Arctic fraggon often try to steal eachother's kills in their harsh tundra habitat.
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Arctic FraggonDracobufo arcticus
Era: Late Tertiary
Time: 2,600,000 BCE Habitat: Tundra Diet: migratory grazing herds Location: Canada Size: 23’ |
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The age of the fraggons has ended, but their story is far from over.
Stalking the newly formed tundra, following the migratory herds, the arctic fraggon evolved from a close cousin to the steppe fraggon, and is only distantly related to the catastrophic and splendid fraggons. Every part of the arctic fraggon is perfectly adapted for the encroaching ice age. Its sleek, low slung body offers little resistance for chilled air seeking to sap its body heat. Blubbery fat and a thick hide protect its precious heat and moisture. Tiny eyes and ears can seal themselves away from the wind on a relatively small head, with little surface area to expose. Its most unique adaptation is its thick coating of ‘fur’ protecting its underside and vital organs. Each strand of ‘fur’ is a thick dermal papillae, a blood-filled tube of flesh, skin and fat that traps warm air against the fraggon’s body. The fraggon can hunker into a pile of snow, expose only its impermeable hide, and trap warm air against its body for an extended period of time, enough to weather powerful storms. Despite its adaptations, the range of the fraggon, and other amphibian-derived megafauna can go nowhere near as far north as the ranges of comparable mammalian creatures from our timeline. Despite their dominance, amphibians in the Amphiterra timeline have yet to develop a heat system as efficient as that of their mammalian counterparts. On the whole, the Amphiterran ice age is less brutal than our own, yet just as deadly to great swaths of the local fauna. |
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