The Early Glaciocene: 100 million years post-establishment
From Dusk Till Dawn: Duskmice Diversity in the Early Glaciocene
Duskmice, a group of hamsters that have remained very basal throughout the Rodentocene, lived up to their name as small, crepuscular mouse-like rodents. Indeed, many species still remain small, unassuming and unremarkable. However, three of its branches have gained tremendous success as of the Glaciocene, and taken on forms far unlike their ancestral lineage-- the burrowing molemice, the aquatic pondrats, and the carnivorous hammibals.
Many other lineages aside from these three have emerged, many being basal in form, as small, stout, short-tailed rodents akin to the founding hamster. These include the hampters and their pointed-nosed cousins the nholes: in an almost comical irony, the hampter is one of the only hamsters of this world that still resembles what one would recognize as a hamster very closely-- virtually unchanged for a hundred million years. Yet despite its mundanity it is a winning formula, and the hampter thrives in the niche it has held all the while, of seed-hoarding desert rodent, while all else changes around it.
Other lineages of basal duskmice not part of the three aforementioned clades would include the arctic fluffball, polar rodents that nest and migrate in enormous numbers, the herbivorous gwinnie that lives in a wide range of habitats feeding on foliage, and the prickly heckhogs whose bristly fur has been modified into sharp defensive spines.
But it is the three lineages of the molemice, hammibals and pondrats that have reached the greatest levels of diversity, morphing into forms defying the basic shape of a rodent --or mammal, even, and are barely recognizeable as being related to the primitive hamsters they coexist with. Evolution is not a ladder with "evolutionary levels", but a complex and often chaotic process, and here on HP-02017, hamsters basically unchanged live side-by-side with their other, distant cousins who are unimaginably different in form and function.
Yet this illusion of levels is quite visible among the molemice: a group of duskmice that had evolved subterranean adaptations. Small, furry members of this clade still thrive, with different means of burrowing, such as the insectivorous shovelsnout and its spade-shaped nose, or the long-toothed molrus that excavates dirt with long incisors to search for roots and tubers.
Yet among these molemice is one very special clade: a hairless, ectothermic group called the molrocks. Adapted for living in deep, underground burrows, they evolved slower metabolisms to better cope with decreased oxygen levels in their subterranean tunnels. Their eyes had dwindled in the dark, and instead feel their way through sensitive whiskers all over their body, like the gregarious, colonial ruffrus, while its insectivorous cousin, the stellasnoot, developed fleshy tendrils on its snout that can feel, smell, and even "hear" the vibrations of small prey.
Not all molrocks had poor eyesight, however. Some molrocks, the surface molrocks, began living above ground again, in small populations along Easaterra where they lived as insectivorous ambush hunters. Their eyesight had re-emerged, with larger eyes better adapted to daylight vision, and it is this lineage that would give rise to one of the most unusual rodent species of all: the rattiles.
Rattiles became so successful on the continent of Fissor that they would end up outcompeting all the basal surface molrocks, leaving only the armadiles, large molrocks that were Fissor's top predators, and the noodnoots, which thrived on some forest habitats on the Easaterran mainland.
The rattiles would diversify to dozens of species, thanks to various adaptations. Their pangolin-like protective scales, fat-storing tails, and their r-strategist reproduction would give them an edge: bearing well-developed young that could fend for themselves at birth, they would recieve minimal care from the parent--little more than the beneficial microbiota passed to them as they exited the birth canal-- and thus saving energy, could instead invest in many self-sufficient young, where few will survive to adulthood.
These strategies allowed the rattiles to fill most of Fissor's small-animal niches, be it the herbivorous gwannas, the arboreal hameleons, the aquatic monisaurs or the burrowing sninks. Their unique anatomy allows them to fill unusual ecological roles-- but at the same time, constrains them in other ways that true reptiles weren't, and forces them to evolve in niches far removed from those of the squamates they so closely mimic.
The carnivorous hammibals, meanwhile, would become HP-02017's first predators, preying upon smaller hamsters in the days of the Early Rodentocene. Tiny predators like those still exist in the Glaciocene, filling a niche akin to small mustelids, such as the tiglets, which chase small prey down their burrows, or the social gamsters, which hunt in groups of about three to five to take down prey as big as a small hamtelope.
This clade, in the Late Rodentocene, would bring about the carnivorous hamyenas, a clade of predators that, unlike the ferrats, would adapt their upper incisor into a single stabbing point while whetstone-like lower incisors kept them sharp and lethal. The hamyenas would be devastated, however, by competition from beelzeboars and fearrets as the continents collided in the Therocene, and today a few species remain, such as the hamsanians of a few isolated islands off the Ecatorian mainland, and the vulweirines of the continent of North Ecatoria.
But one lineage of the hamyenas would survive: the zingos. Gracile, canine-like cursorial hunters, they would come to dominate most predator niches by their adaptability and greater social intelligence, more quickly pushing aside the carnohams in retaking the carnivore niches after the Glaciocene mass extinction. Today they dominate nearly all continents except Borealia and Peninsulaustra, and are found in an array of diverse and unusual forms.
Some zingos are small and fox-like, filling omnivorous mesopredator niches, such as the omnivorous fawndogs that supplement their diet with plants and fruit, the zingdings that specialize on small, bite-sized prey and sometimes carrion, and the specialized insectivorous moundhounds that feed primarily on ants, termites and the numerous grubs and beetle larvae that nest under rocks and logs.
Another clade of zingos, in the meantime, would become larger and more akin to wolves and coyotes, being large-scale predators that chase after bigger prey such as ungulopes. Some are solitary or pair-hunters like the rintins while others such as the zingerwolves hunt in bigger packs to subdue larger prey, and one genus, the nearly horse-sized marewolf, has turned to powerful jaws and brute force to tackle Easaterra's largest herbivores, the scruffalo.
And the marewolves are not the only zingos to specialize in hunting the enormous ice-age giants, as on Ecatoria and Westerna, the saber-toothed daggarats have done the same with the local megaherbivores of their continent: the hammoths. Of the basal one-fanged lineage are the slaybers, with their fang being utilized as a stabbing weapon designed to puncture vital organs for a quick kill, and the lycanines, smaller, shorter-fanged forest hunters that target smaller ungulope prey. This one-fanged lineage had long been driven from their role as slashing-toothed plains predators by their cousin the double-sabered dark mauler, which now reigns as top predator of the Westernan plains, targeting ungulopes, drundles, and small-to-medium sized hammoth species.
And last, but definitely not the least, are the aquatic pondrats: a group of semi-aquatic duskmice that, lacking tails, instead came to use their hind feet as propulsion in the water. Small diving species such as the puddlemouse and the riverat, which feed on small invertebrates at the bottom of ponds and streams and inflate their cheek pouches as flotation, are similar to the ancestral forms of the entire clade back in the Rodentocene.
From these, bigger otter-like and beaver-like species arose, such as the shrish-eating lutrons and the herbivorous capstors, which are primarily found in freshwater rivers and lakes. Some of their relatives would later head out to sea, becoming the bayvers, pinniped-analogues such as the arctic poleroles that live in the freezing northern sea, and the more tropical yurf that frequents equatorial beaches. This clade would further specialize to life in the sea, and are now very clumsy on land, the fusion of their pelvis and hind limbs facilitating better swimming, but leaving them unable to properly walk and having to awkwardly flop along on their foreflippers and stomachs.
Impeded on land, the bayvers would spend more time in the ocean, and some would leave the land entirely to live their whole lives in the sea. These would include the herbivorous hamatees, which feed voraciously on the sea-dwelling grass known as coast kudzu, and the highly-unusual jousting bayver whose asymmetrical upper incisors would come to form a single forward-pointing tusk used for both self-defense and for stirring up bottom sediment to search for the seafloor invertebrates that comprise much of its diet.
But most abundant and successful of these fully-aquatic bayvers would be the cricetaceans, and in the Glaciocene would find greater levels of diversity due to the more nutrient-rich cold seas. With the formation of the land bridge Junctus the Centralic Ocean has become one giant bay of sorts: and while inside the bay small leviahams flourish as porpoise-like hunters, on the outside of the Centralic and up to the polar seas the cricetaceans would instead prosper, like the small, speedy shrish-eating blippers that travel in cooperative pods, and the more solitary, predatory phorcas that feed on other marine hamsters as well as larger shrish and floating carrion. And, to conclude the list of the duskmice's diverse and fascinating descendants, are the seavers-- giant, filter-feeding marine hamsters that, in the colder seas of the Glaciocene, have since grown into the biggest creatures ever to grace the surface of this spectacular, seeded planet.
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