Yes, that works.

Yes. I'm still not so sure about the term "endopredator", though. It's not a commonly known word.

Changed referenced to "dundi" to "gundi", the term used in earlier ancestors.

Renamed to "Gamergate Gundis", an infinitely more cursed title.

Each species has a gamergate and infertile representative.

Nobody on the discord server objected to the term "dundi" being used. Though, I may not have made the ancestry clear. TheBigDeepCheatsy ?

Basically the vermees genus group and similar related organisms and descendants

I was told they are dundis.

Hundreds of millions of years ago in-universe, the legs of the Sheilded Stumpworm were inexplicably misinterpreted as its head, resulting in by far the most implausible evolutionary jump in all of Sagan 4's history, which has left living descendants in the form of gossalizards, kruggs, and more. Fixing this error would be impossible without causing a massive rippling effect, due to how prolific and ecologically important scuttlecrabs are. But what if it wasn't? What if there was a way to explain what happened here without retconning ancestry or creating major continuity problems for later descendants?

I am proposing rewrites of the two species between the original stumpworms by Ovi and the first scuttlecrab to explain how and why the legs did that.

First, the Four-Eyed Stumpworm:

QUOTE

The four-eyed stumpworm has some major developments to its anatomy compared to its immediate ancestor, the sheilded stumpworm. To remain safe from predators, its body has shortened to the point that it is permanently in a "collapsed" state without having to expend energy, and its arms are almost always covering its soft head. The latter detail may be the reason for its most bizarre development--that is, it has evolved two pairs of primitive eyes on its arms, rather than on the actual head which they are guarding. This allows it to sense light, dark, and movement without leaving any part of its body vulnerable to attack. It dwells in the leaf litter of Sagan's forests. It has also evolved articulated claw-like extensions of its arms serving as mandibles, which it uses to puncture the bark at the bases of purple bubble trees so that it can feed on the fluids within.

Next, the Crawling Stumpworm:

QUOTE

The crawling stumpworm evolved from the four-eyed stumpworm. Its eyes have advanced greatly, allowing it to see in color and detail. Further, its arms have fused together, granting better muscle attachment for its mandible claws. Its original fleshy head remains inside its new "pseudo-head", albeit now mostly fused to its arms, including its chitinous teeth which it uses to chew up the beach puffs which it eats with its mandible claws. In addition to these developments, the crawling stumpworm has also evolved eight small legs through the same developmental pathway that created the ancestral stumpworm's limbs. These legs are not yet strong enough to lift its body. Instead, the creature uses them to drag itself through the sands of the beaches where it lives. While the beach puffs are not blooming, the crawling stumpworm will dig a burrow in the sand, where it will hibernate until its food source returns. This behavior occasionally puts it at risk of infection by testudohexapodia acta or Testudohexapodia Spherus (Beach Puff) microbes.

This makes the weird legs-to-head transition far smoother, and as a bonus it explains where the heck the later legs came from. It also adds in a method for how this lineage is chewing food, as some descendants have diets far too complex for just mandibles and no other mouthparts. What do you all think?

Teacup Saucebacks (Vermisorex spp.)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Shrew Sauceback
Habitat: Global (Sagan 4)
Size: 5-10 cm long
Diet: Adult: Carnivore (Small fauna up to twice their size); Larvae: Scavenger, Detritivore, Carnivore (Vermees and similar/related species)
Reproduction: Sexual (Male and Female, Eggs and Larvae)

Teacup Saucebacks replaced their ancestor. With their ancestor’s heavy r-selection, it was inevitable that these tiny saucebacks would speciate and diversify at a speed incomparable to any other endotherm. Despite their limited ancestral range, they were able to become global thanks to their larvae invading shrog nests; though an adult Teacup Sauceback could never survive at sea, the larvae have no trouble eating their fill of rotting meat and flora before dispersing on landfall. This makes them a fairly rare example of a genus group immediately derived from an island species. Unlike many Terran animals with the “teacup” label in their name, Teacup Saucebacks are genuinely small compared to other saucebacks.

Adult Teacup Saucebacks can be compared to Terran shrews (not to be confused with Sagan 4’s own [[Shrews]]). They have incredibly high metabolisms and must eat constantly, or else they will starve to death alarmingly fast. They are able to keep themselves alive by hunting and killing prey up to twice their size, using their barbed tooth-jaws. Lacking eyes, they “see” their prey using echolocation. Instead of sleeping, they hibernate at night, as they would otherwise starve before they wake up.

Teacup Sauceback larvae are nearly the exact opposite, like their ancestor. The larvae are ectothermic burrowing worm-like creatures which hatch at less than a millimeter in length. The larvae eat carcasses, detritus, and vermees. They grow all the way to their adult length before undergoing metamorphosis--in fact, they actually grow much larger than the adults through their fat stores, causing them to look like fat hairy sausages. They do this so that they can complete metamorphosis and shift to endothermy without starving to death before they’re done.

There are many species of Teacup Sauceback. Larger species can survive significantly longer without sufficient food, but they still starve much faster than other saucebacks. Species in cold environments have greater feather covering and rounder ears, while ones in warmer environments have shorter feathers and longer ears. As larvae, some species may eat more carrion than detritus or vice versa. Being small creatures which are easily preyed on, Teacup Saucebacks are usually eaten before they ever have a chance to mate, so they can lay thousands of eggs at a time, contributing greatly to their rapid rate of speciation.

----

A miniature sauceback genus was Nergali's idea; I figured I could make them speciate fast enough to justify a genus, so I went for it. Have some free food of unusual variety to feed insectivores and cat-alogues alike :3

Logworm Sauceback (Labilivermis lignum)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Shrew Sauceback
Habitat: Barlowe Temperate Woodland, Barlowe Temperate Rainforest, Oz Temperate Beach, Hydro Tropical Beach, Hydro Tropical Rainforest
Size: 3 cm long
Diet: Adult: None; Larvae: Detritivore (Wood)
Reproduction: Sexual (Male and Female, Eggs and Larvae)

The Logworm Sauceback split from its ancestor. It is the smallest sauceback to exist thus far. It no longer fills much of a niche at all as an adult, only maturing to breed once before dying. The entire lifecycle of the Logworm Sauceback takes place over the course of a single year, making it an annual species. It no longer has tusks, as they only grew in at adulthood and are no longer needed since adults don’t eat. Its "sauce" plate is fully internalized like the rest of its exoskeleton in adulthood, unlike its ancestor.



Logworm Sauceback larvae, as their name suggests, are ectothermic worm-like detritivores which mainly consume wood. They do not produce their own cellulase, instead depending on microbes in their gut and in the wood they eat to break it down. They gnaw through wood with their teeth, eating constantly for most of their lives. When the time comes, they eat so much that they become like fat hairy sausages before burying themselves to undergo metamorphosis safely. While adults are reddish to blend in with the local soil, larvae tend to be very dark in color, blending in with the abundant obsidian wood.

After emerging, adult Logworm Saucebacks live for less than a day. Lacking vision, they locate one another through vocalization and echolocation. Males have tall manes of stiff feathers which, while cryptic to the eyes of a predator, serve to reflect more sound to boost their visibility in sonar, allowing females to locate them more quickly. A male will mate with several females, but if only one arrives, he will settle for simply mating with her repeatedly, often hundreds of times, until he dies of exhaustion. If no female arrives at all, the drive to mate is so great that males will try to mate with other males, other species, or even inanimate objects. Similar behavior can occur with lone females, but to a lesser extreme as their main drive is to find a male to mate with them rather than to actually initiate mating. Females will lay thousands of eggs on or near logs, or just about anywhere in the more forested parts of their range. They will also lay eggs in shrog nests, as those are made almost entirely of logs and are essentially a feast for their larvae; though they won’t survive longer trips and don’t have an established “ocean” population, this has nonetheless also caused them to be present on the nearby Hydro Island.

The breeding cycle of the Logworm Sauceback lines up with the seasons in the northern hemisphere, even in the tropical part of its range. Adults emerge, mate, and lay eggs in the fall. The larvae hatch before winter, and in the temperate part of its range they hibernate to avoid the frost. The larvae are active throughout the spring and summer, consuming lots and lots of wood. As fall arrives, they grow exponentially in size, becoming fat hairy sausage-shaped creatures before metamorphosing into adults, using all that stored energy to properly develop their adult features and produce a massive number of gametes. The adults emerge, mate, lay their eggs, and die, repeating the cycle.

If it's allowed, I'll edit this and the new arbourshrooms to also be present on the driftwood islands. They'd be pretty decent at rafting and spreading around them.

Gamergate Gundis (Formicamus spp)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Verdiundi
Habitat: Global (Sagan 4)
Size: 2-4 cm long
Diet: Scavenger, Frugivore (Tamed Berry Arborshrooms), Herbivore (Pioneeroots, Marbleflora), Photosynthesis
Reproduction: Sexual (Eusocial, Gamergates, Live Birth)

Gamergate Gundis replaced their ancestor and diversified across Darwin, Javen, Dixon, and Vivus. They are also present in the Driftwood Islands landmark. They are named for a shift in their colony structure--they now have only a single breeding female, the gamergate, who will use her teeth to cut the throats of adolescent females in the colony to ensure their infertility. The gamergate is perpetually pregnant, making her easy to identify among workers because of her swollen throat. All other members of the colony have a scar on their throats. When the gamergate dies, younger females grow up fertile and will fight over who gets to be the new gamergate. Despite there only being one breeding female now, the rest of the structure remains the same, and the gamergate is guarded closely by her reverse harem of mates--various foreign males, most of which will leave once the gamergate dies to ensure there will be no inbreeding when a new gamergate is chosen.

Gamergate Gundis have very large and well-developed lower incisors for biting. These, along with their claws, are also made of a modified form of wood which is as strong as chitin, convergent with the unrelated Gryphler, as at their size normal wood is actually so flexible it’s useless. Their internal skeleton remains normal wood and has fused into a single continuous bone. This is because, again at their small size, normal wood is very flexible--in fact, so flexible that it bends from their muscles pulling on it, so joints were meaningless. Some parts where joints used to be, such as the elbows, knees, and wrists, are thinner so that they retain the same level of flexibility as before, but the entire limb can deform when needed. While some resemblance of the ancestral skeleton is retained, the sternum runs along the entire underside from the chest to the end of the tail, resembling a second spinal cord. Likewise, the ribcage also runs to the end of the tail, supporting the lungs. Their ability to bend their bodies up and down is limited, but side-side motion is very easy, so they resemble tiny lizards when they run. The skull runs into the trunk, granting better attachment support to the tooth at the end.

Unlike their ancestor, Gamergate Gundis have far fewer males in their colonies apart from the gamergate’s mates. All males are fertile, and they are driven out of the colony at a young age. Those that survive on their own will eventually join another colony’s reverse harem. Workers and guards are instead all female. Interestingly, either one is capable of becoming a gamergate, so some colonies have hulking guard gamergates while others have smaller worker gamergates. If a guard is a contender for the new gamergate, she will usually win, but guards aren’t born as often, allowing workers to have a fair chance at becoming gamergates as well. The colony reproduces--that is, produces more colonies--during conflicts over who becomes the new gamergate when the old one dies. Losers, instead of being killed, will simply leave the colony followed by their own supporters and start anew.

Gamergate Gundis farm arbourshrooms, specifically the co-evolving Tamed Berry Arbourshrooms. They grow these in specialized underground chambers within their burrow, feeding them dung, bits of flora, and dead workers. They then harvest and feed on the giant berries.

There are many species of Gamergate Gundi. They can be found anywhere where there is sufficient flora to farm their Tamed Berry Arbourshrooms. Some species have a reddish or purplish coloration, which makes them more difficult to see in darker soils without also interrupting their photosynthesis. Species in hotter climates have large ears, while species in colder climates have very short ears. Though individual species are very resourceful, most tend to have a preference for either burrows, logs, or tree hollows for their homes. Different individual species may have slightly different nutritional needs from one another such as scavenging more or seeking out more flora, but all farm and eat Tamed Berry Arbourshroom berries.

Tamed Berry Arbourshrooms (Domestifungi spp.)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Berry Arbourshroom
Habitat: Global (Sagan 4)
Size: Up to 20 cm wide Mycelial Network, 1-5 cm tall stalk, 3-5 cm long berries
Diet: Detritivore
Reproduction: Sexual (Berries, Mushroom-Like Spores, Mycelium and Fruiting Body)

Tamed Berry Arbourshrooms are a bizarre example of how even tiny creatures such as noants can have an impact on the selection process just by the fact of having agriculture, despite not being especially intelligent individually. Tamed Berry Arbourshrooms split from their ancestor and are the result of cultivation by Gamergate Gundis (which they co-evolved with), which tended to succeed in growing individuals with smaller stalks and would consume and therefore spread the ones with the biggest berries first. They are capable of existing in the wild, but their comically huge oblong berries attract gundis anyway, so they usually end up growing in gundi nests. As a result, they are present anywhere where gundis that farm shrooms are also present, and their range will likewise expand with them. At their initial evolution, they were present in Darwin, Javen, Dixon, Vivus, and the Driftwood Islands landmark.

Tamed Berry Arbourshrooms notably differ from their ancestor in reproduction, which is now sexual. When spores germinate, they form mycelium, and when they meet other germinating spores they automatically fuse. This is somewhat convergent with Terran mushrooms, except that they do not form dikaryons. If they encounter unrelated mycelium after having already fused, they will undergo meiosis so that they may combine. They still form stalks as before, and the spores in the berries are haploid. Similar to their ancestor, their berries are grown on support stalks that grow from the main stalk.

There are many species of Tamed Berry Arbourshroom, but they hardly differ visually due to their specialized niche. The main differences are in size, which correspond to the size of the gundi species that cultivated them. Similar to their ancestor, their spores can pass through the digestive tracts of whatever eats them.

I've edited the description to reflect my reflection on the biomes. I'll work on a map of it soon as well.

I've added it.

New biggest Shrew!

One of the notes for the swap was that it retain tool use; what's it using that big stick for?

I'm still waiting on MNIDJM to respond.

I've never heard about that.

Should I note this on the general page?

So, it's established that most saucebacks lay eggs. However, as far as I'm aware, the actual anatomy and structure of the eggs beyond that is not specified. So, I'd like to give my take on what a sauceback egg is probably like.

Let's look at the evolution of sauceback reproduction:
- Saucebacks evolved from worms which laid their eggs in or near plent carcasses, which are naturally moist. This is not said to change in early saucebacks.
- There's no mention of this ever changing in the four-jawed saucebacks until the Falsequill Sauceback, which lays its eggs in the soil around itself. Underground or otherwise moist locations for eggs are the standard in its descendants, so I think it's safe to assume that they never evolved any way for their eggs to handle desiccation.
- This is also not mentioned changing in most basal tusked saucebacks, though Signaling Sauceback's description seems to suggest it stays near its eggs. Saucetea lays its eggs underground on the beach, which would also be moist but not necessarily saturated.
- The Feathered Sauceback's reproductive method, on the other hand, is not mentioned to change at all and it presumably still lays eggs near carcasses.
- The Lightfoot Sauceback is the first in the line to crown saucebacks to mention changes, now constructing insulated nests. This is where I would guess desiccation resistance probably evolved. This is seemingly inherited unchanged in the dark sauceback clade; in fact, the river scorpion sauceback specifically mentions keeping its eggs away from water.
- The Foi-Devourer Sauceback seemingly switched to eggs that can be submerged in water. Whatever defense it had against water entering was presumably reduced. In the larvaback line, eggs eventually seem to have transitioned to not needing to be laid on land at all somewhere along the way (first mentioned in Finback), while waxfaces switched to being ovoviviparous.
- Back on the path to the Glacial Sauceback saucebacks, however, eggs still seem to have desiccation protection...for a while.
- Seemingly out of random misinterpretation, the Glacial Sauceback inexplicably lost desiccation protection and started having aquatic larvae for no reason. Why the hell was this approved?
- Sansheh regained terrestrial young and desiccation-resistant eggs.
- Loafshell switched to ovovivipary.
- Lipped Sauceback specifically reverted its reproduction and regained desiccation resistance with "soft shells".
- Haglox switched to hard-shelled eggs, which are presumably calcified.
- Spotted Sauceback seemingly regained desiccation-resistant eggs.
- Harnessback switched to hard-shelled eggs.
- Brighteyes is described as having bird-like eggs. I can confirm it's not actually changed from the hard-shelled eggs of its ancestor except maybe in shape or color. I was just playing up the whole bird thing.

Based on how sauceback eggs jumped around in anatomy and nature, and based on sauceback biology in general, I think it's safe to assume that saucebacks do not have typical amniote eggs. I would like to propose that instead, they actually have insect-like eggs, though vastly upscaled.
- Most saucebacks do not have calcified structures and therefore would not benefit from a calcified eggshell like an amniote or a snail. The Haglox's calcified skeleton is a derived trait.
- Saucebacks do, however, have a lot of chitin and are able to incorporate any chitin they consume into their skeleton. Insect eggs are protected from desiccation by a chitinous cuticle, and if saucebacks have similar eggs they could eat their eggshells after hatching for a nutrient boost.
- The cuticle of insect eggs is secreted by the serosa, which is easily lost to make eggs that must be laid in damp locations. If saucebacks have insect-like eggs, this would explain why their eggs jump around like that.
- The serosa would likely have first evolved in the Lightfoot Sauceback, and saucebacks with hard-shelled eggs may have more derived serosa.

How does this sound?

My impression had been that it was all with one string.

Yokto stated that he preferred it as an external predator. The description should reflect this.

Since it's edited to be a predator instead, can I suggest changing all mentions of hosts?

Also, since I misinterpreted the size, I think it's too unclear; it should specify that's the width of a string.

Looks like I miscalculated the biomes a bit and the northern half of this would be tropical. I'm gonna re-evaluate the biome options and add a map of the landmark.

Swarmerweed (Algamancerxia spp)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Chainswarmers
Habitat: Global (Sagan 4)
Size: 100-500 micrometer zooids, 10-20 cm colonial zoon
Diet: Photosynthesis, Consumer
Reproduction: Sexual (Male and Female, Spawning, Eggs), Asexual (Colony: Budding, individual: Binary Fission)

Swarmerweed split from their ancestor. These colonial algae-like swarmers have developed polymorphism in their colony members, resulting in a more complex colony structure. The colony members are now interdependent on one another, so Swarmerweed zooids can only exist individually for reproductive purposes. There are now three types of zooid in a colony: gathering, spawning, and holdfast. The gathering zooid is similar to the ancestral state, but now lacking reproductive organs; it has regained the ability to consume, and the gathering zooids also serve to capture cells and even smaller fauna with their mouths. Spawning zooids, on the other hand, have lost any resemblance to a digestive system at all and serve as the colony’s reproductive organs. They lack chloroplasts and exist on the inside layer of the colony. The third type of zooid, the holdfast zooid, exists on one end of the colony and forms a holdfast organone. Holdfast zooids have suction cup-like mouths, and when the colony settles down they eat any microbes on the chosen surface before attaching to it. When it comes time to reproduce, a temporary opening forms on the aboral end of the body (opposite of the holdfast), and gametes are released inside the body cavity and squeezed out.

In order to maintain such a complex colonial zoon, Swarmerweed zooids are partially fused together, sharing their nervous and circulatory systems. They are functionally a single organism. Every colony starts from just one individual or a few which stuck together early in life, and as such the colonies can be distinctly male or female, or more rarely hermaphroditic. The founder of the colony undergoes binary fission like a flatworm, producing zooids of each type before eventually converting itself into a gatherer zooid. The colony grows into a long worm-like chain resembling the ancestor, but with a holdfast at the end. In addition to spawning, Swarmerweed colonies can also reproduce by budding; when this occurs, they briefly have a branching appearance.

Notably, though Swarmerweed have no visible macroscopic eyes, they actually have rather good eyesight. Every single gatherer zooid has a single simple eye, and with redundancy and the shared nervous system together the zoon itself is able to get a decent greyscale picture of its surroundings in all directions.

There are many species of Swarmerweed. Though they attach to objects, they are not exclusively benthic and many species will also cling to large pelagic fauna, floating flora, and shrog nests. They can live in both freshwater and saltwater and may have different holdfast zooid mouth shapes for clinging to specific kinds of surfaces. Some species which live in already densely-populated habitats will cling to other benthic flora to steal sunlight.

Cloudgrass (Nimbaphyta primus)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Cloudbubble
Habitat: Atmosphere (Troposphere)
Size: 20 cm long
Diet: Photosynthesis, Aeroplanktivore (<2 cm)
Reproduction: Sexual (Spores), Asexual (Macroscopic Binary Fission)

Cloudgrass split from its ancestor and got much larger from lack of competition. It has developed a long, differentiated bilateral shape well-suited to collecting sunlight, aeroplankton, and water. The main body is the ancestral bubble, though now much bigger and egg-shaped, and its interior is spongy rather than hollow. On one end are wispy root-tendrils, which collect water from the cloud it is embedded in. On either side are flagellated steering tendrils which allow it to turn and move in either direction. Along its underside, sticky tendrils hang down to catch aeroplankton. It will even consume its own ancestor. On its other end is a set of derived tendrils which have a flat fractal growth pattern and collect sunlight, functioning as leaves. Its top side is featureless, apart from a faint fuzz of hair-like tendrils which serve to slightly increase its surface area and protect it from UV light and desiccation.

The Cloudgrass has managed to make these advancements due to it developing a more efficient way to control its vertical position. Rather than using a lot of energy with its flagella to move it actively, it can fill the cells lining its bubble with water to compress the gas inside, making it sink. It can remove some water in order to let the gas expand, causing it to float upwards. The outer layer is tough enough to not stretch when pressure inside is increased significantly. Over time, the interior of the bubble became more sponge-like so that it could increase this effect, which also had the side effect of giving it more space for Cloudbubble Cryoutine symbiotes. The spongy interior also means that it can recover from attacks by its predator, the Cloudbubble Tropoworm, as it can rapidly close off the area surrounding any tear before too much gas escapes. A pair of tuber-like structures on either side, which are visible from the outside as bulges, are used for storing the water used in its flotation process. As implied by these characteristics, all of this is handled by a simple vascular system, which is also more efficient than direct cell-to-cell transfer of water.

The Cloudgrass has made a change to how it reproduces. The exact mechanisms are identical, but new Cloudgrass grown from spores actually can no longer produce spores right away. They must reproduce asexually through macroscopic binary fission first. This is because sexual reproduction is useless without anything with which to reproduce sexually, and reproducing asexually at least once solves that problem. This assists the Cloudgrass greatly in surviving at lower population densities, such as populations found in drier continental winds. Binary fission occurs laterally, their last connection being by a tuber.

Like its ancestor, Cloudgrass can be found dotting the surface of clouds, causing it to appear as though the clouds have grass growing on them--which they effectively do. Hair Nimbuses can grow on the leaves and top surface of the Cloudgrass far more easily than on its ancestor, as they are no longer at high risk of digestion when they land on top; Cloudgrass has no need for defense against these numbuses, as they are transparent and therefore do not interfere with its photosynthesis.