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Description

Dzud is the term for a severe perodically occuring disaster in the dry regions of mongolia and central Asia. These regions are characterized by an extremely continental climate. Thse regions are far away from the sea, or blocked by mountain ranges or they don´t have air currents coming from the sea. Because of this there is a distinct lack of regular rainfall and water vapour in the air, and without the moderating effect of the oceans, temperatures will swing from one extreme to another seasonally, and from day to night.

Dzuds are a serious problem in central asia because many people there depend on pastoral farming, and Dzuds can kill off livestock.

Dzuds can be periods of extreme cold, heat, drought, too much snowfall which prevents livestock from grazing, or lack of snowfall which results in a lack of water, and any combinations of those ...

While Serina might have had a climate simlar to Russia during the mid ultimocene ice age, today things are much worse.

More than 300 Million Years have passed since canaries were introcued to serina, and now serina has a climate similar to mongolia, the gobi desert, the himalaya mountains, northern yakutia or worse. At times very cold, sometimes very hot, and most of all, very, very dry. A perpetual state of dzud, one could say.

Plate tectonics and volcanism are mostly extinct, Serina's magnetic field has become dangerously weak, and because of this, its atmosphere is still thinnig.

Oxygen concentrations are very low and the ozone layer is depleted enough that harmfull solar radiation reaches the surface of serina in dangerous quantities.

Rainfall is at best inconsistent, in most areas, and other than the in the coastal regins at the equator, much of serina is a nearly dead wasteland.

Animals and plants struggle to survive in an increasingly hostile and dying wolrd.

So it is no surpise that we find a dead animal here, somewhere in the dead, dry, ever growing wastes of serinaustra.

Had times been better, this juvenile Unicorn would still have travelled far and wide together with other herd members in small groups ususally no larger than a dozen, limited in size becaue of the food scarcity. Perfectly adapted to a life deserts not unlike those in central asia it would have spent it times foraging for sparse food.

Protected from uv radiation, heat and cold alike by a special insulating coat, able to go on for very long periods without food or water, and able to feed and drink large quantities if the rare times of plenty occur, and storing the nutrients in fatty humps like dromedaries or camels, these unicorns sure are a hardy kind of animal, and tenacious survivours.

It also has strong lungs that cope well with the low oxygen concentrations and the thin air and a strong voice used to communicate with other herd members or with conspecifics from other herds over a long distance. Because of the low concentration of food, the populations of these Unicorns are sparsely distributed, and commuicating over long distances is necessary to find mates from other herds to prevent rampant inbreeding.

They are also very smart in regards of remembering all the places where and when to find food or water as far away from each other they might be. And they dig dens into the dry ground - a feat, considering how hard the ground can be - daily to hunker down during midday, when the sun is the highest and harmfull UV radiation the most intense.

These unicorns are of course not without their predators, rare as they might be, and it is not only the predators that kill them.

No, the very reason this juvenile unicorn lies here as a dead and desiccated carcass on the dry, cracked ground (just like many other animals on serina do, unfortnuately) is simple - Serina itself is dying.

All of its herd members had died, and it was the strongest of them, but even beasts as hardy as this one can only go on for so long without any food or water.

For as long as it has lived, starvation and thirst have been a constant in its life, only rarely interjected by short reprives, and despite this it had thrived as best at it could, making everthing it could with limited resources, a testimony to its endurance and tenaciousness.

Its coat was sparser than usual, and by far not what it could have been, and the unicorn was visibly malourished, but it still kept on going, even as all of its herd members had long died.

But one day, it could walk no further. It collapsed onto the dry and desiccated ground, barren of any food or water, and went to sleep, intending to rest and rise up the next day and continue its ever ongoing journey in search of food.

But that moment never came.

This unicorn fell asleep peacefully.

It was suddenly standing in a steppe, which would appear fairly barren to us, who are used to lush vegetation, but to the unicorn this was the land of milk and hiney- figuratively speaking.

Rarely in its life it had seen so much vegetation- there were hardy grasses and shrubs , and also some succulent plants, including the rare clam daisies, and a rarer sight still were these giant puddles of water like on the ground.

But this was not all - its herd members were there too, greeting him with their calls. He excitedly called back and nuzzeld them in greeting, grealy enjoiyng the mutual affection.

He happily fe on the plants and drank from the puddles, as much as he wanted, and then he playfully bounded around together with them, feeling an excess of energy like never before...

And then they heard another herd answering their calls back. A rare occasion.

They called back and excitedly rushed out to see the other herd. They had to travel some distance, but found them, and what stuck out the most to the male unicorn was a female whose calls he had heard well long before seeing it.

It was mating season, and he would make the best of out it, like with everything he got in life, no matter how sparse it might be...

Unfortunately it was all just a dying dream of him, and who knows whether he is the last of its kind or not, there may still be others around somehwere else in the wastes, but it is very hard to tell, with how sparse life is here...

But you could very well belive that the observer was nonetheless impressed by the tenacity of this particular unicorn.

This is just my idea of how life in the dying wastes of serinaustra might be, assuming there are no vocal mimicking predators on serinaustra

-- This Fanart is based on Serina, a speculative evolution/worldbuilding project, which is the sole intellectual property of of .
You can view his work on sites.google.com/site/worldofs… . --

Description

Dzud is the term for a severe perodically occuring disaster in the dry regions of mongolia and central Asia. These regions are characterized by an extremely continental climate. Thse regions are far away from the sea, or blocked by mountain ranges or they don´t have air currents coming from the sea. Because of this there is a distinct lack of regular rainfall and water vapour in the air, and without the moderating effect of the oceans, temperatures will swing from one extreme to another seasonally, and from day to night.

Dzuds are a serious problem in central asia because many people there depend on pastoral farming, and Dzuds can kill off livestock.

Dzuds can be periods of extreme cold, heat, drought, too much snowfall which prevents livestock from grazing, or lack of snowfall which results in a lack of water, and any combinations of those ...

While Serina might have had a climate simlar to Russia during the mid ultimocene ice age, today things are much worse.

More than 300 Million Years have passed since canaries were introcued to serina, and now serina has a climate similar to mongolia, the gobi desert, the himalaya mountains, northern yakutia or worse. At times very cold, sometimes very hot, and most of all, very, very dry. A perpetual state of dzud, one could say.

Plate tectonics and volcanism are mostly extinct, Serina's magnetic field has become dangerously weak, and because of this, its atmosphere is still thinnig.

Oxygen concentrations are very low and the ozone layer is depleted enough that harmfull solar radiation reaches the surface of serina in dangerous quantities.

Rainfall is at best inconsistent, in most areas, and other than the in the coastal regins at the equator, much of serina is a nearly dead wasteland.

Animals and plants struggle to survive in an increasingly hostile and dying wolrd.

So it is no surpise that we find a dead animal here, somewhere in the dead, dry, ever growing wastes of serinaustra.

Had times been better, this juvenile Unicorn would still have travelled far and wide together with other herd members in small groups ususally no larger than a dozen, limited in size becaue of the food scarcity. Perfectly adapted to a life deserts not unlike those in central asia it would have spent it times foraging for sparse food.

Protected from uv radiation, heat and cold alike by a special insulating coat, able to go on for very long periods without food or water, and able to feed and drink large quantities if the rare times of plenty occur, and storing the nutrients in fatty humps like dromedaries or camels, these unicorns sure are a hardy kind of animal, and tenacious survivours.

It also has strong lungs that cope well with the low oxygen concentrations and the thin air and a strong voice used to communicate with other herd members or with conspecifics from other herds over a long distance. Because of the low concentration of food, the populations of these Unicorns are sparsely distributed, and commuicating over long distances is necessary to find mates from other herds to prevent rampant inbreeding.

They are also very smart in regards of remembering all the places where and when to find food or water as far away from each other they might be. And they dig dens into the dry ground - a feat, considering how hard the ground can be - daily to hunker down during midday, when the sun is the highest and harmfull UV radiation the most intense.

These unicorns are of course not without their predators, rare as they might be, and it is not only the predators that kill them.

No, the very reason this juvenile unicorn lies here as a dead and desiccated carcass on the dry, cracked ground (just like many other animals on serina do, unfortnuately) is simple - Serina itself is dying.

All of its herd members had died, and it was the strongest of them, but even beasts as hardy as this one can only go on for so long without any food or water.

For as long as it has lived, starvation and thirst have been a constant in its life, only rarely interjected by short reprives, and despite this it had thrived as best at it could, making everthing it could with limited resources, a testimony to its endurance and tenaciousness.

Its coat was sparser than usual, and by far not what it could have been, and the unicorn was visibly malourished, but it still kept on going, even as all of its herd members had long died.

But one day, it could walk no further. It collapsed onto the dry and desiccated ground, barren of any food or water, and went to sleep, intending to rest and rise up the next day and continue its ever ongoing journey in search of food.

But that moment never came.

This unicorn fell asleep peacefully.

It was suddenly standing in a steppe, which would appear fairly barren to us, who are used to lush vegetation, but to the unicorn this was the land of milk and hiney- figuratively speaking.

Rarely in its life it had seen so much vegetation- there were hardy grasses and shrubs , and also some succulent plants, including the rare clam daisies, and a rarer sight still were these giant puddles of water like on the ground.

But this was not all - its herd members were there too, greeting him with their calls. He excitedly called back and nuzzeld them in greeting, grealy enjoiyng the mutual affection.

He happily fe on the plants and drank from the puddles, as much as he wanted, and then he playfully bounded around together with them, feeling an excess of energy like never before...

And then they heard another herd answering their calls back. A rare occasion.

They called back and excitedly rushed out to see the other herd. They had to travel some distance, but found them, and what stuck out the most to the male unicorn was a female whose calls he had heard well long before seeing it.

It was mating season, and he would make the best of out it, like with everything he got in life, no matter how sparse it might be...

Unfortunately it was all just a dying dream of him, and who knows whether he is the last of its kind or not, there may still be others around somehwere else in the wastes, but it is very hard to tell, with how sparse life is here...

But you could very well belive that the observer was nonetheless impressed by the tenacity of this particular unicorn.

This is just my idea of how life in the dying wastes of serinaustra might be, assuming there are no vocal mimicking predators on serinaustra

-- This Fanart is based on Serina, a speculative evolution/worldbuilding project, which is the sole intellectual property of of .
You can view his work on sites.google.com/site/worldofs… . --