Wallace Quails

The Wallace quails are a genus of small, primitive, quail-like biats. Like the terran birds they share their name with, they primarily live on the ground rather than in trees and primarily fly to escape predators. Unlike terran quails, however, the Wallace quails are excellent burrowers, allowing them to keep their eggs and chicks safe from predators. It is this remarkable adaptation that has resulted in their ancestor being replaced within Wallace.

The jaws of Wallace quails are upturned, allowing them to dig by tossing dirt overhead. A ring of feathers on their faces flips back to cover their eyestrils while digging to prevent dirt from entering their open pupils. Though this is slower than digging with a pair of clawed limbs, they do not have a pair of clawed limbs with which to dig, so they are adapted to do this repeatedly very quickly, swiveling their head up and down using fast-twitch muscle fibers.

Wallace quails are unique in that the raising of chicks is handled exclusively by the males. As small creatures with a low chance of surviving to adulthood, it is optimal for a single female to lay eggs as often as possible, however if she has just one nest and one mate there’s a high chance that a predator will find it and devour all the eggs and chicks at once. So, instead, a female will leave her mate as soon as her help in incubation is no longer needed, leaving him to raise the chicks on his own while she seeks a new mate immediately. This speeds up the maximum egg laying rate of a given female without risk of complete waste due to predation, operating on the principle of not putting all of one’s eggs in one basket--or burrow, in this case. This also leaves most males unavailable for mating at a given time, as they are busy raising chicks and can’t afford to raise more, which will sometimes result in females fighting over available mates--either by trying to captivate males better than their competitor, or by literally kicking and biting until one flees. In some cases, with no other options, females might even try to kill a given male’s chicks to make him willing to breed again. In some species, a male that already has eggs or chicks may be receptive regardless, in which case after mating the female will seek a different male, usually of a different species, to raise the chicks for her; this makes them facultative brood parasites.

Like terran hares, Wallace quails avoid drawing attention to the location of their burrow--and therefore eggs and chicks--by staying away while foraging, instead flying to safety when threatened. Before the eggs hatch, the parents take turns hiding in the burrow and sitting on them while the other is away. Once they hatch into feathered chicks, as they no longer need to be incubated, the mother leaves to be able to breed again immediately while the father continues to return to feed them twice a day. In some warm tropical biomes as well as those with the advantage of geothermal heat due to volcanism, the mother might even leave immediately after laying the last of the clutch, leaving all further work to the father. The chicks are developed enough from hatching to run away in the event that the burrow is suddenly exposed, increasing their chances of survival. Once they fledge, they start following their father on foraging trips until they are independent at 6 weeks of age. Wallace quails breed several times a year, even in winter in some species thanks to the insulation provided by burrowing, except in polar biomes where it is still simply too cold.

Clutch size varies from species to species. Wallace quails, and other basal biats, have two functional ovaries unlike birds and thus usually lay an even number of eggs. In alpine regions, the clutch size may be as small as 2, and it may be as large as 18 in warm tropical and volcanic regions. Smaller clutch sizes may also exist in species which have more egg-eating predators, as females will lay a small number of eggs in as many different places as possible.

Digging is not just used for burrowing. Similar to other basal ornitherian saucebacks with upturned jaws, Wallace quails use their jaws to turn over dirt and stones and grab and eat any small morsels that they uncover. They may also flip burrowing creatures that attempt to rebury themselves, if they miss their first grab.

There are many species of Wallace quail. They can be split into two main morphological types, woodquail and grassquail. Woodquails are stronger fliers and reside in more wooded biomes (woodlands, rainforests, and dense shrubland), while grassquails are faster runners and live in more open biomes (open shrubland, plains, and desert). The two types overlap in shrublands and can both hybridize and evolve into one another. Some species are sexually dimorphic, with females having more colorful or distinct eyes. Species vary in color according to their environment, blending in with soil, ground flora, snow, or branches and leaf litter according to what is present. Some polar and subpolar species have white winter coats.