Shadowleaper

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The Shadowleaper is a carnivorous animal from Kesurus, the Vrah homeworld.

Physiology

Often 2m or longer, the Shadowleaper is thin and gracile. It has four limbs and a long tail, with two long talons on each limb.

Its mouth is long and lipped, with rows of sharp teeth and a jagged tongue. This tongue can extend 10cm from the Leaper's face, and is often used to cause extreme bleeding.

The Leaper has toxin sacs in its mouth and connected to its hand talons. This makes a touch deadly, a cow-sized creature expiring in an hour after the potent necrotising toxin is added.

The Leaper, like most of its group, has enormous springy back legs. It moves across open ground with long bounds, often more than 8m. It can also climb trees, and jump down on prey.

Its four eyes are advanced, with trichromatic vision (yellow, red and infrared). However, during the night, it mainly uses its hearing to locate prey. It has been shown to line itself up with magnetic fields to increase pouncing accuracy, like on of Earth's foxes.

Their thick hide is grey and mottled on the back, and beige underneath.

Diet

The Leaper is carnivorous, eating many of the other animals on its world.

Reproduction

The Shadowleaper can reproduce for one month in a Kesuran year, during which many packs meet in Trova forest clearings. Gestation takes a month.

The young are born viviparously, and cling to their mother for two more months, drinking an oily, nutrient rich secretion from the base of her tail.

They then are able to leap, and the mother brings them small prey to hunt and learn from.

Intelligence

The Shadowleaper is considered very intelligent. It lives in packs, with a sophisticated social hierarchy (though all members can mate).

There is an alpha male, who controls all the pack in hunting, and two alpha females who govern the rest of the time.

History

The Shadowleapers competed with the evolving Vrah, and were their main foe on their original landmass.

However, their territories were reduced as the Vrah developed and increased in number, as they were considered good prey.

When the Kerarans attacked and caused the Vrah to abandon Kesurus, Shadowleaper numbers exploded. They are currently found all around the central landmass.