Falseglox

Falsegloxes' size, torso shape, tail curvature, fuzziness and fuzz pattern, dark, solid-colored coat and fairly long, fleshy snout make them resemble a juvenile Haglox in poor lighting, hence the name. The difference becomes still closer when purplish juvenile Falsegloxes dust-bathe and coat their bodies in dark brown particles. In good lighting, however, it is clear Falsegloxes are quite a different sort of Sauceback, such as from its lack of tusks, fewer toes, eyestrils, sauce shapes, and color.

The species has thick, shaggy feathery coats, which become still longer as winter approaches. Its chest is deeper than its ancestor's, allowing greater capacity for its intestines, and therefore the ability to extract nutrition from even tough flora material. Its feathers are longer and shaggier around its neck and chest, exaggerating its slightly top-heavy proportions.

Falsegloxes will eat almost any kind of flora tissue, even if it's thorny, tough, acidic, bitter, odd-tasting, or mildly poisonous. The acidic taste of Alpine Hedglog fruits do not deter it at all, and it simply ignores any dermatitis from the rare snack of Alpine Cirruses, like a human eating fresh pineapple ignoring the sting of the fruit's enzymes. Oddly, it has no interest in eating Pagoda Crystals. Their appetites are so broad they will happily eat Supershrooms or Sapshrooms, although they rarely comprise a significant part of its diet because of its sheer size and those species not as common and easy to acquire as other flora. Falsegloxes eat twigs, shoots, and saplings of Alpine Hedgelogs, Frigid Vesuvianites, Vesuvanite trees, and Towering Grovecrystals. In the winter, Falsegloxes will even gnaw on the trunks of its chosen boreal tree species to access more tender layers inside. Much like Earth's deer, it can girdle trees in this way, seriously hindering their survival. In leaner years, the effects of Falsegloxes are obvious in the early spring: nearly all the trees growing in the upper altitudes of Drake Boreal are girdled, killed, or look chewed on up to a certain height, except for Pagoda Crystals. Were it not for their reduced appetites during the first two weeks of laying eggs, incubating young, and feeding their offspring, their appetites might be a bigger threat to Alpine Hedgelogs, a necessary shelter for their young.

Reproduction & Maturation
Though there is less food in the alpine regions, they nearly always (barring travel delays) lay their eggs and brood their young in Drake Alpine, beyond the reach of its predators. If there are weather delays, however, it will locate a hard-to-access rocky area with several Alpine Hedgelogs. They breed mainly in a somewhat lower, flatter part of Drake Alpine to the east and northeast, since it has Alpine Hedgelogs. They lay eggs and incubate their young among Alpine Hedgelog “hedges”. Falsegloxes lay 1-3 soft-shelled eggs at a time.

The young are more strongly purplish, and don’t stray far from the Alpine Hedgelogs. Similarly to Hagloxes, the larval stage is short, lasting about three weeks until it changes into its juvenile shape. The larvae hatch with a thick fuzzy coat and tend to look scruffy, their fuzz sticking out like Alpine Hedgelog twigs. Most of its pre-adult life stage is spent in the juvenile shape, which resembles, if imprecisely, smaller versions of the adults.

Similarly to a distantly-related lineage of saucebacks, waxfaces, it feeds its young “crop milk”. Unlike waxfaces, this substance is secreted from its esophagus, not a crop. They accumulate fairly large stores of fat in the months before the breeding season, allowing them to feed their young fatty crop milk.

As Falsegloxes mature, their feathers change to a dull purplish color, although some brighter coloration remains along the spine, and especially the upper neck and the top of the head. A curly tuft on its head, like the forelock of a horse, is almost universal in the species. Some individuals also keep “sideburns” of purple coloration below their ears for much of their lives.

Anti-Predator Adaptations
As a large herbivore, it is unable to limit itself only to habitats dominated by particular flora. Consequently, its dark grey coat is a compromise between its habitat’s frozen brown soil, dark bluish-green and very dark green Larachoys, dark purple Alpine Hedgelogs, and dark brown Alpine Cirruses. Their thick feathers and the layer of fat along their "necks" (technically sensory proboscises) and chests offer a degree of protection against shallow injuries to these vulnerable locations.

They often migrate between Drake Alpine and the upper reaches of Drake Boreal, near the treeline. Some migrate into lower altitudes on an almost nightly basis. Although Drake Alpine has none of its predators at time of evolution, a herbivore of its size cannot sustain itself on only the small, hardy flora there or Alpine Hedgelog bushes.They are more skittish in Drake Boreal, and more inclined to live in groups there. During the winter, when there's even less food and harsher weather in Drake Alpine, they are more commonly found in the lower limits of their altitude range in Drake Boreal. Much like the bighorn sheep of Earth, they keep close to escape routes of steep, rocky terrain, which they can handle better than their major predators, Drakeshrog-Bannertail packs, and especially Drakeshrogs.

Up to a point, they become bolder in their foraging on colder days, when Drakeshrog-Bannertail packs are comparatively poorly-equipped, especially for its Bannertails. Yet, even deep in winter, they are not entirely safe: Falsejaw Sauceback packs are even more cold-adapted than they are.

Its thick, fuzzy footpads protect it from the rashes caused by Alpine Cirruses, which are a nuisance to various would-be pursuers, though the hooved Falsejaw Saucebacks are one notable exception.

Unlike the Double-Lipped Sauceback, another large herbivore in the area, it is largely nocturnal, which helps it avoid predators. It has only blurry greyscale vision. Since colors are much harder to distinguish at night, the fact its coat doesn’t really match the local flora isn’t as much of an issue. Though it stands out against the trunks of much-lighter Vesuvianite trees, most of the time they are big enough to cast a lot of shade, flattening the already-small color differences at night.