Silacopods like to eat pagodas, as do myoskeletal animals. Pagodas, in most instances, can’t run away. Disliking growing holes in their leaves, pagodas have established a defense routine similar to Earth flora: chemical warfare. Silacopods aren’t the only reason for a poison defense, for pagodas also have each other. Carbon dioxide necessary for photosynthesis is rarefied even on modem Epona, and pagodas have very large leaves to absorb enough of the life-sustaining gas. Those dome leaves require much space. To create room, the myophytes diligently spend energy making pagodacides to keep near relatives away. Toxin differentiation is so detailed, in fact, that it is the most effective characteristic to use when identifying species, since many pagodas look quite alike morphologically.
Figure Ten: Ceretridons are a diverse group, with many assuming a pagodivorous roll. Being nearly four meters tall, the twintails depicted here feed from large pagoda trees, and perform saltatory north-south migrations in vast herds, responding to the sharp seasons of the Sunken Continent’s southern extremes. The herds are thought to offer protection for the single springtime young born to each individual.
Figure Eleven: A swiftgrasper pursuing two rodent-sized pagoda runners. In parallel to Earth mammals, many ceretridon lineages have developed teeth specialized to their task of survival, probably due to their very conserved morphology. The swiftgrasper has two long, sharp teeth that it uses to impale prey snatched up by its swift mouthpart limbs. The lesser teeth are used to masticate an opening in the skin of its victim, where the internal fluids and organs are sucked through. Lacking true jaws, many predatory ceretridontids have a difficult time eating the tough musculature of their prey.
Figure Twelve: The small pet rock is a member of the rare quadrupedal ceretridons. The “tail” is actually the rear, or third, leg on more typical ceretridons. In the case of the pet rock, the limb is used for holding its silacopod prey for consumption. Often, the pseudo-tail is held underneath the animal and cannot be seen from above.
In pentapods, the basic myoskeletal barrel contains all the vital organs, including the brain (housed in a region of collagenized muscle rod [basically tendon]), and the sensory apparatus, which consists of four eyes, two ears, and a third ear located on top of the head that serves as a sonar sender/receiver.
The barrel also houses the respiratory organ, a chamber created by a sheath of muscle rod, forming a hoop-like structure. Two lesser rings of muscle rod sit at either end. Air enters through the mouth, and the muscles sequentially pump it into a network of self-similarly branching bronchi. Upon reaching the lowest level of branching, the alveoli, oxygen is absorbed directly into the muscle (and any aerobic organs) from the airstream. At the same level, carbon dioxide and water are expelled, being carried through a number of tributary paths before being “exhaled” from pores in the skin.
Reproduction is achieved by an exchange of spoor through the mouths of two individuals. The spoor travel to the back of the respiratory pump, where they fertilize a tiny bud. Since individual pentapods have both spoor-producing and bud-producing capability, both participants will get pregnant (no gender roles here), a sort of hermaphroditism. The embryos develop in the budding zone at the back of the respiratory pump, remaining attached to the cavity wall. Birthing is achieved by coughing up the newborn before it becomes too large and obstructs breathing. Since pentapods do carry an entire complement of reproductive organs, they can reproduce parthenogenically, though this only happens rarely, when the organism is under great stress.
The pentapod phylum has produced at least two well-known major groups on Epona, the ceretridons and avians. In a several-million-year radiation similar to the Earth’s Paleocene Era, both groups have diversified significantly in the past ten million years, and contain many species.
The pentapod’s simple form has been modified significantly in the ceretridons. The barrel has elongated and grown larger, housing a massive digestive system, and has become fenestrated to reduce weight. A headlike structure exists at the front end of the barrel, though it houses only the sensory organs—the brain is still deep within the original barrel. The sonar ear is practically nonexistent, for it has atrophied in favor of eyesight. All ceretridons utilize their four eyes, with many having a pair aimed forward for binocular vision and a pair aimed upward to spot aerial predators. At the front of the head is a simple mouth that has four to twelve conical, chitinous teeth and a single tongue. The teeth represent the finger terminations on what would otherwise be four of the standard five pentapod arms originating from the front of the barrel. The tongue is the fifth limb. Five other limbs originate from the back end of the barrel. Two arms are carried forward, often inside the body, so that they protrude from the sides of the head, and are used for grasping. The other three limbs trail behind and are the animal’s legs, hence the “tridon” in ceretridon. However, there are thousands of species of ceretridontid, and many locomotory patterns have evolved among them: monopedal, bipedal, tripedal, and even quadrupedal and pentapedal (using the “arms” by the head). The class has also produced herbivores (actually pagodivores), carnivores, scavengers, and parasites along with the different leg numbers.
Figure Thirteen: A large predatory avian banks from an incoming thunderstorm. Avians, often feeding on terrestrial pentapods, are the driving force behind the ceretridon’s extra two upward-facing eyes. Swift and very strong, avians prove remarkably lethal to any animal caught unawares, often using sharp tipped “talons” of chitin on the tips of their mouthpart limbs as spears. Despite Epona’s thin atmosphere, soaring avians such as the one depicted are efficient flyers, often able to glide for hours on end, silently seeking food from altitudes reaching into the hundreds, and even thousands, of meters.
Figure Fourteen: Eponas utherensis, or the uther, is one of Epona’s most recent species, as well as her one technophilic sentient. The mouthpart limbs serve as hands (here fisted), and normally are carried backwards while the creature is in flight. Even among the advanced uther cultures, human-like clothing is unheard of, for the cloth would block the creature’s skin-expelled waste gases. Some cultures, however, wear loose “nets” around their body from which they hang tools and/or decorative items.
Pagodivorous ceretridons have to tolerate many toxins in their lives. Most ceretridons, in fact, are only capable of consuming one, or a few, toxins, so the pagodivores tend to be quite specialized, seeking a specific type of pagoda, usually identifying it through taste. Many pagoda eaters store the toxins they consume as a defense against predators, wearing garish colors and patterns as a warning to any lurking carnivores. With their toxin defense, most pagodivores are solitary, or form very small groups. However, a number of migratory herding species do exist in the temperate climes, where their food pagodas die back into the warm temperate reaches every winter. A common herbivore is the twintail, which hops around Eponan forests on a single rear leg, while the two forelegs typical of a tripedal ceretridon are carried over the back and held horizontally as counterbalances against the weight of the body up front.