Songsauce Piper
From Sagan 4 Alpha Wiki
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The Songsauce Piper has split from its ancestor, decreasing in stature and adapting to its aerial life by evolving a stockier fusiform like body. Like its ancestor, it is an omnivore, foraging on the ground for small animals, seeds and fruit, though they will occasionally be lucky and catch a young phlyer. It prefers warmer climate and will spread out it's territory seasonally around the continent. Like it's Sausophrey cousin, it has fused the four micro-lungs it has on each side, but unlike it's cousin, the resulting through lungs maintain four distinct chambers providing continuous pumping from one chamber to the next. While the spiracles of the first back plate inhale air in and lead straight to the first lung chamber, the other 3 back plates are directly connected to one another, forming their own continuous sound chamber as air is exhaled from the last lung chamber. As each plate has its own spiracles and is shaped to potentially cover the spiracles of the plate behind it depending on the curve of the back, the spiracles act as the keys on a literal flute, and inspiring its common name.
They use their distinct musical calls to compete for mating rights, declare territory, guide juveniles and warn of incoming danger, forming a wide social network, a gala of Songsauce Pipers. While by no means a language, the musical calls are able to convey rich emotional overtones that would be instinctively understood, as well as provide identifying markers for both individuals and for the entire gala nesting together. Stranger still, the identifying markers seem to provide descriptive information matching with the unique fingerprint like pattern each individual has on its tail, suggesting some sort of consistent synesthesia in the way they process their sensory information, matching auditory and visual patterns. Along with social singing, they have also developed acute hearing, with ears that are extremely sensitive to vibrations on the ground or branch. The underside of their "neck" curves inwards around the base of the tongue, funneling sounds from bellow directly under their ears, much like the owl of another time and place. This in turn has increased the utility of their echolocation, which they will use not only to navigate but also to find small prey hiding under the ground or beneath the tree litter.
By extending the length of the outer hoof-toe and growing wing feathers directly from it, it was able to function as a flexible wingtip, forming elliptical wing proportions. As the toes maintain a mostly homologous relationship, growing a longer and thinner outer wingtip-toe has also resulted in a longer and thinner inner toe to walk on. While it will still run on its hooves, it will increasingly rely on a plantigrade pose in rest or when perching. With the main curve of the wing provided by the wingtip toe, the cannon bone extended further out while the tibia and femur shrunk, reducing the wing area under the knee but in turn allowing thick thigh muscles to stretch between the tibia and the femur, resulting in a slider-rocker linkage mechanism, creating a stout mascular limb portion out of the bicept fimoris that enable powerful and rapid hopping and launching.
The combination of sensitive hearing, elliptical wings attached to muscular slider-rocker mechanism results in extreme maneuverability, with a leg optimized for hopping on the ground, a wing optimized for short bursts of tightly controlled flight and a muscular thigh at its base able to quickly catapult it in a new direction, it is able to quickly take off the ground and disappear between the branches. No less important is their iridescent coloration, with structural colors that appear darker from the underside or at night time but will appear to have shades of purple and indigo in light, they are able to appear black on the obsidian colored tree but purple when foraging between the bushes for food or nest construction material.