The Afaguzoedodru: The Time of Forests

The Afaguzoedodru begins with the migration of plants to the land, as global cooling causes sea levels to drop and formerly underwater areas to be raised above sea level. However, local climatic conditions in several areas mean the now stranded plants have a steady supply of fog and rain; this coupled with their resistance to dessication (necessary for organisms in the tidal zone) means that enough survive for the clade to make the jump to a terrestrial existence. However, they remain dependent on the rains to distribute their spores and allow for sexual reproduction. Still, by the middle of the Afaguzoedodru, they have spread across most of the land in a dizzying array of moss-like forms. By the end, they had formed the first forests.

The tsulaing are the first multicellular heterotrophs on land. However, they must cope with the fact that the atmosphere of Eclek is high in carbon monoxide. As bottom-dwelling organisms, dissolved carbon monoxide never reached a high enough concentration to be a danger to them, but shortly after the start of the Afaguzoedodru, the tsulaing enter shallow, littoral habitats, where they’re exposed both to high levels of dissolved CO and the air. The change that allows them to survive the atmosphere is simple--cobalt is substituted in for iron, and so the tsulaing switch to using coboglobin.

Dzecabava life, during this period, goes through quite a lot of evolution, all very important to the life itself and all utterly meaningless as far as the fossil record is concerned. It’s just ñåich and will remain ñåich.

Despite lower sea levels, Shunnudloah has completely fragmented into seven different landmasses--Ixvata, Tseb, Tshapä, Tsa, Huttâtshâza, Haler, and Koshe (all except Ixvata are Hoetsho words). This would have major effects on the development of Eclek’s terrestrial fauna--without the continents ever being unified, biogeographic realms are strictly delineated and show relatively little overlap. As an example, tsulaing are, in the present day, only found on Ixvata (with the obvious exception of the kraqrelk, who are sapient, and tsulaing introduced by them), and their only presence as purely terrestrial lifeforms was on that continent. In addition, very similar terrestrial groups are often not closely related at all--for instance, terrestrial “plants” on Eclek belong to one of three separate clades, because the ñåich made the transition to land multiple times on different landmasses--and due to the distance between landmasses, multiple clades have managed to persist.

Ngwua: The ngwua are a paraphyletic group. Emerging from the ñåich that first colonized land, the ngwua were tall, straight plants, generally reaching several meters high. They can only survive in places with heavy rains due to their high water demands, and they are most sensitive to water stress when young. They reproduce by releasing spores from the tops of their stems that are washed down by the rains and are fertilized on the ground, which has the pleasant side effect of ensuring they only reproduce during the rainy season.

Stem Tsulaing: Stem tsulaing go extinct everywhere but Tsa by the middle Afaguzoedodru, more a victim of random chance than anything else. Those that remain are small, slow-moving scavengers, morphologically similar to the very first tsulaing. These will not last long.

Spunguktau: The Spunguktau (named after the river Spungukta, which is in the territory of the Tsampu) were a single genus of small scavenger tsulaing that lived on the shores of Ixvata. They had a thick hide capable of withstanding ultraviolet radiation and desiccation.

Lukti’rimakta: Life on Eclek was not only restricted to the oceans. The ñåich, as well as various microorganisms, made the transition to freshwater fairly readily. However, larger multicellular “animals” did not. They osmoregulated across their integument, and so had difficult adjusting to the hyposmotic conditions. The tsulaing, however, would not have this problem once they fully adapted to a terrestrial existence, for the tough hide that was favored in order to protect from desiccation was easily exapted into protection from cytolysis. The lukti'rimakta (Tsampuian: river breathers), readily took to an amphibious existence by the mid-Afaguzoedodru.

They were herbivorous creatures, about an inch long, with extremely slow metabolisms that let them feed for quite some time on the bottom of a stream or pond before returning to the surface to take another gulp of air. Behavior is simple, with little in the way of territoriality, though rival males will headbutt each other to determine who gets access to mates.

Quarat: While they remained fairly unchanged during the Afatshe, the quarat of the late Afaguzoedodru had made the transition to a mixotrophic diet. This adaptation had originated in the mid-Afaguzoedodru, but during the late part of the period, a decrease in the brightness of Narelk (Eclek’s star) resulted in the extinction of non-mixotrophic quarat--they had never had particularly efficient photosynthesis.

The filaments of the quarat, previously used only for absorbing nutrients and salt exchange, ended in feathery sections that secreted sticky, sugary mucus. Small planktonic organisms were caught in the mucus, and then digested in a manner not dissimilar to a sundew. While not very efficient, this and the lowered irradiance was sufficient to allow the mixtrophs to outcompete their relatives.

Vewt: The first recognizable members of order Sutyionyukaxaj, the drowned gardeners, date from the mid-Afaguzoedodru. Far larger than all other vewt of the time, these creatures’ leg span reached up to a meter and a half, and bore prehensile tongues with blades of metal oxides that they used as scythes. The drowned gardeners were major ecosystem engineers, responsible for fertilizing the continental shelves with their feces when they moved into deeper waters during the day.

The drowned gardeners originated off the coasts of Ixvata, but spread to all other continents but Haler, which was too close to polar waters, in short order through planktonic dispersal. Various other minor clades of vewt, mostly extinct, scuttled through the ocean rasping their food off rocks. Even were a kraqrelk to travel back in time, the different clades would only be distinguishable to the most trained specialist. The singular exception are the [eaters], a clade endemic to the waters off Haler with a much more developed beak--the cold waters of Haler supported no ñåich but many plankton, and so encrusting colonies of gutshâ with fine feathery tendrils were their main food source.

The vewt only emerge onto land at the very end of the period, after the forests of ngwua have become well established. Even at the start of the period, however, they are inhabitants of the littoral zones, and so gradually evolved a tolerance for dessication.

The Hurwanya (Naranya: spear) evolved from fairly typical ancestors on the shores of Tseb, Tsa, and Koshe; at the time the three continents were located quite close together. Aside from being terrestrial, they are easily diagnosed by their exceptionally long, sharp legs, which they used to climb up the ngwua.

Several million years later, the first drowned gardeners would emerge onto land on Ixvata, refugees from a slowly drying interior sea. Their ancestors would become the giant vewt that kraqrelk hunt even today.

 

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