Duramboar

The duramboar split from its ancestor. It is a large, lumbering, boar-like herbivore. Its fatty flesh makes it very tasty. This, along with its lack of defenses, speed, and inability to hide, makes it a favorite food of large carnivores like the shantak, draneck, snapperky, and snapjaw sandcrock. It even looks worried all the time, though this is just an illusion produced by the natural wrinkles and contours of its face. The duramboar survives by its nomadic habits, herd living, and skittishness. (which is almost laughable for something so bulky and strong-looking) The duramboar constantly migrates throughout its habitats, taking it out of range of some of its predators. The only one that hunts it throughout all its habitats is the snapperky, and young snapperkies may even fly out of the biomes they were hatched in to hunt duramboars on the border of a nearby biome. The only time a duramboar stops is sometime during the summer in the Fermi Tundra. (The exact time varies depending on weather conditions.) There, it will scrape out a pit with its foreclaws and lay a clutch of frog-like eggs inside it. To keep the eggs moist, the male duramboar will spray the eggs with a dilute urine from between its forelegs. In the males, the bladder is connected to a colorful skin patch that develops into a water-filled dewlap when mature. During the breeding season, some of the male's ingested water is diverted from the esophagus and into the bladder-dewlap (bladlap) apparatus. This causes his dewlap to swell with water like a water balloon. Those with the biggest dewlaps tend to have more mating success. (Outside the breeding season, male duramboars look identical to the females.) Like their ancestor, males use their nasal flaps to focus their "snorting" calls during the breeding season. While the Fermi Tundra has the fewest predators, it also has the least food. The duramboar survives on its store of fat during this time, but can't stay there indefinitely. Eventually, it will get too cold for the ectothermic duramboars to live in. The yolk globules provided to the eggs, as well as the constant watering, help the larvae grow faster. During this time, the larvae live entirely on the yolk globules. When the larval duramboars develop legs, the duramboars leave. Some larvae don't develop fast enough, and are left behind. Snapperkies soon pick them off. Some larvae look absurd, for though they have legs good enough for walking, they may still have tail membranes and fishlike bodies. Those with underdeveloped snouts and jaws must feed on the more intact bits of food that pass through adults' digestive systems. Duramboars' split upper lips have partly merged together, but the tips are still mobile. The tough, flattened tips allow it to probe the soil for roots. While the nasal flap originally developed as protection against dust storms, the duramboar can also use it to protect its nostrils from defense phytid spores emitted by colony stalks. However, it prefers feeding on other flora, for it still can't protect its eyes from the irritating spores.