Exquisite Biome - an ecosystem-crafting game

This thing could even, potentially, be a more active ecosystem engineer - if a big boulder's come from upstream and things have shifted to make a decent-sized new islet, it may even haul mud to establish it quicker as a microhabitat for fruiting plants/insects.

  I've been vaguely thinking about beavers ever since "temporary island" and "fallen wood" were both brought up in the same thread, so I'm glad you thought of that too!

I love this idea of "ecosystem engineer + predator". The idea of crafting a space to farm your food source seems like a great answer to the survival challenge of large animal in a cold climate. It's like a trophic cascade but without all the extra steps.

If the insects it's trying to feed on are also cultivators, similar to leaf cutter ants, then we have a farmer eating farmers situation. It would also be a way for the predator to take advantage of the nutrition trapped in the wood of the forest, without having to have a digestive system specifically adapted for that.

I've personally been imagining it with a very large head, even for its already massive body size (possibly useful for moving large trees). Furthermore, since it might chew through bark to get at insects and honey, it may have one or two pairs of large, multipurpose teeth -- possibly canines, possibly rodent teeth, possibly something else. (Or maybe its claws and ant-grabber are enough)

(Note to self: a way to highlight text and have a quote button pop up directly would be a great plugin to add in the future)

Love the big 'ole head idea. Since it's omnivorous, I'd expect it to have a variety of teeth types. The idea of rodent teeth which are constantly growing may lock it more tightly into a niche that requires continual wear on it's teeth - maybe we could revisit that depending on another creature? Like if there is a prey species with a very tough carapase, perhaps our beardozer uses this to help wear the teeth down? Actually the coloration may also really depend on possible prey species, depending if selection pressure is more heavily focused on camouflage vs finding a mate. Although since their wrist-tounges have chemoreceptors, they can effectively taste with their feet which could help them in locating other members of their species (although probably not as much as just a normal snoz...)(There's always the possibility for wild sexual dimorphism, but maybe that's best saved for another species).

Oh! What if the head is large but fairly flat, and that has reduced their capacity to hunt via smell? Sort of an evolutionary trade-off between being able to move very large bulky boulders/trees and long distance tracking.

A lot of my questions are getting into selection pressures/arms races that would depend on what other species are in the area. I'm happy to move on to the next one and maybe come back to this guy if we see good connections.