Baserg

Baserg

(Ailurornis spp.)

Description: Standing upright like a man, with claws longer than a bears’ and a large somewhat parrot-like head, they come by many names. Dusan gnomes, mountain men, bearfowl, leopard panda, but their most commonly used name is baserg, a name thought to derive from the Dutch words for bear “baissier” and mount “berg”. All these names describe these strange dicynodonts quite well. Their upright stance makes them resemble tiny mountain men, growing at around a meter in height, the first explorers, who were only able to see their strange blurry shapes through the blizzard, speculated they could the islands’ native people. Later ones thought they were birds, or maybe some sort of native non-avian dinosaur, though later inspections revealed their true therapsid ancestry.

Mountain basergs “Ailurornis montanus”, often just known as basergs are the largest of the two species, though they’re still relatively small, growing at a height of approximately 1 meter (3.3 feet), but their stocky build, adapted to the cold climates of their environment allows them to easily reach weights of 30 kg (66.1 lbs) or more, in some cases, even 40 kg (88.2lbs), though those are rare cases. Their long claws, similar to a bears’ are used for digging through the mountain snow in search of covered grasses, mosses, lichens and roots, as well as for defense against the many predators that dwell in the mountains. Their short, blunt beaks are well adapted for cutting roots and grasses, their flatness allowing them to scrape lichens and mosses from the rocks with relative ease. Their only remaining teeth are their small tusks, which while mainly used for display, can cause deep wounds to those that are not weary enough. Meanwhile their feet are equipped with short, hoofed toes, well adapted to keeping the animals safe in the sheerest of cliffs. Their long fur protects them from the cold, covered in white, grey, black and sometimes brown spots, to camouflage the little animals among the rocks and alpine meadows.

Their smaller relatives, the pied basergs “Ailurornis spliotus”, resemble their larger cousins in many regards, differing from them mostly only in size and color, the pied baserg being about 60 cm (2 ft) and weighing about 15 kg (33.1 lbs), while their fur is much shorter and hazel brown, with lighter underbellies and many light hazel spots.

Lifestyle: Mountain basergs inhabit the highest peaks of the Dusan mountains, living among the rocky cliffs and alpine meadows where they feed on grasses, roots, lichens and mosses, though animal matter may also be consumed in times of harshness, usually in the form of carcasses.

Being rather slow creatures, they live in small groups of at least 3 adult individuals, the biggest of groups hosting as many as 7, though rare cases of more have been documented. In case of danger, the baserg herd will form a circles, standing back to back with the youngsters in the middle, for both their and their youngsters protection. Loud shrieks may scare some predators, but it’s the claws and tusks that do the real job. Experienced predators, such as toad badgers and tiggers know not to wander too close, the basergs claws able to cause major wounds, as well as their nasty bites, which can easily cut through bone and flesh. The hierarchyless herd formation leaves the youngsters in the middle, while the adults surround them for protection. Herd members form close bonds with each other, spending the day eating and playing together. Strangely, play behavior often occurs in adults as well as juveniles, usually simple games of chasing each other or investigating objects. Basergs are very curious and intelligent creatures, their nomadic lives allowing them to see many new regions of the mountains. Old individuals, while not quite as energetic  as the younger ones, are still able to keep up with the group.

Breeding season occurs in throughout late June and early July, during which time males will attempt to mate with the herds’ females as well as try to contact females from other herds, which they do by calling for partners and marking the places where they have been with urine, in order for potential mates to find them. This makes the mating season a very dangerous time of the year, as the females are not the only ones to smell the males’ scent.

After mating though, the females will lay a clutch of usually 5-12 eggs, which she will keep warm over the course of the next 25 days. Standing in one place for too long can be dangerous for the herd, thus the eggs develop rather quickly, as do the youngsters, which are precocial since their first day out of the egg. Of course they develop nowhere nearly as fast as most birds and take at least 3 months to reach adolescence, growing to their full size at the age of 5 months and reaching maturity 2 weeks after that. The young adults will then search for a new herd to join, during which time, many are eaten by predators, from a clutch of 5, usually only 1 surviving. Usually, herds that are too small may accept several new members, including old individuals, who may have lost their previous herd. After joining their new herds, the adults will proceed to live their lives alongside their new friends, living for up to 22 years, though some individuals may live for longer.

Unlike the mountain baserg, the pied basergs inhabit the cloud forests of dusa, having a much more herbivorous diet, where they include fallen fruits, bark, twigs and leaves, together with the mosses and grasses, which are also eaten by the mountain basergs. Pied basergs also tend to lay a larger number of eggs, usually at least 10, but otherwise they’re pretty similar to their mountain cousins, being intelligent and curious creatures that travel in small herds.

Evolution: Basergs evolved from the islands’ dicynodonts, which were present since when the archipelago split from the mainland. Throughout the Mesozoic, some species evolved arboreal lifestyles, developing, sloth or orangutan-like forms. Sometime around the late Cretaceous, some of these forms took to the ground, evolving bear and chalicothere-like herbivores. Some of the later forms developed a bipedal gait, using their front limbs for grabbing leaves and branches. Due to unknown causes, most of such species went extinct, the last of them, the basergs surviving in the Dusan mountains.

Notes: The first species of baserg discovered were the mountain ones, which being quite slow, were helpless against the explorers firearms, which could easily kill entire herds. Their delicious meat did not help and like many island herbivores, such as dodos and many giant tortoises, they went extinct, or so it was thought, until the early 90s when a herd of 4 was found deep in the Dusan mountains. Later the herd led the scientists to yet 4 other much larger herds, setting the times mountain baserg population to 26. In the early 2015, 67 wild specimens were counted and 7 others were kept in zoos throughout the world, the San Diego zoo having 4 individuals, one of which was born in the zoo this year, while the 3 others are located in the Melbourne and Berlin zoo, the earlier one having a pair, while the Berlin zoo has a young male called Otto, who lives alongside the zoos’ 14 pied basergs, mating with one of the females, thus creating the first pied baserg/mountain baserg hybrid in zoo history in 2013, a female called Sandy.

Pied basergs in the other hand were only discovered in the early 2000s, their small size and hidden location making them hard to find, though due to only being discovered so recently, they’re a lot more common than their alpine cousins, having a population of several thousand individuals and being kept in several zoos, though the unique conditions of the Anisian islands make them hard to breed in captivity, thus only 7 zoos keep them.

For several years since their discovery, the pied basergs were thought to be a subspecies of the mountain basergs due to their many similarities, though later studies in 2009 revealed that they were in fact a distinct species.