#wheatworld

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The quailhogs of the wheatworld are fierce pack hunting predators that, despite any hopes and dreams they may have to the contrary, don't get much bigger than a guinea pig.

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Little illustration of the ryerunner, a predatory herbivore from the wheatworld. Much of their diet comes from hunting other herbivores in order to steal their stomach contents.

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Assorted sketches of the ryerunner, an ostrich-sized herbivore that lives on the wheat-covered planet Alicanto. Its frilled eyestalks fold over its head, forming a sort of natural balaclava that shields its eyes and upper nostrils in the strong winds. When extended, the underside is a bright, iridescent white; the sudden flash of a ryerunner's frill can be disorientating to practically anything with eyes in the dull sepia landscape.

Though they, as obligate herbivores, have little interest in eating other animals, ryerunners engage in a particularly gruesome form of kleptoparasitism: using their long front claw, they will cleanly "dissect" other plant-eating animals for their stomach contents (and another other occasional treats, such as gestating eggs or large internal parasites). By seeking out this partially digested food, they are able to add significant variation to their diet and include vegetation they would otherwise not be able to access. Attacks on carnivores are rarer, though still not especially uncommon. Herds of ryerunner will sometimes curiously follow animals, nutritional value or no, for up to several hours - both at ground level and by climbing to the surface of the wheat to stalk from above - before killing and carefully "dismantling" said animal as a group, a play behavior that reinforces social bonds and strengthens valuable hunting skills.

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Pickling Pelicans (also known as "Crabtraps", "Penanggalan", "Mulchgulls", "Stinkbirds", "Gluttons" and "Gollopers") are bizarre alien predators from the wheatworld. They evolved to eat hard-shelled invertebrates by scooping them up and digesting them within a gular pouch over the course of about a month (during which their jaws seal shut with a sticky film) before spitting out the inedible exoskeleton. Unfortunately, they are opportunist predators of any number of large animals, often with quite disturbing results - it's not unusual to spot them in the midst of a very gory "pickling" of a vertebrate. There is no record of anyone being successfully removed from the pouch of a pelican - even after the death of the animal, attempts to pry the jaws open or cut the pouch only resulted in snapped penknives. Remains have only been retrieved after decomposition has caused the gular pouch to pop.

Despite how dangerous they are when hunting, they're notably placid and harmless after eating. Multiple people have reported approaching a pelican in the process of digesting its prey without any sign of fear or aggression; the animals were even said to curiously reach out and gently touch people or human objects with their dexterous back limb, not unlike the way an elephant might use its trunk to investigate something new.

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some wheatworld stuff: "diving suits" (ft an elderly larrow researcher) and a (shitty) map of the topography of alicanto's wheat forest/some of it's largely yet to be named plants and animals. The deep prairies of the moon make up most of it's surface; larrow cannot breathe in anything but the high wind environment in the upper canopy and above, and so venturing into the lower depths can be as risky and strenuous as deep ocean exploration is for us.

an overhead map isn't really possible as it would look roughly like this:

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apologies if you've gotten this question already, is wheatworld on the brink of a cataclysm? It seems a lot of the native fauna are going extinct.

it's on the verge of ecological collapse for Reasons, yeah

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I've been scrolling through the tag for you Larrow species and feel free to not answer if this is too silly but: could the Larrow and humans be friends? Or are they so incompatible as species they're never even going to think about interacting?

they can be friends. Larrow have low empathy/are not inherently social in the sense that, as animals, they're naturally about as social as roadrunners or monitor lizards or whatever, but this doesn't mean that, as people, they literally have 0 care or interest in other individuals whatsoever

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with larrow does the entire adult population die before the next generation emerges? or is there some that live between generations?

by and large they die off. there's sometimes rare exceptions but they aren't the norm.