Ancardia's Unusual Animals--The Billdad, or Bildede
Classification: Beast (marsupial)
Habitat: Slow-moving waterways in the Underground, particularly those in warmer regions.
           The Billdad—referred to in most Underground tongues as Bildede—is a semi-aquatic marsupial mammal which dwells mostly along the edges of narrow, fast-moving streams and brooks, and has an unusually mostly carnivorous diet—particularly piscivorous. The bildede is an average of 50 centimeters tall, with a similar length from nose to tail, and has the ability to leap up to 3 meters at a time from a dead stop. It resembles a wallaby superficially, though it has a short, dense, waterproof coat, prominent fangs and carnassial teeth, a set of hooked nails on the forelimbs and a section of the lower half of the tail which is bare of fur, broadened, and highly prehensile. This portion of the tail is part of an advanced hunting technique which the bildede uses in the shallow waterways it inhabits; a billdad will post itself up on a tall boulder, bank, or stump close to a shallow course of water, watching for hours for shoals of aquatic life to pass by before leaping to the opposite bank while slapping the bare portion of their tail down over where the animals are passing by. If successful, a number of fishes, amphibians, crustaceans, insects and other aquatic or semi-aquatic creatures will be stunned, and the bildede, turning quickly on its long legs, with wade into the water to snatch up the nearest several prey with its long, talon-like nails. Most of its diet, of course, consists of small fishes, amphibian larva, small crabs and aquatic insect larva, waterworms and a few swimming young greatrats.
           The lifespan of a billdad is approximately 7 years in the wild, and they are considered adults at about 8 months. The bildede is fairly social, and territorial, forming family groups within acre-long stretches of streams, ponds, and other shallow bodies of water, usually numbering around a dozen. The bildede parents breed in winter and the mother will give birth alone in her den in early spring, where the newborns are fairly underdeveloped pink creatures which make their way to the pouch of the mother in order to complete development over the next two months. Once about four months old, the joey billdad will be fairly independent of the parents and learning how to fish for themselves. Bildede are considered to be common game in most of the Underground, though their thin, oily fur quality and highly greasy, gamey meat make them less preferred by hunters except when given specific instructions to take bildede. Their natural predators generally include Colossal Eel, Dire Flathead Frogs, Slypha, Cave Fishers and occasionally Dire Raccoon.
