Whats A Fungal Steppe?

whats a fungal steppe?

a fungal steppe, or as ◗ta call it, rakng, is a unique ngiu◗ite biome, a sheet of plectomoss over a large forest of trees made out of essentially pure wood, which functions like telluric fungi, growing from decomposed material this creates two symbiotic biomes, the fungal steppe and the shadow forest, the shadow forest will be touched on later but the fungal steppe is an environment filled with small creatures which rely on the moss and each other to survive, the moss has more to lose if the ecosystem on it completely dies out since then they wont get as much sunlight since the mycoarbor rely on both the seelenlos on the moss sheet and the forest beneath them to grow, this is why the plectomoss has evolved to be rich in ammonia to keep its inhabitants "hydrated" as well as using the seelenlos to spread farther with vreedrupes, however plectomoss and its forms unique to the fungal steppe arent the only nodomusco on the steppe, another nodomusco is an invasive species of the classes haudtruncus and parvusviriditas, its believed that this nodomusco came on the "fur" of an ostomesa, though in terms of different forms of plectomoss specific to the fungal steppes there are 2 forms, table willows which are found on the centres of fungal plates which are the closest thing the steppes have to stable ground due to it being the flat top of a mycoarbor, and fruit spires which let the moss reproduce in more efficient ways that dont involve their seeds in the briteberries that mycoarbor use to reproduce, if you have any further questions please dont be afraid to ask im more than happy to answer!!

sporioentomo, more commonly called a feather ear, this is due to them having one of the largest "ear" to head size ratio in all of seelenlos, their large klariech are used as specialized display organs, being used as visual display as well as letting them sense the pheromones created by feather ears who want to mate, this specialization has effected the hearing of sporioentomo, making their kalriech less sensitive and more stiff and more specialized for smell, luckily or them their eyes have adapted to see the "flower" of the fungal steppes fruit spire, which closely resembles their kalriech, though it is controversial to ◗ta scholars on whether that is coincidental or causal, and within the ones believing its causal theres even more debate on whether the spire caused the klariech or the klariech caused the spire, never the less the sporioentomos eyes are almost perfectly adapted to seeing the flower spire, which good since the vreedrupe is the most common food they eat to survive, the other kind is uking, which they catch as they fly around the fruit, unlike most seelenlos their glosspharyncal opening is at the very back of their tongue instead of how it is with most seelenlos including ostoexoapo where its at the front and can be opened and closed at will, unlike the sporioentomo which have this opening permanently open unless theyre chewing when it will close until the sporioentomo stops chewing and swallows it, this allows their tongue to be used as a 7th limb of sorts, letting them grab fruit and bring them to their mouth or attach to uking with saliva thats quadrice as viscous as ammonia, which lets them bring the uking back to their mouths for mastication, if you have any questions regarding this organism please dont be afraid to ask im more than happy to answer

Update

I have been progressing since my personal life got less restrictive, however its still going to take awhile since i like to have the next ecosystem done before i finish the current one, which is going to be a little difficult since the mountain [the ecosystem im working on right now] is more diverse than the fungal steppe, i will however say the midjune deadline might be an overshoot, i could be done by the end of may or earlier, but we'll see

poulsavra, more commonly known as a moss dragon, it is one of the few species in the order drache to entirely lack a beak, similar to all terrestrial seelenlos they have six limbs, the poulsavra use their second pair of limbs for powered flight, due to this they have a unique advantage on the fungal steppe, while most seelenos on the fungal steppe have to remain small to avoid falling through the moss sheet into the shadow forest, it gets to be rather large due to their flight allowing them to fly out if they fall through the sheet, they are around the size of a telluric beaver, and are the apex predator on the steppe, they are solitary creatures who use their klariech to smell and hear their prey rather than communicate with other poulsavra or as mating display, they use their hands to grab their prey if its small, though if theyre larger they will punch their prey to death or if its a very daring poulsavra they will push one off the edge of a fungal tree and let gravity do the hard work for it, and then dip down and pull its corpse up to the top of the closest tree and consume it, though this has rarely happened and when it does the poulsavra learns they need to be quick before the seelenlos of the shadow forest consume the corpse, due to ngiu◗'s almost perfect 1 degree angle seelenlos lack a mating season since there isn't much of a seasonal distinction, they have a peculiar mating pattern, whenever a poulsavra interacts with another mature poulsavra they will land on the nearest fungal tree top and start an intimidation contest, which if it escalates they will fight, though when the first one backs down the two will mate and the one who loses lays the eggs, they will then dig up the moss sheet and lay their eggs inside the clear patch and guard them with their life, once they hatch they will be cared for by their parent until they are taught how to hunt, and then they are abandoned by their parent and will have to fend for themselves, if you have any questions regarding this organism please dont be afraid to ask i am more than happy to answer

skeletons of diurnal organisms of ngiu◗'s fungal steppe

plousiostroo, more commonly known as grabbing snouters, are in a split clade from the centauroid choristoakros and instead walk on their foremostlimbs but use them as hands, this clade is called talusingredi, the plousiostroo use their hands to grab at the rich moss on the tops of table willows, they are the largest organisms found on the fungal steppes and are restricted to whichever fungal plate they find themselves on when theyre too large to continue moving throughout the fungal steppe, this leads to them spending their youth finding the best fungal plate to live on when they find one to live on they will start calling to other plousiostroo using the same gas system the kentav use to sing, this will make a small group of teenaged plousiostroo on a single fungal plate where they will mate sleep and eat for the rest of their days, if a plousiostroo is lucky enough they could find themselves on a fungal plateau, which contains multiple fungal plates and therefore multiple table willows, this is an environment where most plousiostroo try to seek, naturally this is also a place where most young moss dragons are near, since if a plousiostroo dies they can dive in and eat their corpse and ward off plousiostroo and other poulsavra, once theyre done they will fly away in search of other seelenlos to prey on or scavenge, they also will steal the eggs of plousiostroo or even their young, though thats riskier than scavenging, polousiostroo have been known to roll corpses off their plates and plateaus to avoid the potential disease and such, meaning if you travel through the shadow forests youd find groups of skeletons around the trees, if you have any questions regarding this organism please dont be afraid to ask im more than happy to answer