Creature Creation Challenge #9

[Malkuthe Highwind]

Creature Creation Challenge
This challenge explores one facet of worldbuilding: creature creation, as the title says. Whether or not you're a worldbuilder, at one point or another, you're bound to create different kinds of flora and fauna for your world. This challenge brings two new things to the table: first, all the submissions for this challenge will be put into a "bestiary" of sorts in the Worldbuilder's Guild which will be a resource for yourself and anyone who needs creatures for their worlds; second, every week, there will be a different difficulty for the challenge. ​

The Difficulty Levels

Difficulty 1

- build a creature around a specific theme

Difficulty 2

- build a creature with a specific body part around a specific theme

Difficulty 3

- build a creature to fit a specific role in an ecosystem with a specific body part around a specific theme

Difficulty 4

- build a creature based upon an animal on earth to fit a specific role in an ecosystem with a specific body part around a specific theme

Difficulty 5

- build a creature that will survive in a specific environment based upon an animal on earth and fit a specific role in an ecosystem with a specific body part around a specific theme.

This Week's Difficulty:

- build a creature based upon an animal on earth to fit a specific role in an ecosystem with a specific body part around a specific theme

This Week's Criteria:
Theme: Non-Auditory Communication
Body Part: Pit-Organs
Role: Sapient Omnivorous Prey
Animal Basis: Komodo Dragon

Feel free to use this following template for your creatures. You can add on to it or remove things from it as you wish or not use it at all.

Creature Template

Name:
Appearance:
Role: Predator/prey/producer
Habitat:
Life-span:
Sentient: Yes/No
Sapient: Yes/No
Means of Sustenance:
Favourite Food Source:
Major Competition:
Mating Rituals: Courtship rituals, mating grounds, mating season, et cetera
Reproduction: you can include period of gestation
Organization: does this creature travel in packs or herds, or is it a solitary creature that only meets with members of its species for the mating season?
Other:

---

The Bestiary​

 

[lynzy]

Name: Dogmodo
Appearance: Having the appearance of a mid-sized dog that is approximately 3 ft tall and 6 feet long from tip of snout to end of tail. Dogmodo's are covered with a thick leathery scaled hide the color of which varies. Males tend to have the brightest mix of colors that can include greens, blues, yellows and some variations of red. Females are usually gray, black and white or as with a subspecies found in Africa, they can be mottled shades of brown. Males have a more stocky muscular body, while females are more slender.
Role: Predator
Habitat: Dry arid deserts
Life-span: 20-25 years in captivity or domesticated life, 10-15 in the wild.
Sentient: Yes
Sapient: No
Means of Sustenance: like sharks, they have been known to eat (not necessarily digest) practically any thing they can fit into their mouths.
Favourite Food Source: any kind of meat, although they prefer it to be slightly rotten.
Mating Rituals: Courtship rituals- males display intentions with a flaring of frills around the face and loud hissing, mating season- the begining of January til the end of Febuary.
Reproduction: gestation lasts for five months, on average
Organization: they run in organized packs of mainly adults but in the summer they have been seen with there young in tow, obviously to teach them pack etiquette and how to hunt together.
Other: they are easily domesticated and used for hunting purposes, however it is wise not to let them go without food as they have been known to turn on their masters and eat them.

 

[FighterKat]

Name: Muhaeong (meaning harmless dragon)
Appearance: The Muhaeong is a reptile that is , on average, a mere 2 feet (excluding the tail). Since they are on all fours, they are only 9 inches high. They have large yet thin, black, plate-like scales that cover the whole body, even the underside. The scales are normally well-polished, and you can tell when a Muhaeong is ill, as they have lost their shine. Their tail is short and stubby (4 inches) and drags on the floor. They have two frills that can be retracted and displayed at will. They can often be mistaken for wings, which gave them their name of 'dragon'. The scales are easily penertrated, so some can be seen missing. They are generally quite slim, and can slip into very small holes, the average Muhaeong can fit into a hole the size of CD. The males can have a mutation where they have red scales. This is fairly common across Muhaeong. There is both a male and female in this species. Their teeth are made up of molars, pre-molars, cainines and incisors. The cainines are as small as the rest of the teeth, about half an inch. Their short legs restrict mobility so they are very slow.
Role: Prey
Habitat: Dense jungles and hot forests
Life-span: 70 - 90 years
Sentient: Yes
Sapient: Yes
Means of Sustenance: They eat small rodents, fruit and vegetables.
Favourite Food Source: Sweet Fruits
Major Competition: Piggleswade, a pig-like animal with huge teeth and longer legs than a normal pig, which makes it faster than a normal pig.
Mating Rituals: Courtship Rituals: Both genders perform a special dance with their frills and feet to let the male fertilize her eggs.​

Mating season: Winter.​

Reproduction: The male ferilizes the female's egg, after the female approves of him doing so. The egg is midnight blue. The time it takes for the egg to hatch from the time it was layed is 10 weeks
Organization: They move in herds, like elephants, and each family has it's own herd. They eat together and move together, but they normally stay in one place.
Other: They have a ranking system​

Leedeo: The leader of the herd​

Bussaliongwan: The second in command​

Janglow: Elders that have authority, but are too old to hunt or lead.​

Jeelumuni: The young ones of the group​

Sangyangkun: The hunters. They go out of the den and collect food.​

Bohojah: They take care of the little ones.​

Nayagan: These are the weaklings. They were taken in, because they would have died if they were exiled.​

​

Their den is normally in a valley, a pit, or a very large hole. The communites normally have 20 Muhaeongs in their dens. They are covered in leaves, and there are some burrows specifically for each rank​

​

​

 

[FishWolf]

Name: Deckon Lizard
Latin Name: Subterraneus Lacerta (Underground Lizard)
Appearance: The Deckon Lizard is only about three feet in length, and has the basic body structure of a Komodo Dragon, exept they are slimmer. Both males and females have large spikes running down the length of their spine, and the males have a bright frill that stands out from the top of their heads. Both lizards have extremely long and sharp claws meant for digging, and they have short but sharp teeth, except for the flat molars.. Their canines are slightly longer than the rest, and those canines are hollowed-out fangs that contain a venom that they use to aid in hunting their prey. Deckon Lizards are usually black in color, with a blue underbelly. They have small streamlined scales, and each scale is tipped with a dark blue. Deckon Lizards have bright blue fluorescent undersides to their scales, however, and both males and females can ruffle those scales to flash the brightly colored undersides. They have bright orange eyes with vertical slitted pupils, and they have a clear protective membranous eyelid to keep dirt from getting in their eyes when digging. They lose scales on an average of ten a week, and many local people sell the scales to tourists.
Role: Predator
Habitat: Lives in underground burrows that it digs out with long, sharp claws. They live in tropical jungles and are sometimes found in a oasis in the desert.
Life-span: 10-13 years living in the wild. Nobody has attempted domestication.
Sentient: Yes
Sapient: No
Means of Sustenance: Small animals such as rabbits, squirrels, rats, groundhogs, and moles, and any kind of fruit or vegetable they can find. They prefer to eat slightly rotted fruit over the fresh kind.
Favourite Food Source: Deckon Lizards love to eat as much as they can, so their favorite food would be a large groundhog. They also have a slight sweet tooth for fallen fruit.
Major Competition: Other Deckon Lizards, although they have also had problems with the local badgers and other scavengers.
Mating Rituals: Female Deckon Lizards claim different mating grounds, and the male Deckon Lizards fight over those grounds. The winner gets to court the female who owns that territory. They mate for life, unlike many other reptiles. They mate in the winter for some reason. Mating season lasts a month.
Reproduction: Incubation takes about a month after mating season has stopped. The female usually incubates the eggs inside a den that she seals up to keep from the heat escaping the den. She does not stay in the den, however, as the male and female move to a new territory to make a new den in. This way a territory does not get too crowded. The hatchlings will hatch and dig their ways out of the den, left to fend for themselves, much like snakes do.
Organization: Deckon Lizards live alone until they find a mate, and they will live with that mate for the rest of their life.
Other: Deckon Lizards have a venomous bite that makes their prey drowsy and weak.