Chasing Twintail

The chasing twintail is a small, predatory shrew which split from its ancestor. Its immediate distinguishing feature is its twin tails: a consequence of its ancestor’s genetic instability, its spine splits at its shoulders, resulting in a double spine down its back and two tails. The twin tails are useful for balance as it chases speedy prey around its woodland home, so they were selected for. This duplication was able to occur non-fatally as a result of its ancestor already being adapted to survive similar mutations which would normally cause health problems. It still retains the genetic instability, being prone to cancer and often mutating to have duplicate tissues and organs.

The chasing twintail also has another, less visible duplicated feature: it has a frankly rather excessive number of nipples, at well over 100 (the exact number varying between individuals). As Shrews are similar to Terran marsupials, they actually produce hundreds of offspring only a few of which survive based on the number of nipples; with the increase in how many nipples it has, however, many more of the chasing twintail’s offspring will find a nipple to attach to. This has resulted in it attaining the highest birth rate of any Shrew, a feature which allows it to maintain a thriving population at its small size in a world filled with bigger predators. To save energy for reproduction, it has a much smaller brain than its ancestor.

Like a Terran shrew, the chasing twintail has a fairly high metabolism and must eat constantly to survive. It does not starve in a day like its Terran counterpart, being large enough to not burn through all its energy so quickly, but missing a day would make it unlikely to find enough food later due to weakness from starvation. Instead of sleeping, it hibernates overnight to conserve energy. As sharing food would put it at a disadvantage, it is strictly solitary and mothers will raise their offspring on their own.

Like its ancestor, the chasing twintail lives in burrows. Unlike its ancestor, it breeds 10 times a year and has over 100 joeys at a time. Its offspring are born helpless and live off of milk in their mother’s pouch for the first two weeks of their lives. With a less varied diet and the addition of an extra tail the chasing twintail has lost some of its sexual display features such as the tufts on its wrists and ankles, but it has elongated its ear tufts.