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Description

Night on the open plains on the planet Cerulea. A voracian attacks a male striped flag tail. The rest of the herd flee, leaving him to his grisly fate.

The voracians are apex predators of the open plains. A type of large nocturnal aeroraptor, voracians measure from 2.1-2.3 m in length, with females being slightly larger than males, and are a dark blue colour. Like all aeroraptors they have an endothermic metabolism and a super-efficient unidirectional respiratory system utilising a series of air sacs. Voracians can be found across the plains of south-eastern Occidentalis, south-western Orientalis, and on many of the in between islands. Powerful flyers, they are capable of traversing the sea lying between the two continents (to be fair, this sea is somewhat narrower than the Atlantic on Earth but even so, a creature flying over it is accomplishing no small feat).

Voracians are actually cave creatures as much as they are plains creatures. At day they roost at or near the mouths of caves, or up in small coastal cliffs and outcrops. While they are found in groups, this is more a case of tolerating each others presence than an actual pack or other social group. At night they go out to hunt, which they always do solitary, with no cooperation from any others. While they will occasionally go deeper into the caves to hunt, they prefer to hunt out on the open plains. Why this is so in not entirely clear, but it is generally thought to be to avoid competition with large cave predators. Out on the plains they hunt anything they can take down, be it arthrolopes, flag tails, plains dwelling radials, smaller predators (e.g. plains runners), or even such tough things as the craytaurs whom smaller predators will tend to leave alone.

The dark blue colouration of the voracians makes them harder to spot in the darkness of the night. They can see in the dark but are primarily sound based predators, using their highly sensitive hearing to pin point where any potential prey may be. Pseudo-arthropod ears are hard to see, but are generally located on the underside of the head. Voracian ears look like parabolic dishes on the bottom of their head. When prey is found, a voracian will swoop down and pin the prey to the ground with their powerful claws, which are essentially thick bony structures covered by a layer of chitin. The jaw parts are then used to snap the neck (or to just rip off the top of the head if the voracian is hunting radials, who have no neck of any sort).

Apart from a slight size difference, male and female voracians look about the same. The main difference between the two lies not in appearance but in behaviour. The males love to show off to impress the females. Male voracians built large nests made out of thing like "grass", twigs and polyp sac stems. An interesting example of behaviour is how the male will also surround the nest with all sorts of junk that acts as decoration. The decoration includes anything the male finds at least somewhat distinctive in appearance. This can include things like colourful and/or oddly shaped rocks, polyp sac parts, the bones of vertebrates and pseudo-arthropods, the shell plates of shield heads, and so on. Since humans colonised Cerulea, male voracians have found a number of new things to add to their collections, such as scrap metal, electronic devices, and even small robots used to help in gardening or outdoor cleaning tasks (said robots were of course destroyed by the thieving voracians in question, before being taken away for the collections). Many humans living far from the city, in places where voracians will show up, have learned not to just leave such things lying around after dark.

A male voracian wishing to mate will show off his nest and junk collection to a female and dance around a lot, making a lot of the grunting and growling sounds. If the female is impressed she will mate with him. She will then go on to lay 2 eggs in the nest. She alone will care for the eggs, with no help for the male, who will leave her after having successfully mated. After the eggs hatch, the female plays no role in caring for the young though. They are on their own.

Voracians tend to stay out of Cerulea City. However, there are a number of people who live away from the city in lone homes or small settlements out on the plains or on small islands. To these people, voracians are a real danger. They are not picky eaters and seem to have no problem with the fact that humans do not resemble any of their natural prey. The fact that a voracian is quite willing and quite capable of killing and eating a human does lead to some serious concerns. Pet dogs- one of the few types of non-human Earth creatures to be brought to Cerulea- are also quite acceptable prey for voracians. There have been cases of both dogs and humans being killed.

To deal with this issue, most people living away from the city have taken the simplest precaution- stay inside at night. While a voracian will gladly attack a human out in the open, there are no known cases of them trying to break into houses, so staying inside should keep you safe. However, there are some people who still wish to be able to go out at night to do things like star gazing or observing nocturnal critters like the field lanterns. For these people, there is in fact a way to do this safely. Ultrasonic emitters are a type of device looking a bit like a tall cylinder stuck into the ground. They will emit a sound at an frequency beyond the hearing range of humans and even beyond the hearing range of dogs (and also beyond the hearing range of a lot of Cerulean creatures for that matter). But to voracians, the sound is very unpleasant and they will keep at a good distance from any sonic emitter. So as long as you have a working ultrasonic emitter, you should be safe to do whatever outdoor activities you want out on the plains at night. Just be sure to stay within the emitter's effective range.

Description

Night on the open plains on the planet Cerulea. A voracian attacks a male striped flag tail. The rest of the herd flee, leaving him to his grisly fate.

The voracians are apex predators of the open plains. A type of large nocturnal aeroraptor, voracians measure from 2.1-2.3 m in length, with females being slightly larger than males, and are a dark blue colour. Like all aeroraptors they have an endothermic metabolism and a super-efficient unidirectional respiratory system utilising a series of air sacs. Voracians can be found across the plains of south-eastern Occidentalis, south-western Orientalis, and on many of the in between islands. Powerful flyers, they are capable of traversing the sea lying between the two continents (to be fair, this sea is somewhat narrower than the Atlantic on Earth but even so, a creature flying over it is accomplishing no small feat).

Voracians are actually cave creatures as much as they are plains creatures. At day they roost at or near the mouths of caves, or up in small coastal cliffs and outcrops. While they are found in groups, this is more a case of tolerating each others presence than an actual pack or other social group. At night they go out to hunt, which they always do solitary, with no cooperation from any others. While they will occasionally go deeper into the caves to hunt, they prefer to hunt out on the open plains. Why this is so in not entirely clear, but it is generally thought to be to avoid competition with large cave predators. Out on the plains they hunt anything they can take down, be it arthrolopes, flag tails, plains dwelling radials, smaller predators (e.g. plains runners), or even such tough things as the craytaurs whom smaller predators will tend to leave alone.

The dark blue colouration of the voracians makes them harder to spot in the darkness of the night. They can see in the dark but are primarily sound based predators, using their highly sensitive hearing to pin point where any potential prey may be. Pseudo-arthropod ears are hard to see, but are generally located on the underside of the head. Voracian ears look like parabolic dishes on the bottom of their head. When prey is found, a voracian will swoop down and pin the prey to the ground with their powerful claws, which are essentially thick bony structures covered by a layer of chitin. The jaw parts are then used to snap the neck (or to just rip off the top of the head if the voracian is hunting radials, who have no neck of any sort).

Apart from a slight size difference, male and female voracians look about the same. The main difference between the two lies not in appearance but in behaviour. The males love to show off to impress the females. Male voracians built large nests made out of thing like "grass", twigs and polyp sac stems. An interesting example of behaviour is how the male will also surround the nest with all sorts of junk that acts as decoration. The decoration includes anything the male finds at least somewhat distinctive in appearance. This can include things like colourful and/or oddly shaped rocks, polyp sac parts, the bones of vertebrates and pseudo-arthropods, the shell plates of shield heads, and so on. Since humans colonised Cerulea, male voracians have found a number of new things to add to their collections, such as scrap metal, electronic devices, and even small robots used to help in gardening or outdoor cleaning tasks (said robots were of course destroyed by the thieving voracians in question, before being taken away for the collections). Many humans living far from the city, in places where voracians will show up, have learned not to just leave such things lying around after dark.

A male voracian wishing to mate will show off his nest and junk collection to a female and dance around a lot, making a lot of the grunting and growling sounds. If the female is impressed she will mate with him. She will then go on to lay 2 eggs in the nest. She alone will care for the eggs, with no help for the male, who will leave her after having successfully mated. After the eggs hatch, the female plays no role in caring for the young though. They are on their own.

Voracians tend to stay out of Cerulea City. However, there are a number of people who live away from the city in lone homes or small settlements out on the plains or on small islands. To these people, voracians are a real danger. They are not picky eaters and seem to have no problem with the fact that humans do not resemble any of their natural prey. The fact that a voracian is quite willing and quite capable of killing and eating a human does lead to some serious concerns. Pet dogs- one of the few types of non-human Earth creatures to be brought to Cerulea- are also quite acceptable prey for voracians. There have been cases of both dogs and humans being killed.

To deal with this issue, most people living away from the city have taken the simplest precaution- stay inside at night. While a voracian will gladly attack a human out in the open, there are no known cases of them trying to break into houses, so staying inside should keep you safe. However, there are some people who still wish to be able to go out at night to do things like star gazing or observing nocturnal critters like the field lanterns. For these people, there is in fact a way to do this safely. Ultrasonic emitters are a type of device looking a bit like a tall cylinder stuck into the ground. They will emit a sound at an frequency beyond the hearing range of humans and even beyond the hearing range of dogs (and also beyond the hearing range of a lot of Cerulean creatures for that matter). But to voracians, the sound is very unpleasant and they will keep at a good distance from any sonic emitter. So as long as you have a working ultrasonic emitter, you should be safe to do whatever outdoor activities you want out on the plains at night. Just be sure to stay within the emitter's effective range.