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Dwarf Skuggernaut (juvenile)
🕑 Added 2023-10-01 05:23:32 +0000 UTCBy far the smallest skulossus species, the dwarf skuggernaut is a native of the distant Trang Island, and by far its largest endemic denizen. Although the smallest species, and with the smallest young, weighing less than eight pounds at birth, it bucks the trend of largest skulossus species having longer growth times by having the longest growth time of all, a consequence of an environment where adults have little fear of predators and can easily live for decades past maturity. It can take upwards of forty years for the young to reach full-size. Due to the near-equatorial location of Trang Island, the skuggernaut has no real breeding season and can produce multiple litters of 5-12 offspring per year.
Young skuggernauts are forest-dwelling animals, with speckled hides, covered in a layer of a short, fine down, camouflaging them against the sunlight trickling through the canopy. Young feed primarily on low-growing broad-leaved vegetation, fruit, and invertebrates. They have also been known to wade in shallow water for rhizomes and shellfish. In the first few years of life, to be inconspicuous is their greatest chance of survival. As they age, they congregate in greater herds for mutual protection as their increasing size makes camouflage less capable of easily hiding them, and they rely more on many watchful eyes to keep them safe. At this stage, they will often form mixed-species herds with giraffowls or wumpos. During this time, they can be found in a wide variety of the island's habitats as they follow the movements of herds of different species.
This illustration shows a ten-year old adolescent, a year or two before the features that distinguish the two sexes begin to appear, and the females become more independent, living in looser single-sex associations, while males tend to stay together in the same creche all their lives. As expected, the much larger females take a notably longer time to reach maturity than the males, sometimes a full ten years longer than males (which can reach breeding age within twenty-five years). This contributes to a very skewed population ratio of males to females, as the females not only take much longer to reach breeding age, but becomes a solitary animal as it approaches adulthood, resulting in a much lower population density (this isn't a big issue for male choice, as females can take the sperm of multiple males for one clutch).
