Basketeater

The Basketeater replaced its ancestor in its overlapping range and adapted for a drier climate. Already decently succulent-like, its main adaptation is the addition of membranes between its arms which can be stretched out to release excess heat, similar to ears and dewlaps in many Terran desert animals. It is mostly active around sunrise and sunset, like many Terran reptiles, and during the heat of day—especially out in the hot desert—it digs a shallow burrow shaped like itself using its enlarged claws to balance photosynthesis and not dying from the heat. It has become completely herbivorous, no longer scavenging for the dead.

The Basketeater is otherwise much like its ancestor. It uses prickle-like spikes on locomotory baits near its mouth to tear into the comparatively softer surface of asterplents to eat them. It reproduces sexually using external reproductive organs, 20 in total, in clusters of 5 on each arm—gonopods on males, pore-like openings on females. When two meet, they verify one another’s sexes by “investigating” one another with their chemoreceptive patches before mating by connecting their respective reproductive parts in one arm, usually one that has not been used for mating recently. Afterwards, the female closes the receptive holes on that arm, protecting and nurturing developing embryos with her own sugars until they are large enough to be released and wander out into the world.