Mangrove Smasher
| Ancestor: | Descendants: |
|---|---|
The mangrove smasher split from its ancestor. It originated from flumpuses that moved north and encountered vast reef-like mangals along Jlindi tropical coast, but gradually hopped to more coastlines through juvenile migration and by using pockets of mangrove habitat on non-mangal coastlines. As its name implies, it smashes mangrove flora in order to eat them, as well as the fauna which flee from their destroyed hiding place. This breaks up the mangal biomes across its entire range, ensuring direct access between the coast and the shore. This supports the lifestyles of a myriad of semi-aquatic organisms that otherwise have trouble crossing dense mangals, such as shrogs, snoas, fatcoats, and more, as well as various floating and raft-building flora, on mangrove-supporting coastlines.
Due to its large size, even female mangrove smashers find difficulty supporting themselves on land. Instead, they walk on the ocean floor and periodically paddle up to breathe. They feed from deep-water mangrove flora further from shore at low tide and enter the mangals proper at high tide. In order to smash a mangrove tree, a mangrove smasher, usually a male, will target the roots with its robust forelimbs, destabilizing the plant until it topples over. This not only causes the leaves to fall into the water where other mangrove smashers can feast, but it also disturbs fauna such as gilltails and swarmers which use the mangrove roots as shelter, which the mangrove smashers snap up and eat. They will also feed on the leaves of younger mangrove trees. Being omnivorous makes their diet sustainable, as they can feed on mangroves slowly enough that they are capable of recovering later.
Juvenile mangrove smashers are better swimmers than adults. When they reach about two meters in length, they will swim away and disperse hundreds or even thousands of miles over the ocean and non-mangrove-supporting coastal waters, resting on shrog nests and rafts of floating flora along the way and using these as food sources. This behavior encourages genetic diversity and has allowed the mangrove smasher to colonize the entire coast of Wallace and some of the closest landmasses, Kosemen, Fermi, and Drake.
Though Sagan 4 has a long history of local extinctions caused by new aggressive predatory or competitive behavior, the mangrove smasher's destructive feeding habit has caused no extinctions, as it achieved equilibrium without becoming so aggressive as to permanently destroy its food source. Stretches of mangal recover from a period of heavy feeding just as readily as a forest recovers from a fire, closing up old smasher-made passageways through ecological succession.
Like its ancestor, the mangrove smasher has long spines that it can clap together in front of it to make a loud "thwack" sound, which males use to intimidate rivals while females and juveniles use it to scare potential predators. When not in use, these lay draped over its back like folded insect wings. The sound produced is audible even in water, and it is able to pick up the sound using the bones of its skull and spinal column. Males (pictured) are very fat and colorful as a sign of fitness, and the biggest, strongest, and loudest males will have the largest harems. Females are slimmer in comparison and only have drab striping on their bodies.
Mangrove smasher activity causes mangrovecrystal colonies to break and float away more often. This has resulted in the mangrovecrystal successfully colonizing King Temperate Coast.