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Northern Lumber

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Lumbers are rare but ecologically significant animals. These giant herbivorous compsognathids, much like the Gastornis, have heavy skulls to enable them to forage for tough plant matter. Their forelimbs are incredibly strong, and their frame is compact, letting them bring down trees- much like modern elephants- creating the habitat known as knotforest. These are generalistic animals, with strong familial bonds.

One of their most unique features is their 'woodpiling' habit, and their range of adaptations to go alongside it. Like most animals, lumbers have trouble digesting large hunks of wood, and like most saurischians they are fairly inept at chewing. Their herbivorous diet is also low in proteins. To cope, lumbers utilise natural decomposition and external digestion to turn nutrition-poor wood into a reliable source of food.

All durophagous lumbers have at least some sort of permanent nest- for the northern lumber, this is often centred around an uprooted tree. This is where they make their woodpiles. The wood is gathered while feeding, often in the form of large, torn-off branches. This wood is then manually broken down until it can get down the throat and into the crop, where a variety of microfauna live. Most of these are simply for turning the crop into a cellulase-laden stewing vessel, although other cultures have roles such as producing antibiotics and pre-colonising wood, to reduce risks of the wood becoming infected with harmful pathogens. This also has the handy side-effect of helping break down leaves, effectively turning lumbers into ruminant theropods.

Once the wood has been stewed, the lumber regurgitates the contents of the crop, swallowing the mush of soggy splinters and plant matter before puking the rest onto the woodpile. The woodpile is then inspected. While the lumber is out feeding, a whole host of organisms feed in turn on the sweet, partially-digested wood, ranging from fungi to woodchippers. The permanency of woodpiles- as they are often shared by entire family groups and passed down the generations- creates a bastion of decomposers, supercharging the breakdown of biological matter within knotforests. This means that lumbers have a massive effect on the vegetation of the forest, creating space for new trees both by wrecking old ones and helping break down dead wood (both directly and indirectly).

The northern lumber is the ecological equivalent of a mastodon. They eat copious quantities of branches, tearing apart trees in their search for food. This creates a tall, knotty, semi-open canopy layer that is perfect for mid-sized herbivores in the area.
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