arrangement for its lineage. These tails help with balance as it chases fleeing prey within the forests the twinpaw twintail inhabits. When chasing prey, the accessory pair of limbs help with running, acting sort of like the dew claws found in terran dogs. While hunting, the twinpaw twintails rely heavily upon their camouflage to stalk prey, using the shadows provided by obsiditrees to remain unseen. Once they get close enough or the prey spots them and tries to flee, the twinpaw twintail will give chase. If the prey is caught, the twinpaw twintail will viciously attack the victim with their teeth and claws to quickly kill it. Their intense ferocity allows them to tackle prey over double their size, though they occasionally attack fauna larger than that but those usually don’t end well and so depends upon the specific kind of prey they attack. Much like its ancestors, the twinpaw twintail have a fairly high metabolism and so must eat frequently. At their size, however, they can go without food for several days although it begins to weaken during this period. To satisfy its hunger, they will often tackle prey as big as themselves or even larger, as a large kill could possibly provide enough food for half of the day. When larger prey is absent, they will settle for smaller game as well though they must eat much more frequently to satisfy their metabolic needs when this happens. Much like their ancestor and relatives, the twinpaw twintail will hibernate overnight to conserve energy and are strictly solitary. They also live in burrows, but their duplicated hands make digging much harder and so making their own burrows is only done as a last resort. More often than not, they will instead either force other fauna out of their burrows or kill and eat them within the burrow before claiming the hole in the ground as their own home. The twinpaw twintail still retains the excessive number of nipples, being well over a 100 (though exactly how many nipples varies from individual to individual). Unlike their ancestors, however, the nipples are age segregated, with some nipples being too large for joeys to grab onto until they grow larger. This coincides with the more complicated breeding practices of the species, where the mother gives birth to a large number of relatively helpless babies. These babies can only crawl, and so rush as fast as they can to a nipple they can grab on. Once all of the nipples of the right size are taken by joeys, the mother will proceed to eat all the other newborns on her belly to both regain some energy lost from the pregnancy and to reduce the risk of predators finding the burrow. The twinpaw twintail also has a slower breeding rate compared to its ancestor and relatives due to its larger size. The species only breeds about 4-6 times a year, and will only rear 20 joeys on average at a time despite giving birth to over 100. Due to their slowed down reproductive rates and less demanding metabolisms, the twinpaw twintail has a slightly larger brain than their ancestors.