Implied Bones

There are today many species of largely terrestrial species, ranging from small burrowers to towering giants. There are three clades of Cheuinaevids currently extant on Polaris. The basal archeirids, the fully aquatic Deinorostrids, and the usually semi-aquatic nackavids. Of these the Deinorostrids are by far the most successful clade, being found across the planet’s wide oceans. This does not mean that the other clades are unsuccessful, and the nackavids especially are incredibly diverse, especially in the northern hemisphere

The Dicynodog is a large species of beakfox native to the island continent of Meridia and the surrounding islands. While not as large as the other carnivorous dicynodonts found in Meridia (the Beakbear and Fangraff), the Dicynodog is the largest species of beakfox on Polaris. This means that they don't compete much with any of their relatives, but it also puts them in direct competition with the Crown Jackals and korrets.

To avoid this competition, the Dicynodog has become a true generalist. While the crown jackals specialised to forest environments and the korrets to open grasslands, the dicynodog can be found across the continent and is always on the move to find new prey. This doesn't erase all the competition, though, and these animals are highly aggressive towards each other.

Dicynodogs are monogamous animals. They mate when the dawn breaks in early spring and lay clutches of 2-6 eggs. The welps hatch well into spring when most animals have returned and begun reproducing themselves. The young are reliant on their parents for an entire year, though they start joining in hunts during the early fall. This means that, come winter, the pack is composed solely of large and strong animals, providing maximum protection. Once spring arrives, the young disperse, and the parents begin the cycle anew.

Found across East Utasha, the Foldear is a fairly large species of Handbat. It’s a woodland animal, preferring colder regions, and is very common throughout the northern taigas. Like all Handbats, the foldear is a carnivore. It’s capable of catching small prey in their long jaws, but hunting larger prey requires a more advanced method. Foldears are proficient climbers and will position themselves on a tree branch directly above their prey. They will then drop down directly on its back, bringing down any cat-raptor or breaking the spine of smaller jackalopes. The predator will then try to puncture arteries in the neck with their sharp thumb claws.

This hunting strategy is mostly deployed during the summer months, when medium-sized prey migrate into the Foldears habitat. During the winter, most prey are either small enough to be caught on foot or too large to be ambushed, and so attempts are only made out of desperation.

Foldears are primarily auditory animals. Their sense of smell is poor, and they're fairly near sighted. Their ears, in contrast, are huge and can pick up the heartbeat of even the smallest animal hidden under meters of snow. But, in the cold taiga, these ears radiate a huge amount of heat. A death sentence for anything as small as the Foldear.

Hidden in the densely vegetated eastern forest, the Glaring Spring Catcher can be found stalking small prey. Their senses are well developed, as evidenced by their large eyes and ears, though their sense of smell is notably less acute. They use these senses to locate prey, typically some sort of Ratbat, but this agile creature is known to catch anything it can get its grubby little hands on, even including flying bats and small dragons.

The Spring catchers preferred habitat is dense woodland, something they have found in abundance along Utasha’s eastern coast. The canopy here grows dense, and the understory is covered in bramble, giving the spring catcher practically unlimited hiding spots. Yet this only applies for the summer, as when winter arrives, the trees shed their leaves, and the forest weeds die back, leaving any would-be predator horribly exposed.

The spring catcher's solution is quite simple; hibernation.

It is one of only three hibernating handbats currently alive. The others being the grey bush catcher and Morgland craftsman. When summer ends and the day lengthens, the spring catcher starts preparing for the coming hibernation. This can prove futile when late autumn approaches and the mating season begins. Males can spend entire days fighting over females, burning through their fat reserves in the process.

Batworld Map

A (slightly outdated) map of Batworld, also called Arellvik in Warnic, showcasing the major continents. The current geological period, the Pruinian, is much colder than the previous hothouse fracturocene. The Pruinian period has lasted for 50 million years and has seen two separate ice ages, with a brief 2 million years long break. The planet today hosts a wide verity of wildlife including the sapient spuffens, who evolved in western Utasha roughly 3 million years ago and is survived by two extant species. The spuffens have since spread across the world and is found on nearly every piece of habitable land.

More info on the continents and global conditions below

The maned diver is a species of duck dog native to Polaris’ northern hemisphere, where they’re quite abundant, being found in every major waterway. They are near exclusively carnivorous, favouring crustaceans and other hard shelled invertebrates, but will also eat fish, eggs and smaller vertebrates. This diet is reflected in their broad mouths and otter like teeth.

Their characteristic manes are used in display, growing in during spring and being shed when winter approaches. The mane is present in both sexes, but is more defined in the males. The longest recorded mane was over 30 cm, but averages around 13-15 cm in males and closer to 5 cm in females. Male manes are notably more colourful than females, with red being the most attractive.

During the long summer months, the maned diver spends most of their time floating above the water, only submerging to catch food. This is both due to the mane, as submerging underwater can damage it as well as slow the animal down, but also to hunt and to avoid being ambushed. Vertebrate consumption is at its highest during summer, with up to 35% of its diet consisting of tetrapod prey, compared to barely 2% during winter. Predation is also at an all time high, and so it helps to be on lookout. When it spots a predator the maned diver lives up to its name, as it very quickly submerges itself under the water, where it can stay for over 15 minutes.

Though they mate during the summer, pups are born during the winter and fed a diet of invertebrates for its first months of life. Females can give birth to a litter of up to 6 pups, though usually around three, and will care for them until the next winter.

The Penguin-foxes were a once highly successful branch of balloon foxes. Today there’s only one surviving species, the Hardy Penguin-Fox native to Batworlds far south. Found on both Julikan continents and the Austral Islands, these small adaptable carnivores will eat anything from fish and bugs to young and flightless bats and dragons. Despite originating in Austral Juliko, all native ballon foxes went extinct when the continent drifted over the South Pole and froze over. Out of the four surviving clades, only the amphibious Penguin-foxes and volant dragons have since resettled the continent.

Found throughout west Utasha’s grassland habitats, the plains runner is a very successful species of jackalope. Currently the largest species of shed horn, growing larger in the savannahs compared to less abundant steppe and plains habitats.

Plains runners live in fission-fusion herds. Most have some close relations consisting of parents, offspring and “friends”. They spend most of their time with at least one of these individuals, who themselves typically have their own circle of relationships who in tern have their own. These herds of loose friends and relatives can grow up to over a thousand individuals and splinter into as few as two.

Near endemic to the eastern forests, the Red Tailed Eaple is a carnivorous feather dancer species, somewhat closely related to the floffers. This has not gone unnoticed by the native Spuffen cultures, who tend to view them as either dangerous creatures luring people into the woods to eat them or as a strange parallel society who live deep in the forest and occasionally wander into settlements to eat children and replace them with their own young.

In reality they’re actually quite timid creatures who prefer to avoid large settlements, though they are still dangerous carnivores who might attack lost Spuffens if they ever get the chance.