Rackettoon
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The rackettoon evolved from Ringtailed Ketters that shifted towards a more generalistic diet, as well as developing several different behaviors to survive on Fermi, eventually splitting off into a new taxon.
Much like its ancestor, the rackettoon uses its large back leaf for photosynthesis but this alone is not enough to meet its energetic requirements so it spends a good amount of its time scrounging for food. Its long tongue can be used to lick up small flora and fauna to then be brought to the mouth where their back teeth can crush and chew it up into small, manageable pieces to then be swallowed. It does not limit its diet with small organisms, however, as it will also feed on a wide range of fauna, often eating with the sides of their mouths to crunch through the hard shells of crystal flora and glass flora or to chew on purple flora and black flora. To deal with this much rougher diet, rackettoons with harder teeth ended up doing better than those who did not, which culminated with rackettoons having calcified teeth.
Finding all of this food while avoiding predators meant the rackettoon's senses had to be sharp. It can often direct its sense of smell towards finding food, while its sense of hearing is directed towards detecting potential threats, while the rackettoon's vision does a mixture of both. Since most of the other creatures in the area (thornbacks and other snappers specifically) are deaf, the ability to hear gives the rackettoon a competitive advantage. This adaptation, alongside its generalist diet and endothermic metabolism, allows the rackettoon to thrive on Fermi living in every habitat, except for the Fermi Desert where food and water is too infrequent for it to make a living.
Living within the colder areas like the tundra and polar beach, however, did provide some challenges. With its lack of insulation from fur, feathers, or some other kind of integument, the cold winters can prove fatal for the rackettoon if it remained active on the surface for long periods of time. Additionally, food becomes harder to find at this time of year due to the cold conditions, which is why the rackettoon no longer is active during the winter months. While their ancestors did burrow with their wooden claws, the rackettoon uses these burrows to go into hibernation. In these burrows, they curl up and lower their body temperature while their heart rate and breathing slows. In this period of time, the rackettoon will rely upon the fat reserves they built up before the winter when they ate as much as they could. While a rackettoon usually does make its own burrows, they will happily use the burrows of Hornsniffers or Krotezurucks for suitable shelter as well. While they do hibernate, rackettoons are capable of rousing themselves pretty quickly if disturbed, in a similar fashion to Terran bears.
One additional defense against the cold the rackettoons utilize is packing the entrances of their burrows—whether made by themselves or originally created by something else—with various bits of roughage and vegetation. All of these materials are collected about a month or two before the racketton goes into hibernation, where they will collect as much stuff as they can to bring into their burrows for insulations. What exactly a rackettoon uses for their specific burrow can vary on what is available. Those within the tundra use things like Talfuzz fuzz and the feathers of both Weavesnappers and Snapperkies; meanwhile those of the polar beach use things like Brushrums, beach Snapper down, beach Piloroot leaf-fur, Pilonoroot leaf-fur, fuzzy Beachballs, and talfuzz fuzz (though they will also use dry gelatin, Polarblades, and Segmented Carnofern leaves if left with few other options). The populations of rackettoons at the temperate beach of Fermi will use a wide range of materials for their burrows, when they do hibernate at least, using everything from the fur of Shrogs and the feathers of Waxfaces or Skysnappers, to the fuzz of various flora species and even things like Brushrums.
While all populations of rackettoon are capable of hibernation, those that live at Fermi Temperate Beach do not need to hibernate because of the milder temperatures. The two exceptions are either an unusually cold winter, or the rackettoon is a pregnant female. This is because the female has 2 babies at a time. The young spend a longer period of time growing than their ancestors, which means they are better developed and thus more capable of survival when they are born. This does however mean that giving birth to them is a bit of a challenge for the mother due to their size, and so giving birth to them can be a laborious process. Once they are born, the young will stay with their mother for about a year or two, following her around and learning essential life skills such as what kinds of food are available and how they can get it. For those that live at the Fermi Temperate Beach, they will learn what kinds of food are available throughout the year since the mother no longer needs to hibernate once the youngsters are born. Those that live on the polar beach and tundra of Fermi, however, will join their mother in hibernation once winter arrives and will repeat this if they stay for a second year. The mother will also breed by the second year, and as such will drive her previous litter away if they stick around by the start of the third year since she will need to dedicate her time towards her newest litter. Mother rackettoons are very protective of their young, alerting them of danger with a toot of her butt nostril which is also a signal for the young to hide. If a predator is near, then the mother will approach the threat and use herself as bait in order to lure it away from her vulnerable young. In total, a rackettoon can live for up to 10 years, though the life of a rackettooon is often shorter due to predation or the elements.
When it comes to finding a mate, rackettoons are quite vocal, with males utilizing various grunts, squeals, toots, and rumbles in a sort of song while dancing around a female and wiggling their tails. If a female shows interest, she will return his signals by also dancing and singing with copulation then occurring soon after.
Due to their generalist feeding habits, rackettoons often ingest a wide range of seeds and spores from the flora they eat which they then eventually regurgitate somewhere else. This resulted in them spreading several different species of flora to other biomes. This would then result in the spread of several different species of fauna who also fed on these flora species, which then meant other species of fauna who preyed on them would in turn also spread.
Species Spread
- Cryocanon is spread into Fermi Temperate Beach.
- Segmented Carnofern is spread into Fermi Temperate Beach.
- Fruiting Glog is spread into Fermi Temperate Beach.
- Beach Piloroot is spread into Fermi Temperate Beach.
- Beach Carnofern is spread into Fermi Temperate Beach.
- Talfuzz is spread into Fermi Tundra and Fermi Temperate Beach.
- Polarblades are spread into Fermi Temperate Beach.
- Fat Korystal is spread into Fermi Tundra via indirectly ingesting spores.
- Dome Crystal is spread into Fermi Tundra and Fermi Temperate Beach via indirectly ingesting spores.
- Polar Orbion is spread into Fermi Tundra via indirectly ingesting spores.
- Fuzzy Beachballs is spread into Fermi Temperate Beach via indirectly ingesting spores.
- Sunleaf is spread into Fermi Temperate Beach via indirectly ingesting spores.
- Retigroenx is spread into Fermi Temperate Beach due to fragmented pieces being dropped and growing into new individuals.
- Spiny Wrigum is spread into Fermi Tundra due to the Polar Orbion, which they feed upon, being also spread there.
- Climbing Korrybug is spread into Fermi Tundra due to the Fat Korystal, which they feed upon, being also spread there.
- Krugg is spread into Fermi Tundra due to the Fat Korystal, which they feed upon, being also spread there.
- Helmethead Uksip is spread into Fermi Tundra due to the Talfuzz, which they feed upon, being also spread there.
- Tileback is spread into Fermi Temperate Beach due to the Cryocanon, which they feed upon, being also spread there. They also begin breeding within the Fermi Temperate Coast.
- Shellear is spread into Fermi Temperate Beach due to the Beach Piloroot and Talfuzz, which they feed upon, being also spread there. They also begin breeding within the Fermi Temperate Coast.
- Flugwurm is spread into Fermi Temperate Beach due to the Beach Carnofern, which they feed upon, being also spread there.
- Ringtailed Ketter is spread into Fermi Temperate Beach due to the Segmented Carnofern, which they feed upon, being also spread there.
- Billdeka is spread into Fermi Temperate Beach due to the Sunleaf, which they feed upon, being also spread there. They were also able to make a living here due to the absence of the Whiskerback which kept them out of the Fermi Desert by directly competing with them.
- Rolling Flune is spread into Fermi Temperate Beach due to the Beach Carnofern, which they feed upon, being also spread there.
- Uksor is spread into Fermi Tundra due to several species of both flora and fauna species that are in their diet being spread there.
- Violet Cadovermi is spread into Fermi Tundra due to their relationship with the Uksor, who was also spread there.
- Egg Krugg is spread into Fermi Tundra due to several species whose eggs they feed upon being also spread there.
- Gushlych is spread into Fermi Tundra due to several species they feed upon being also spread there.
- Weavesnapper is spread into Fermi Tundra due to several species they feed upon being also spread there.
- Squat Limbless is spread into Fermi Tundra due to several species they feed upon being also spread there.
- Ringtail Limbless is spread into Fermi Tundra due to several species they feed upon being also spread there.
- Bloodskin Skywatcher is spread into Fermi Tundra due to several species they feed upon being also spread there.
- Jaydohve is spread into Fermi Temperate Beach due to the Shellear, which it feeds upon, being also spread there. It also settled the Fermi Polar Beach and Fermi Temperate Coast.
- Seamaster Seaswimmer is spread into Fermi Temperate Coast due to the Jaydohve, which it feeds upon, being also spread there.
- Grubnub is spread into Fermi Temperate Beach due to the spread of several species of decently large fauna being spread there, in turn leaving decent amounts of carrion for it to feed upon.
- Pewpa is spread into Fermi Tundra due to the spread of several species of decently large fauna being spread there, in turn leaving decent amounts of carrion and dung for it to feed upon.
- Hornsniffer is spread into Fermi Temperate Beach due to the spread of several species of decently large fauna being spread there, in turn leaving decent amounts of carrion and dung for it to feed upon.
- Lickworm is spread into Fermi Temperate Beach due to their symbiosis with the Hornsniffer.