Sausophrey

The Sausophrey split from its ancestor and became a carnivore. In order to resolve its tail length issue and to allow it to respire better at high altitudes, it has fused its four pairs of microlungs into a single pair of unidirectional macrolungs, which are much more efficient and take up less space. The single-direction pumping of air is powered not just by the macrolungs themselves, but also by air sacs developmentally related to single microlungs. Not needing a large number of spiracles anymore, it now only has two pairs of them. The front pair inhales while the back pair exhales, but if the front pair is blocked it can reverse flow direction to cough or sneeze out of it. The inhaling and exhaling are not constant; the front spiracles inhale, then pause for the back to exhale before inhaling again. Due to its shorter tail and better respiratory system, it is a much better flyer than its ancestor and can fly both high and over long distances.

Having integumentary wings allowed the sausophrey to evolve slotted wings, something which membranes are far too heavy to accomplish. This allows it to soar with shorter wings than a membrane-winged creature could, a valuable boon given the fact that it must also walk on them, and it doesn’t need to rely on favorable winds. It takes advantage of thermals to fly high into the air with little energy. Its tail spike has been modified into a crest-like rudder, similar to the vertical tail of an airplane, and it is brightly colored for communication. The “tail-crest” also has ultraviolet markings which are not visible to the naked eye, but which glow pink under a blacklight. While on the ground the sausophrey covers its “tail-crest” with its tail feathers and walks primarily on its inner toe like its flightless Argusraptor sp. cousins, with its outer toe bent back to prevent its primary flight feathers from dragging.

The sausophrey primarily consumes small ground fauna such as shrews, nodents, lizatokages, spelunkhoes, and small saucebacks, but it is also not impartial to snatching up sluggish phlyers which have not fully warmed up for flight and young or grounded skysnappers. It essentially sees any small fauna that isn’t in flight as a potential meal. Without talons, it catches and kills its prey entirely with its mandibles, doing so by swooping down and snatching in a manner similar to the extinct notooth snapper. Its mandibles bypass wood armor and short spikes. It cannot taste garlic and is tolerant of the taste of ammonia (which is present on the skin of most plents anyway), so it is therefore largely unaffected by the strong flavor of certain nodents.

The sausophrey can be a major threat to the shepherd harnessback, as it sees its larvae as food and will snatch them right off the backs of their hosts. As the sausophrey soars high in the sky where wind interferes with echolocation, the shepherds don’t “see” it until it’s too late, and many larvae are lost to predation. This has begun to place pressure on the shepherd harnessback.

The sausophrey is less social than its ancestor. It still nests in groups, as it nests on the ground and depends on group protection to ensure its eggs are not stolen by predators. However, outside of breeding season, it is solitary and even territorial. Nesting occurs mostly in the cover of shrubs, and it will use its leg feathers to assist in incubating its hard-shelled eggs. Like many Terran ground birds, sausophrey chicks hatch covered in down feathers and can flee from predators on foot soon after birth, though they cannot yet fly.