Photoscyphicus

Photoscyphicus is a genus of euscyphic scyphers native to eastern Atarinia. Members of Photoscyphicus are often referred to as "photoscyphers". Alhough seven extinct species have been described, the genus is represented today by a single living species: P. murcural.

Discription
Photoscyphers were small- to medium-sized scyphers living mostly in burrows in grassland environments, although Photoscyphicus primum and P. thudosis lived in jungle habitats, and P. robustus lived in high montaine woodlands.

All photoscyphers showed a tendency towards bipedalism. They have a special pelvis that allows them to "switch" gait, to run on all four limbs with great speed. In most species, including living savanna scyphers, this action is obligatory, their pelvis anatomy forcing a quadrupedal stance to attain speed. However, the anatomy of P. concitus showed that it could run on two legs in a very "human-like" manner.

Evolution
Main Article: Scyphera

Scyphers evolved as a branch from Atar's carnivoraniods about 58 Ma (million years) ago. The extinct tropical cave darrel (Carfila mustelasus), which resembled a cross between a bobcat and a weasel, lived 32 to 26 million years ago. A patch on their head contained glands secreting bio-luminescent chemicals into the transparent patch. It is thought that they used bioluminescence to locate each other in dark caves and perhaps to hunt or attract prey. Eventually these creatures developed protruding patches that produced ever lower frequencies down to microwave and nerve endings that could detect the radiation reflected off objects. This became the scyphic apparatus present in all living scyphers.

The Genus Photoscyphicus emerged about 1 Ma ago, with scyphers that evolved a fourth cone cell type in the eyes (tetrachromatic vision) that could see slightly into the near-ultraviolet spectrum. It was though that this helped to detect food sources and possible den sites, as they can distinguish between far more colors than trichromates such as humans. The aptly named Photoscyphicus primum likely represents this split from the line leading to Sicariolus. Enemsius pauleois​, or a closely related species, most probably represents the common ancestor of photoscyphers and Sicariolus, having lived around the time of this divergence, appearing around 1.4 Ma ago and becoming extinct about 900,000 years ago. P. primum​ ​is ancestral to ''P. ​gladian and P. ulrai''.

Living on the plains of the Enemsie Valley, P.ulrai was an mobile preditor, digging small temporary dens, and moving on with the herds of puron. This lifestyle afforded them the opprotunity to spread south into Murcaus and eastern Atrinia as far south as Earthland, north into the Berba Peninsula, and west into the Thoudo Jungle. The Earthlandian population gave rise to P. concitus, the Murcausian population gave rise to P. murcural, the Berbaquin population gave rise to P. robustus, and the Thudonian population gave rise to P. thudoensis. An early population of P. murcural that reentered the Enemsie Valley around 430,000 years ago is thought to have given rise to P. llano, which then spread back into Murcaus before becoming extinct 26,000 years ago due to competition from the slightly larger, and larger-brained, P. murcural.

Taxonomy

 * Order Scyphera: living scyphers, their last common ancestor, and all of its descendants.
 * Suborder Monoparui: "single-birthing" scyphers
 * Infraorder Terfilena: mainland scyphers
 * Family Scypheridae: "true" scyphers
 * Tribe Scypherininae: "great" scyphers
 * Genus Photoscyphicus: ultraviolet-seeing photoscyphers

Species
Eight species of Photoscyphicus have been described. These are shown with a translation in brackets:


 * †P. primum [first photoscypher]
 * †P. gladiman [daggar-hand photoscypher]
 * †P. ulrai [Ulra's photoscypher]
 * †P. concitus [running photoscypher]
 * †P. robustus [robust photoscypher]
 * †P. thudosis [Thudoean photoscypher]
 * P. murcural [Murcuasian photoscypher] (greater savannah photoscypher)
 * †P. llano [plains photoscypher] (lesser savannah photoscypher)

P. murcural is the only extant species; the others are extinct. Some biologists consider P. llano to be a subspecies of the greater savannah photoscypher, and classify it as P. murcural llano, and the greater as P. murcural murcural.