Lore implications of Ash hoppers?

I've recently started playing Morrowind for the first time and (un?)fortunately its become something of a hyper fixation of mine, and writing a comment on a different post in the Morrowind sub has caused me to realize something:

Skyrim's dragonborn DLC (and apparently ESO) have the titular creature, \*The Ash Hopper\* and its explained that they live all throughout Morrowind, with a specifically high presence on Vvardenfell. However unless ive just missed them, they dont appear to actually be present in TES III. That led me to the assumption (since they look very similar) that the Ash Hopper is a re-imagining of the Scrib from morrowind, however, apparently in ESO (havent ever played it) both scribs and ash hoppers exist. Additionally, they are specifically considered the Mascot of the Buoyant Armigers, a group that exists in Morrowind (this is only mentioned in ESO however). This means that as per ESO and Skyrim there was/is a creature called the Ash Hopper that existed in the mid 2nd era (ESO), and the early 4th era (Skyrim), but was notably absent during the late 3rd (Morrowind).

the obvious IRL answer to this is Bethesda just hadn't conceived of the Ash hoppers yet (with my personal theory being that they \*are\* a misinterpretation of Scribs for the Dragonborn DLC, cmon they look damn near identical to the TESIII Model) that Bethesda liked so much they decided to keep around as their own seperate thing

However

It is noted that Ash hoppers (mostly, the buoyant armigers mascot specifically lives in the swamp) live on red mountain and its foothills, meaning a potential in universe justification for their absence could be the ghost fence (supposedly constructed sometime \\\~300 years after ESO) making their habitat be full of Corprus and all the other nastyness behind the fence in 3E, causing them to go mostly extinct or dormant in some capacity, only recovering after the fence falls (and possibly thriving in the ash of the red year)

\*All lore im citing from the UESPwiki pages for Ash Hopper and Ghost fence

https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Ash\\\_Hopper

https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Ghostfence