Fragorishroot
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The fragorishroot split from its ancestor. For the millions of years since the ice comet disaster had rendered it extinct in all but one biome, and through the vast ice age that followed and the most recent diluvian disaster, the velishroot had stayed put in the wetland delta of Ichthy. It had been prevented from re-expanding its range by competition with nodents, then skuniks, then nodents again, similar to the failure of Earth's multituberculate mammals to recover and expand their range after K-Pg.
But for the past several million years, everything has been changing. Well, actually, mostly, just the predators—now, the land is ruled by jewel-eyed saucebacks with powerful jaws that bypass the wood-based defenses used by plent competitors, but still have a little more trouble with the mineralized bones of spondylozoans. This eased the competitive pressure, allowing this ancient shrew to begin expanding its range.
The fragorishroot differs from other living chaetotherian shrews, from which it diverged a little over 150 million years ago, in a few different ways. Its hind scapula is still internal, leaving it with only a single knee instead of the two that are typical of tams and cheekhorns; it lacks a rhinarium, instead having fur on its nose; and its face completely lacks whiskers. It also has a pouch which can be sealed by flattening the entrance against its belly, as is typical in its particular grade of shrew, which differs from the sphincter method employed by shrogs. It also has a small brain, smaller even than that of the scramblers, though it also has some brain features unique to it, which appeared in the millions of years since its lineage diverged from the rest of the furred shrews. For instance, while its cerebral cortex is smooth and lacking in folds, it is much smarter than a smooth-brained creature of its size "should" be, as its brain is actually rather bird-like and has a high neuron density to compensate for the restrictions on its cranium's size caused by its marsupial-like reproductive strategy. It also has access to, of all things, the blue pigment phycocyanobilin, which is basal to spondylozoans—having been acquired from an ancient symbiosis with crystal flora—but lost in all other shrews. This pigment is responsible for the rich blue and violet markings present in males, where it is used as a health indicator, due to its production being directly linked to nutrition.
In terms of lifestyle, the fragorishroot is somewhat social, like its ancestor, living in groups in burrows which it may also share with other creatures (particularly, the shoveltail). It is sexually dimorphic, with males (pictured) being more brightly colored than females, and each colony usually has one dominant male and his many mates. Cryptic males which resemble females also exist, using their feminine appearance to sneak in and mate. However, the dominant male will try to kick them out upon discovery, attacking with an enlarged inner hind claw. Females have this claw as well, used mostly for defense. Females give birth to 4 fetal young which live in their mother's pouch for the first several weeks of their lives, generally staying longer than tams do.
The fragorishroot is vocal, mostly communicating by grunting. It can also scream when threatened.
The fragorishroot has caused the spread of another ancient creature—the shoveltail. Although the shoveltail's relationship with ancestral velishroots has long been very complicated, due to velishroots sometimes eating its eggs, the truth of the matter is that it was the survival of this ancient shrew that enabled the shoveltail's survival too—they weathered through the impact winter following the ice comet together, sharing food stores, and at the peak of the snowball event, the two species would share warmth in a shared burrow. This long-lasting friendship, somewhere along the way, resulted in a permanent change to the ancestral velishroot to cease consuming shoveltail eggs. This means that the velishroot actively aided the shoveltail in survival, and thus it was inevitable that the fragorishroot, too, would enable it to spread beyond the bounds of the wetlands to its whole range. The two species generally reside in the same burrows, pooling resources where their diets overlap and combining their different strengths for defending their home and offspring.
The fragorishroot did not simply spread out silently as a little addition to Sagan 4's diversity. Its survival when pressured into such a tiny habitat for millions of years had turned it into a fighter—more so than any other shrew. That is to say, it wasn't so much being blocked by superior organisms than being restrained. This is evidenced by what it proceeded to do—that is, it outcompeted both the neoshrew and the opportunity shrew where their ranges overlap, by forcing them out of burrows, using its more efficient backwards knee setup to catch prey and escape predators more easily, and by eating faster with better teeth—being derived from the more primitive condition from before shrew teeth fully diverged into all their modern types, only its molars are permanent while the rest of its teeth are constantly replaced, making wear meaningless to it and keeping all of its teeth constantly sharp. Despite its small brain, it is also more intelligent than the opportunity shrew, and quite unexpectedly even capable of limited tool use mostly in the form of rock anvils—once again thanks to a high neuron density that it evolved to compensate for restrictions to the size of its cranium. Once upon a time, these were just features it used to stay alive under high competitive pressure, but now that the pressure has been slackened, it is as though Pandora's box has been opened, and for the small- to mid-sized shrews of Wallace, life will never be the same.
