Editing Weird Wonderlings (section)

==Polypine==
Porcine creatures that wander through the forest in small herds, digging through the soil for truffles, acorns, tubers, and the odd rotten fruit. 

Displaying extreme girth, they have developed a unique evolutionary adaptation to avoid predation: when one eats until it is so fat it can no longer move, it undergoes a rapid metabolic process that sheds meaty polyps onto the ground. 70% of its body mass is lost in this way, leaving behind parcels of meat still entirely enveloped in skin that will stay fresh for weeks. Thus would-be-predators adapt to become their protectors and swineherds.

While seemingly benign, their voraciousness and teamwork with predators utterly dominates an ecosystem. Smaller animals and insects are out-competed or simply eaten, while mushrooms are devoured before they have time to properly reintroduce nitrogen into the soil.