Violet Kitshrox

The violet kitshrox split from its ancestor and moved away from the rivers. It has lost most of its osteoderms, as it isn't at nearly the same risk of predation across its whole range as its ancestor was, and its tail saw has turned into a rough gritty lump with a sandpaper-like texture. Its horn has been replaced with a short, rough, cornified boss. As nest-making is highly strenuous, it has shifted away from the elaborate nests its ancestor constructed, no longer cutting down trees and instead focusing on using its rough tail cap to carve fine tools out of sticks and bones. Its diet has expanded to include flora once again and it has become a prominent opportunist across Maineiac.

The violet kitshrox’s intelligence is not wasted in its new niche. Convergent with the only somewhat related twigfisher shrog, it has shifted towards greater dexterity with smaller tools. Picks, hooks, wedges, knives, and more are carved from wood or bone and used to obtain food which would normally be inaccessible to a creature of its size. For example, a common obstacle to obtaining food might be that it’s out of reach, such as being at the bottom of a deep hole or stuck between two fallen logs; a violet kitshrox faced with such an obstacle will modify a stick to have a hook or barb at the end and proceed to use it to fish out the morsel. Broad shaping is done using its tail cap, while fine details are done using its teeth.

The violet kitshrox is capable of eating a wide variety of different things in its environment, such as small fauna, eggs, fruit, shrooms, and carrion. Its diet includes some iron fauna and flora, and as a result its dung is rich in iron. It will often steal eggs from right under their parents using complicated and varied tactics for distraction and deception.

Violet kitshrox behavior when interacting with non-prey organisms can be likened to that of a typical anthropomorphic fox. They are quite cunning and often steal food from other species, using similar strategies to the ones they use to steal eggs. They will sometimes repeatedly steal from the same individual dozens of times by coming up with different tactics for distracting or deceiving them. They are very playful and mischievous even when there might not be an immediate or obvious reward for bothering another creature, actively occupying their fairly large brains with trouble-making to stave off boredom while alone.

Trouble-making does not end when a violet kitshrox is with its social group, called a skulk. Though still far from hyper-social, violet kitshroxes have begun to construct somewhat of a social hierarchy, which is based primarily on how good they are at tricking one another. The best trickster, called a jester, is not necessarily a good leader; however, the jester usually has greater reproductive success, as the most impressive feats of trickery indicate great dexterity and problem-solving skills, which are useful for survival and therefore considered attractive. A good jester cannot go too far with its tricks, however; trickery is only regarded as "good" as long as it isn't drawn out and any stolen items are promptly returned, and constant or poorly-timed deception is generally not favored. A kitshrox that doesn’t know when to stop will ultimately cause the rest of the skulk to become frustrated and eventually chase it out. Kitshrox trickery, and all the subtleties to doing it right, can be likened to the primate concept of humor, though it is not identical.

Violet kitshroxes are somewhat more comfortable with close quarters than most shrogs. A collection of natural caves, hollow logs, and basket-like nests made of tree branches scattered across a region no more than 100 meters wide houses the entire skulk, which can have as many as 30 members. However, they usually travel alone or in pairs when searching for food, and if they have no offspring to attend to they may even sleep out in the wilderness and not return home for days or weeks at a time. The area is most likely to be at its maximum occupancy during the summer, when food is plentiful and traveling further out in search of something to eat isn’t necessary.

The violet kitshrox has similar instinctive vocalizations to its ancestor. When excited, however, it makes a sound eerily similar to a human cackle. Its non-instinctive vocalizations, its name-barking and “language”, are only mildly more complex; without a river to define cardinal directions, dozens of “words” can be used to describe a location. This is primarily used to inform—or misinform—other kitshroxes of the location of a new food source. Their body language is also typical for shrogs, though their smile-analogous expression is somewhat exaggerated with the corners of the mouth pulled back into a weirdly smirk-like appearance.

The violet kitshrox no longer mates belly-to-belly, as there are no spikes necessitating such a vulnerable position. Otherwise, its reproduction is largely unchanged. Though kitshroxes will generally mate with those they already found attractive beforehand, mating rivalry will still often come up, leading to shoving matches using the armor on their noses, males fighting over females and females fighting over males. Gestation lasts 3 months and they give birth to naked and helpless young, which live in a pouch and suckle milk. As the violet kitshrox is placental, its offspring are already fairly developed at birth and leave the pouch in just over 2 weeks, though they will continue to suckle until they are about 5 weeks old. Their growth rate is slow compared to the speed at which they wean, as having a large brain limits how quickly they can mature. A violet kitshrox is fully grown at 4 years of age. The maximum lifespan of the violet kitshrox is only 20 years, as by chance they were descended from a population of their ancestor which had a shortened lifespan as a consequence of regularly dying young, and their life expectancy when excluding infant death is still 15 years.