Hashukayak

ECOLOGY

Environment temperate plains or hills
Organization solitary, gang (2–9 males), or herd (5–20 females and young)

Whereas some species hibernate or have evolved to spend months at a time in darkness, hashukayaks tirelessly migrate in pursuit of sunlight and the lush plants on which they feed. These massive beasts are a keystone species, serving as prey for many of the planet’s large carnivores, dispersing seeds over huge areas, and cropping grasses to make way for new growth.

Although hashukayaks demonstrate considerable sexual dimorphism, they have many traits in common. Each is an eight-legged herbivore about 10 feet long and 5 feet tall at the shoulder, weighing about 4,000 pounds in a normal gravity environment. Hashukayaks store excess fat and water in a double hump at the base of the neck, which they use to store nutrients when crossing less hospitable terrain. A hashukayak’s eight eyes can focus independently, and each perceives a different spectrum of light, allowing the animal to see in dim conditions as well as sense subtle cues in the atmosphere that signal the changing seasons. To handle the reduced oxygen levels and air density toward the planet’s rim, these creatures have a second set of lungs that can inflate and more efficiently process thin air. These lungs also help to keep the animals buoyant in water, making them clumsy but capable swimmers.

A hashukayak primarily feeds on grasses, which it plucks with eight feeding tentacles arrayed around its mouth.

The animal relies on its gizzard and a series of five stomachs to break down the vegetation in several cycles of fermentation aided by its rich, digestive microbiome. Hashukayaks diversify their diet as opportunities allow, digging up roots, breaking into insect colonies to snatch up larvae, or even consuming the occasional carrion. Only in three documented cases have the creatures actively chased down larger fauna to consume, and each incident seemed to be aberrant behavior associated with nutritional deficiencies or high stress.

Adult male and female hashukayaks live different lifestyles and inhabit different territories that overlap only periodically. When most amateur xenobiologists think of hashukayaks, they imagine the female adult, bald but for a narrow band of long hairs around the neck. These sensitive whiskers allow female hashukayaks to sense an array of stimuli, and their leaner bodies allow them to cover large distances to find food or escape predators. Female hashukayaks gather in large herds for protection, traveling with their young. As the long summer ends, these herds migrate from the higher-gravity equator toward the rim, where the planet’s divergent tectonic plates form warm lakes and fertile grasslands.

There, the males live year round in the low-gravity plains. Male hashukayaks grow bulkier in this environment, but for all the competitive advantages their mass provides, they have a limited range. In an area with normal gravity, a male moves at half speed and gradually becomes sick and dies as its weight compresses its digestive tract. The front third of a male’s body is covered in dense hair, with the greatest concentration around its neck and hump. This shields the animal from the broad horns that males grow and use to battle one another for dominance during the long summers. For all their brutal competition, male hashukayaks become much more docile during the transitional season, when the migratory females and juveniles travel to the rim. At that time, dominant males use their feeding tentacles to build elaborate altars or bowers made of logs, dried grasses, and smoothed pebbles. The fancier the installation and its contents, the more attractive the male, and accomplished architects can mate numerous times in a season.