Badger Bird

Badger Bird
Creator	Disgustedorite🌺
Information
Status	Extant
Common Name(s)	Badger Bird
Zones	E
Roles	Predator, Scavenger
Classification
Genus	Avianaquarius
Species	Avianaquarius asvocephalus
Evolution
Date	August 15th, 2019
Ancestor	Short-Tailed Avianaquarius
Descendants	No results

Facing heavy competition from the flight-superior Seavyrn (Draconiraptor ptisipteryx) and Asshole Pelican (Draconiraptor katharagnathus), a desperate population of A. tropheus which became the Badger Bird turned their wings towards land to find more food. Poorly adapted for chasing down and catching food on land, they understandably struggled--they were simply not fast enough to catch anything, and most of what they could catch could fight back too well. However, there was one thing they were able to accomplish that kept them alive--at about 1.2 feet long and 5 inches tall at the hip, a smaller size already selected for with their difficulty in finding food, they were just small enough to wriggle into the dens of sand wyverns and mouse wyverns where it could potentially corner them and kill them with their sharp beaks. However, the burrowing wyverns were considerably faster than them, so when they escaped the burrow there was little hope of catching them. This struggle in catching fleeing prey came to an unexpected end, however--as another species, the Coyote Hawk (Draconiraptor coyotus), was evolving at the same time.

Coyote hawks had observed badger birds successfully flushing small wyverns out of their burrows but failing to catch them afterwards, and so learned to take advantage of it to catch an easy meal--and unintentionally left behind scraps, particularly tails and feet, which the badger bird, after waiting for the coyote hawk to leave, took afterwards. This helped badger birds get much better footing in the ecosystem, as even failed hunts resulted in a meal. These scrap meals make up 50% of all of its meals, excluding unrelated scavenging; even with that, however, only 20-30% of hunts result in a meal, as there is not always a hawk present.

Although their ancestors hunted in groups, due to the difficulty in their hunting strategy the badger bird does not hunt in groups with its own kind; however, they still nest in groups. Badger birds are sexually dimorphic: The females are a sandy color with a lighter underside and darker wing and tail feathers, while the males have blue-black wing and tail feathers as well as a blue-black head bearing distinctive white striping on its face; the sandy colors present in both help them to blend in, and the lighter underside flattens their shape which makes them harder to see. When males court females, the quality of the facial striping is a deciding factor, as it takes good health and preening to keep the stripes nice and sharp. They mate for life, and the female lays 5-7 eggs. Homosexual pairs have also been observed, which typically help raise orphaned eggs and young, especially of one of their mothers; this is selected by environmental factor, with the mother forming a stronger bond with a chosen offspring so that they will be able to take over in the event that the mother dies. The young are taught to fly at the subadult stage and eventually leave the nest to fend for themselves. They reach sexual maturity in about 7 months, a change enabled by their smaller size.

Either on its own or from taking scraps left by coyote hawks, the badger bird preys on the sand wyvern (Dracowyverious ammotryponus) and the mouse wyvern (Dracowyverious ponticius). In the absence of these, it may try to hunt other small creatures, but for the most part it will just scavenge for carcasses.