Mattebelly

As the years passed, the mattebelly split from its ancestor, doubling in size and eventually colonizing the cloud forest that eluded its ancestors. Other adaptations were developed in response to the myriad of environmental pressures put on it. One such adaptation is the mattebelly's thicker and more strongly pigmented skin, with the pigment covering its entire body and increasing its ability to withstand UV light. However, despite this, it is still more susceptible to drying out than other organisms. Its breathing system has also become closer to an active form of respiration, allowing it to persist throughout the night even when the air is too dry or too cold for its ancestor, but also for a couple more hours into the day and evening. A third of its thirty sacs that exchange water and air have become larger and similar to primitive lungs in structure to allow for this breathing type. The sacs themselves are distorted by muscle movements in its limbs, and weakly pull in air as a result as it walks.

Its eyes are somewhat more sophisticated than those of its ancestor, with images being processed as blurry, but still well-defined, similar to the 144p quality setting on certain terran video outlets. The muscles in its legs are also more well defined, with some spread through the length of the legs for stability. This allows it to have a more upright gait, similar to certain terran mammals. Though its tail still drags along the ground like like the cans attached to the back of a car in Earth marriage rituals, the mattebelly can lift its tail up for short periods of time. The strontium-reinforced bumps in its stomach are now more numerous and sharper, allowing it to grind up more types of food, such as the occasional dead or dying corpse spardi. Interestingly, it has completely lost the ability to reproduce asexually, as its chemical responses to stressors are different when compared to those of its ancestor, keeping it in a perpetual sexual-reproduction state. Aside from these changes, it is nearly identical in behavior and life cycle when compared to its ancestor, its behavior being mostly reflexive and spawning in open water. Though it still digs when it detects certain Nitroadora/Continentadora chemicals from a puddle, it doesn't do it as much as its ancestors do. Instead, they breed in slow moving streams that have the same chemicals, using their glowing patterns to attract mates.