Arctic Sedge-Slider

Traveling in small groups, sedge-sliders' enormous pink biolights shine like lanterns in the gloom of a receding storm. At first they appear headless, but as the sky grows lighter small dark beaks appear from beneath their anterior flaps. These gradually extend until an entire head is visible. The newly-emerged black heads steam for a few moments in the frigid air until they cool off. These large creatures have evolved a unique means of keeping their bare heads protected during arctic storms, by retracting them deep into their insulated body cavities. Sedge-sliders are anything but quick, pulling their 10-meter-tall bodies across the crunchy ground with laborious strokes of their huge, hooked feet. They are among the noisiest animals found on Darwin IV, slamming out their pings with deafening regularity. The sedge-sliders are placid animals, digging peacefully in the frozen arctic soil for the subterranean snow bulbs that comprise their diet. As they move along there is the impression, when looking at the ground behind them, that some indecisive paleontologist has been at work, digging here and there and leaving shallow holes all about.