Tiger Salamander
Evolved from V. eggus that moved to zone H due to competition to fill in the niche as an egg eater. Their stape in their ear split to make a second stape which helps absorb more sound effectively. They also developed a striped pattern to mimic the dense vegetation in the swamp of zone H.
Found in zone H they get 10-18cm with subadults being 8-9cm. They live in small colony burrows of 40-70 individuals in one burrow colony(they increase in group size to help protectthemselves from predators).Their burrows are deeper and larger to store the bigger members in the colony and are found in vegetation and both exposed in the mud terrain. They forage in packs of 4-12 and bring back food to the colony. They prey on C. vineredensia, C. yellionuis, L. clearensis, L. subaquatica, P. cashmonii, P. marcops, A. aboriginii eggs, A. edselom eggs, A. oculus eggs, A. tridactylus eggs, S. lutumandrus eggs, S. spinaspinus eggs, T. katharagnathus eggs, V. acrotyrannus eggs, and V.spinaquarius eggs. hey steal eggs by grabbing them then run away to their burrows then feed on the eggs in their burrows. They are very timid able to run bipedally. When conered they will relentlessly hissed at their predators in groups to scare away their attack and when the whole colony fights they would over power their predator by biting their body parts and especially wing membranes of their predators like V. acrotyrannus. To get to some of its food from tree Polyphs they eat the leaves they can only reach from their bipedal stance
Males and females have a muddy brown to green coloration with dark green to dark brown stripes to camouflage in their lush habitat. Their sense of hearing helps them be more alert when stealing eggs for the parents that may notice them, it is now also used for hissing at predators or used to intimidate each other during wrestling fights. These signals that come from the stapes and cochlea and then sent to the nerves then to the brain. There is always an alpha which gets the most mates and does not go out to forage. Males would often fight for the ranking of alpha wrestling each other until one is exhausted. Size does not matter when fighting for alpha as very small specimens can out last a larger specimen with better stamina.
When breeding males would mate with females in their moist burrows. The females then lay the clutches of eggs in the burrow. The eggs would hatch in the next 4 days hatching smaller versions of the adults which are brooded by the colony. When they reach subadult some would wonder off to join another colony or stay in their current colony.
