Spardiflies

With the evolution of flight and no competition globally, it was only a matter of time before Spardis became a world-wide phenomenon. The Spardiflies are various tiny insect-like Spardis that can be found anywhere where there are dead creatures, warm summers, and a place to land, even out over the open ocean thanks to flora such as Jester’s Helm and Matleaves. These tiny, fast-reproducing creatures swarm to dead fauna and carve off chunks of meat to feed themselves or their offspring. Larger species, generally the more primitive members of the genus, retain parental care, but some smaller species--usually ones living on land--found it less costly to simply give birth into holes they cut in carcasses, letting their babies feast on their own. This works because their flight is instinctive, so their babies can simply take off once they have their wings. They can have as many as 30 near-microscopic babies per mating, sometimes even more in smaller species with lots of predators, and can breed dozens of times per year.

Spardiflies remove meat from carcasses by gripping it with their mouths and slicing with a back and forth motion using their knife-like lateral mandibles. At a glance, this almost looks like an intelligent action, reminding one of a Terran human carving meat. However, this is entirely instinctive, and the knives being used are just part of a Spardifly’s natural mouthparts. In reality, nearly all of a Spardifly’s brain power is focused on flight with only a little left over for the ability to remember where its babies are or where it saw a fresh carcass when its mouth was too full to reach it at the time. Spardiflies were among the least intelligent members of Osteoastera at the time they evolved, being roughly as intelligent as a wasp--and only even being that smart because they evolved from smarter ancestors. Species which retain parental care are marginally smarter than ones that don’t, but not by very much.

There are dozens of species of Spardifly. Being small scavengers, they are usually dark in color. Their exact coloration may be black, brown, or dull purple, making them more difficult to spot while they hide from predators or otherwise annoyed organisms. Species in colder climates hibernate over winter, either under leaf litter or in burrows made by other small fauna far better at digging than they are. No species exist in polar climates, as without any warm summer to speak of they cannot be active at any time of year. Species which live out over the ocean in colder climates usually migrate towards the equator during the winter, or else they hibernate on islands and beaches. Like their ancestor, Spardiflies are born tiny and pseudo-radial and are mostly helpless for much of their life, depending on either parental care or the natural protection of the carcass they’re born into to survive.