Aardoorn

Being poorly adapted for cold temperatures, populations of Thumbwalkers would gradually get pushed northwards into warmer latitudes such as the beaches and deserts. Some populations that arrived on the beaches went on to become the semi-aquatic beach Thumbwalker, but those that settled the deserts would become a different species, known as the aardoorn.

The aardoorn still retains several features with their ancestors, like the sphincters within their nostrils to keep their airways clear and translucent eyelids to protect their sensitive eyes from irritants produced by Piperoot Colonystalks. While they do wander into these flora to find food, they no longer live only among them and instead spend a lot of their time wandering around large territories searching for their main food sources.

Much like their ancestors, a large portion of the aardoorn’s diet consists of small insect-like fauna such as Sapworms or Vermees. Much of their prey either live on tall flora or within burrows, so the forelimbs of the aardoorn have become very different from their ancestor. Firstly, the weight bearing digit has become longer while the nail on said digit has become shorter and more hoof-like. While the main reason such changes occurred was for stability, it also helped with digging out small burrowing prey like certain Minikruggs species. While the species no longer climbs trees to get prey, the large second digit still retains adaptations for grappling tree bark and has even become better adapted to do such a thing by being longer and bearing a hooked claw. This large digit helps grab onto a trunk when the aardoorn rears up onto its hindlimbs and tail (which has become longer to help provide support), which increases the range of where the aardoorn can reach prey.

Unlike its ancestor, the aardoorn’s tongue is extremely long and flexible which further increases their feeding range. This tongue is also covered in small amounts of mucus that helps lap up its insect-like prey to then be pulled into the mouth. Once in the mouth, the back teeth of the aardoorn helps process its food before it gets swallowed. Though most of what the aardoorn feeds on are small fauna, populations that live along Fermi’s temperate beach will also take advantage of berries grown by purple flora such as mainland Fuzzpalms.

While its larger size does give the aardoorn some degrees of protection, they were still vulnerable to the largest carnivores in the area like the Shantak. While their dark coloration does hide them during the day as it blends in with the black sand around them, this alone is not enough to protect them. This has resulted in the aardoorn evolving more extensive armor from its ancestral thorns, with those around the shoulder region being large spikes that can poke anything that tries to attack the aardoorn’s flank. While the osteoderms do give the aardoorn some degree of protection, it also responds to predators in a similar fashion to a Terran sloth bear, where its best chances of survival are to turn the tables on an attacker as quickly and violently as possible. Fully grown aardoorns will almost never flee when attacked, instead they will viciously attack their assailant with their shoulder spikes and long forelimbs. The color changing skin patches of their ancestor also help deter threats, flashing an assortment of bright colors like yellow or red as a visual warning to predators.

These skin patches are also useful for communication, displaying their general condition and emotions to others of their kind in a similar fashion to the ancient Tileback. These structures are especially useful for sexual displays, where males will flash various colors to attract females. Since water is fairly scarce in parts of their range and primarily salty in other parts of it, the aardoorn has adapted to retain their eggs within the body cavity. By the time the several youngsters are born, they have already developed past the tadpole stage and thus do not need water for respiration. The youngsters resemble miniature adults but with a few differences, with the remnants of a tail fin that gets absorbed in a few days and underdeveloped armor. The underdeveloped armor does mean the youngsters rely much more on camouflage and will prefer to run instead of fight, which is different from the adults.