Teal-Tailed Shovelface

In following its food source, the Shovelface has adapted to its new home and has become better adapted at dealing with the challenges posed by a polar coast. The Teal-Tailed Shovelface has replaced its ancestor in its range. Its body has become laterally flattened and its dorsal spined reduced so as to better fit into tight squeezes such as rock crevices and frozen over shallows. Sexual selection favored a wider and brighter crystal posterior, creating a squashed and rounded, but brilliant teal crystal. Its gonopodium has become curved in males, allowing for less articulation needed in mating. Females will produce thousands of eggs which are released into the water.

Like their ancestor, they hibernate over winter when their main food source becomes greatly diminished. They have a secondary food source in the cryoflora of the region. Some cryoflora species overwinter in their silicon structures. This makes them difficult to get at, but the Teal Tail can pry them off the substrate using its shovel. They thus provide an overwintering food source for the Teal-Tailed Shovelface. The cryoflora actually benefits from this on the whole, as Teal-Tailed Shovelface create open substrate that the cryoflora may grow in, helping to offset the competition between them and the crystalmats.