Orekroark -Horn nose-

After the Babon orekroarks, I had been playing with the idea of an orekroark that can live in the fungal jungles, which is something that I had been avoiding for a long time.  The fungal jungles are dense mixtures of many kinds of fungi and molds with compatible plants that have a diversity similar to the vast midland jungles.  They are damp, dark, and have a choking air density.  The animals that live there are very specially adapted.  In the richer zones of these places lives the Horn Nose orekroark, a species that originates from migrating individuals who were able to lengthen their stay in the difficult environment.  A few key features developed.  First, the nose grew into a strange proportion, both to help sniff out materials in fungal beds in which their noses could flatten out on a surface, and to help filter out unwanted materials like spores through the many twisting folds and hairs within the nasal cavity.  Moreover, their bellowing pockets have also become more like effective air filtration systems, cleaning all air that passes through them.  They've become so reliant on the thick, spore filled air, that it can be respiratory shock if they leave the fungal jungles and find themselves breathing pure clean air.  Needless to say these respiratory filtration systems produce a lot of slime.  Everything that gets caught in their filters and nose has to come out of the body, it is common for them to hack up chunks of mucus and tend to have a lot of film coming out of their nostrils.  Because of the nature of their vocal structures, these orekroarks tend to creak and rattle instead of making some of the more complicated sounds of other orekroarks.  Some of other adaptive features have to do with the feathers and skin... their feathers have grown short and powdery, making it easy to groom or shake out material, and their skin is ultra absorbent, sucking up all moisture that comes in contact with it.  This dermal dry zone discourages any fungal or mold growth on the body.  Lastly, their elongated proportions help traverse through the environment and promote effective grooming.  The rest is decorative for means of communication or display.
Still in the works.  I imagine most of their ancestry is descended from the Babon, which would make them more aggressive, but some of their ancestry probably came from some of the compatible breeders that migrated through those jungles as well.  Don't know.

Orekroark and all that is Hup belongs to me.