Potekko

they a potato gecko

people like to dig up the roots to make potekko soup and potekko fries and other tasty foods. their predators also enjoy scavenging for undeveloped potekkos hidden in the soil, as they are nutrient rich. finding a potekko root is pretty rare though, since usually only one tail is developed at a time.

in a season of glut, one potekko can drop its tail several times to produce clones of itself, but when the season is rough, they may fail to clone themselves at all. because they produce clones of themselves, some lineages are essentially immortal, though they can become incredibly prone to more aggressive viruses and genetic diseases.

once every few years during the potekko flowering season, they congregate together and find mates with the prettiest flowers and the fattest tails. potekko flowers grow from their forehead and once pollinated, produce a heterozygous seed that they bury next to their root-tail. the seed produces growth inhibiting hormones that retard the development of the clone and inserts its taproot into the nutrient rich root.

potekkos live in nitrogen  and phosphorus poor environments, and must obtain those nutrients by consuming insects. their backs are lined with protrusions that emit a sweet smell to attract prey and they lie in wait, hardly moving for several hours in order to conserve energy. only when prey are scarce or they are desperate do they move and actively hunt. their tails contain excess glucose that they produce from photosynthesis, and can also drop them when attacked by predators.