Tunnel Bear
These bear-like Rahi are given their name due to their tendency to dig underground tunnels with their claws. Their tunnel-digging habits are often considered a disadvantage to the Matoran and the overall environment because they dig holes big enough to fit themselves in (and these bears are HUGE, coming to be slightly larger than a Toa). In most regions, Matoran will fill and shut the tunnel holes closed, but Bo-Matoran forbid it in their region, seeing the Bear’s tunnel holes as a natural occurrence that must remain untouched.
Tunnel Bears dig deep, large holes to look for and feed on insects, worms, lizards, and small mammals like rodents. They also create tunnel systems so they can hibernate in the winter.
Their habit of creating tunnels underground once caused clueless Matoran to find it a mystery as to how Tunnel Bears kept showing up in their villages out of nowhere, but those incidents of Tunnel Bears “appearing from nowhere” occurred before Matoran biologists studied their behavior.
(I know image 6 is a picture of the Bear’s paw, I just felt like showing it off)
Tunnel Bears commonly reside in the forests of Bo-Wari, but have been populating Onu-Wari ever since they discovered said place while digging tunnels. Some have also populated a region that is hardly occupied by the Matoran called the Rural-Urban Pass (will evaluate later, it’s basically a transition road from the Rural regions to the Urban regions of Zakara).
Conservation Status: Least Concern