Wolvershrog

The Wolvershrog, sometimes also known as the Santa Claus Shrog, is a large shrog which resides in north temperate and polar waters. It is notable for its great strength, which allows it to catch massive prey, and the great size of its floating nest. In order to survive in polar environments where large flora can be rare, it has the intuition to travel further inland for wood and materials to construct and repair its nest, resulting in it being present in more biomes than one might expect. It also hunts much larger prey than its ancestor did. The Wolvershrog’s second common name, in addition to matching its fat and fluffy appearance, comes from its interspecific empathy. Occasionally, Seashrogs will be brought further north than they are normally capable of thriving by the ocean’s currents. When this occurs, especially during a harsh winter, Wolvershrogs will sometimes find them. The appearance of a Seashrog, even an adult one, activates a Wolvershrog’s parental instincts; though Wolvershrogs are fully aware that Seashrogs are a different species, they are nonetheless very relatable due to them being closely related. The Wolvershrogs will share some of their supplies with these lost Seashrogs, helping them survive long enough to drift back south.

The Wolvershrog’s nest is more complex than its ancestor’s. It is considerably larger, sometimes as great as 30 meters wide, in order to store large amounts of food to survive the winter, and the "hull" has two layers. Air becomes trapped between the two layers, helping to insulate the nest. The two layers also allow the nest to have a more complex structure, as the inner layer can be used to support additional beams without affecting the nest’s overall structural integrity. In fact, this is a necessary innovation for making the nests as large as they are; while the Seashrog only included additional support beams where the deck was weak or sagging, the Wolvershrog will place multiple sets of beams arranged in circles surrounding the center of the nest as support no matter what. In addition to keeping the nest from collapsing in on itself, these beams also serve to support additional floors, shelves, and various ramps that allow access to the entrances to the nest. Though this appears sophisticated, it is mostly further elaboration on instinctive behavior. The nest also has a compound structure and two decks, an upper one with a single entrance in the center used for lookout and a lower one with multiple entrances which is stood on while hunting. The shape of the nest, externally, could be described as a larger nest with a second, smaller nest resting on top supported by wooden pillars. With the massive size of the nest, the Wolvershrog is more tolerant of adult offspring and will allow them to stay in the nest as long as they assist in its maintenance, though many subadults will still leave to start their own families elsewhere.

Without access to fuzzpalm berries in the far north, and with the nest structure being so complex that berries and spit are not sufficient to hold it together, the Wolvershrog has, through imitation, borrowed ideas from the Maineiac Rivershrog, which it would occasionally encounter while searching for wood, and uses roots, other fibrous plant parts, and collagen pulled from prey and beached megafauna to tie the nest together. Construction of a Wolvershrog nest can take years, and in the meantime the shrog will be residing on the coast with its mate and cubs, living off of coastal fruit and fauna. However, once constructed, a single nest can last decades as long as it’s maintained by a Wolvershrog, often even outliving its original builders and being inherited by their descendants.

The Wolvershrog hunts in a similar way to its ancestor, thrusting wooden spears into piscine prey and wrestling it onto the nest. The spears are gnawed on near the tip to create a sort of barb so that they do not slide out of the prey’s flesh very easily. Often, an individual’s mate and adult offspring will assist in tackling especially large prey, thrusting in more spears and using their teeth and claws to hold on and pull the catch aboard. Sometimes, their prey will successfully knock a wolvershrog into the water, but wolvershrogs are strong swimmers and don’t freeze easily due to their thick fur and fat bodies. If possible, the prey’s skull or spine (or equivalent) will be crushed with a powerful bite to kill it, but if it’s too large a spear may be shoved into the brain instead, often through the eyes. Once it stops moving, the kill will be dismembered and meat will be torn from the bones. Some of the meat will be eaten immediately, but most will be splashed in seawater and left to dry, helping to preserve it. Nearly all hunting occurs in the summer, as this preservation method does not work during the winter, though Wolvershrogs will still hunt in the winter as well if they run low on food. The wolvershrog also readily consumes fruit while on land, as it is easy to digest.

The Wolvershrog’s vocalizations are similar to the Seashrog’s, though much deeper and breathier. Due to Wolvershrog family groups being far more cohesive than those of Seashrogs, name-barking has also become far more important; they have adopted “family names”, and no two Wolvershrogs in the same family group will have the same given name. When unrelated Wolvershrogs meet, they will even introduce themselves, tapping a paw to their snout and letting out two barks: first their family name, then their own. They may introduce friends or offspring in a similar manner, tapping their snout and barking. Family names seemingly originated as a way of distinguishing two cubs with the same name and different mothers by barking the mother’s name first followed by the cub’s, similar to the origins of human last names such as “Johnson”, and as such they are typically inherited maternally. Family names can also serve as inbreeding prevention; though instincts prevent Wolvershrogs from mating with siblings they were raised with, an estranged sibling or cousin they have never met will not trigger the anti-inbreeding instinct, so having the same family name can serve as an additional cultural deterrent.

Like its ancestor, the Wolvershrog is placental but retains a pouch. It typically mates during the fall, and gestation lasts about 6 months. Though they will certainly mate every year, hormonal cues will prevent them from being fertile some years to prevent overpopulation of the nest. 3-5 cubs are born per mating. Cubs are born blind and helpless, though they already have a soft coat of fur to protect them from harsh polar conditions once they’ve been licked dry. The cubs remain in the pouch for only a few weeks, rapidly outgrowing it. Juveniles can take as long as 10 years to reach full size, though they are capable of breeding by the age of 8. Adult offspring that stay in the nest, especially daughters, may be tightly monitored by their parents during breeding season, as when making landfall or passing other wolvershrog nests they will often sneak off to mate with strangers; though wolvershrogs are far from prudes and couldn’t care less about what their sons do, parents typically do not want their daughters to have cubs while still living with them due to all the extra mouths to feed. This is similar to the behavior of Terran wolves, which will try to prevent their daughters from mating for the same reason. Wolvershrogs can live as long as 60 years, though their health will usually start to fail in their early 40’s.

On dispersal, young wolvershrogs make a makeshift nest immediately upon landfall, though they may not stick to just one, as they must wander along the beach to find a mate. Although they are only fertile in the fall, they will still have the drive to seek out potential mates year-round so that they are not restricted to a small time window to find one, a necessary trait due to them not having a particularly high population density and the importance of having offspring capable of assisting in hunts and maintaining their massive nests. Mating rivalry occurs in both sexes and selection is mutual, both male and female wolvershrogs preferring strength and bulk, as these are necessary for successful hunting and nest construction. The osteoderms on their faces are used in intraspecific combat—the same head-wrestling their ancestors engaged in—which can reveal easily which of two potential mate options is stronger. The final stage of courtship, too, involves head-wrestling between the prospective lovers so they can feel one another’s strength for themselves. A roughly even match is generally preferred, as if one easily defeats the other, it indicates insufficient strength. Once they have chosen one another they will literally mate on the spot, often right in front of losing rivals, even if it is the wrong season. They mate belly-to-belly, as their back spikes and sharp tail make mounting too risky. The pair will begin construction of a seaworthy nest soon after their first mating, and they will often have already had multiple litters of cubs before they finish.

Homosexuality has been observed in Wolvershrogs, just as in Seashrogs. Male/male pairs are rarer, however female/female pairs are almost bizarrely common. In fact, it is not rare to see a nest populated exclusively by female wolvershrogs with no cubs. While some “lesbian” wolvershrogs will still mate with males they encounter as a reproductive outlet, the rise of family names and tolerance of living in groups has also created a concept of group identity, resulting in the appearance of large female-only groups which have no interest in strange males at all, only in one another. To keep their population up, they will invite young female wolvershrogs they find on beaches into their communal nest with mating calls; most will not accept, feeling no attraction to other females, but some will, keeping the group alive without reproduction.

The Wolvershrog has spread the Cleaner Borvermid and the False Cleaner Borvermid across its entire range. It has also spread the Shailnitor, however it can only actually obtain new Shailnitors from the temperate regions, as the little uktank cannot survive polar conditions and is completely dependent on the shrog nest microclimate this far north; therefore Shailnitors can only exist in the north polar biomes as long as the Wolvershrog or any other species capable of harboring them in the north is extant.