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Description

Over the last 15,000 years, the Meridian Islands have become colder, and their tall forest cover has been lost, replaced with low-growing bushes and occasional wind-stricken trees that grow in contorted and crooked ways as they fight against the cool wind and nightly hard freezes, even though the midday heats the land to an almost balmy 62 degrees Fahrenheit for several hours under the equatorial sun. Most of the islands are now grassland, and strict forest specialists have fared poorly against this environmental change. Even so, the islands remain milder and more comfortable than most any other landmass at this time, and still support unique and endemic species. Terracudas such as the large shadowstalker have adjusted with little issue to the more open terrain, as their primary prey the pitpocket still finds suitable food in the seeds, fungus, and herbs that still thrive in the more open landscape. In addition, newly cleared plains now attract flocks of grazing seraphs from off the sea - a very abundant new prey species for the native predators, which have survived with only slight physical changes, namely thicker pelts to insulate during the nights.
But an increase in grazing birds has brought problems to native grazers. For there is a group of animals which have lived on these islands for many millions of years, since before any birds or tribbats lost their flight, which are now in danger. It is not the growing cold, but the appearance of new competitors which now threatens the survival of the largest land arthropod ever to live upon Serina: the colossal quadclaw, a descendant of oceanic hermit crabs which now lives its entire life on dry land, and can weigh up to twenty-five pounds and grow to three feet across. Heavier-built than a coconut crab and with more erect legs better designed to bear its weight vertically, this gigantic and ancient species has filled a tortoise-like role on the Meridian islands for almost ten million years. It belongs to a lineage of completely terrestrial crabs, which skip their larval stage and hatch fully developed little crabs from eggs incubated beneath the female's abdomen, so they do not need to trek to open water to spawn, letting them live their entire life on the islands themselves. Yet this also means that unlike crabs which do spawn at sea and rely on the tides to disperse their young, the quadclaws are endemic only here, and do not occur anywhere else on Serina.

Full entry here: sites.google.com/site/worldofs…

Description

Over the last 15,000 years, the Meridian Islands have become colder, and their tall forest cover has been lost, replaced with low-growing bushes and occasional wind-stricken trees that grow in contorted and crooked ways as they fight against the cool wind and nightly hard freezes, even though the midday heats the land to an almost balmy 62 degrees Fahrenheit for several hours under the equatorial sun. Most of the islands are now grassland, and strict forest specialists have fared poorly against this environmental change. Even so, the islands remain milder and more comfortable than most any other landmass at this time, and still support unique and endemic species. Terracudas such as the large shadowstalker have adjusted with little issue to the more open terrain, as their primary prey the pitpocket still finds suitable food in the seeds, fungus, and herbs that still thrive in the more open landscape. In addition, newly cleared plains now attract flocks of grazing seraphs from off the sea - a very abundant new prey species for the native predators, which have survived with only slight physical changes, namely thicker pelts to insulate during the nights.
But an increase in grazing birds has brought problems to native grazers. For there is a group of animals which have lived on these islands for many millions of years, since before any birds or tribbats lost their flight, which are now in danger. It is not the growing cold, but the appearance of new competitors which now threatens the survival of the largest land arthropod ever to live upon Serina: the colossal quadclaw, a descendant of oceanic hermit crabs which now lives its entire life on dry land, and can weigh up to twenty-five pounds and grow to three feet across. Heavier-built than a coconut crab and with more erect legs better designed to bear its weight vertically, this gigantic and ancient species has filled a tortoise-like role on the Meridian islands for almost ten million years. It belongs to a lineage of completely terrestrial crabs, which skip their larval stage and hatch fully developed little crabs from eggs incubated beneath the female's abdomen, so they do not need to trek to open water to spawn, letting them live their entire life on the islands themselves. Yet this also means that unlike crabs which do spawn at sea and rely on the tides to disperse their young, the quadclaws are endemic only here, and do not occur anywhere else on Serina.

Full entry here: sites.google.com/site/worldofs…