Bohbaegzjul
The bohbaegzjul's, or River Terror's, claim to fame is their aggression. They will attack nearly anything larger than them that comes to close to their territory.
Anatomy & Morphology
Fins
They are fish who, with larger and more articulate fins, are able to crawl across land. Their fins have bones poking out from the ends, appearing as claws. These bones are surrounded by a layer of cartilage. Bohbaegzjul rearing up and spreading out their finds and showing their claws for intimidation.Teeth
Their teeth, however, are not for mere show. In the front of their mouth, they have a row of long, nearly the length of their antennae, serrated fangs used to deter and fight creatures they see as threats to their "property". Behind the fearsome gate of flesh rendering white, are flat molars they eat with.Skin
They have no scales, but a thick leathery skin. Their skin has almost no sensation, bohbaegzjul shrugging of gouges and beatings they receive from running into sharp rocks while swimming.Antenna
They have two long antennae protruding from the bottom of their chin. All along the antennae are sensory bulbs with bioluminescent cloudy substance they light up to communicate with each other through the foggy water. They keep the fire in these bulbs from absorbing the energy from the water through their wounds. They also use the antenna to more minutely find things close by, while the wounds provide less accurate but wider range sensory.Perception & Abilities
With poor eyesight and a near lack of touch, they heavily rely on their antennae and wounds to see. From the energy directly entering their bloodstreem from wounds, or from the sensation of their antennae, they are able to sense all their "property". Due to the lack of feeling, and thus their near nonexistent reception to pain, they are often covered in scars and fresh wounds. They have a remarkable ability to quickly heal, a gouge scarring over within an hour. Their lack of feeling on their skin is both a boon and a curse. It allows them to gain better awareness of their surroundings by letting the electricity in the water directly into their bloodstream, bypassing the slower method of their antenna. It also allows them to brave (or moronically withstand) fighting a creature many times their size. This seeming insanity frightens off many predators. And if the predator is not run off, the bohbaegzjul will try its best to have the predator regret fighting it. The drawbacks to their lack of pain is that they can go overboard with their injuries. They may take a cut too deep or a bashing too hard that would kill them. They are also prone to being covered in parasites.Habitat(s)
Bohbaegzjul live in silty rivers. They are extremely aggressive and territorial, challenging anything and everything that they see as a threat to their "property". No one is absolutely sure what they consider their "property", it being their territory, creatures or objects they deemed as theirs (whether or not they are still within the territory), or some other sense of what belongs to them. Some things within their territory they seem to not care about. They might ignore you if you enter their a part that was thought as part of their territory, and walk over the plants they eat. Other times, if you so much as touch a creature that they often fight with, far away from their territory, they might come and attack you. What is considered "property" varies from individual to individual, but common things of their property is a set territory, things born within that territory, their food, and their young. They fight with the same ferocity defending any property, protecting something that might kill them just as much as they do their young. It is unknown why they have such a strong need to protect things other than their young with their lives, even creatures that actively hunt and kill them.Adaptations to Changing Seasons
The rivers they call home do not easily freeze during the winter, but the waters do grow cold. To combat this, and the lack of food, bohbaegzjul take a season off from being so grouchy. During colder seasons they do not expend all their energy being so aggressively territorial, and instead let many slights to their property go by without so much as a growl. If one were to swim close by, they are much less likely to try to intimidate or fight. They do still protect their property, still coming to threated and attack any that draw too close or bring harm to their food, young, or other "property".Dietary Needs & Feeding Patterns
Bohbaegzjul are herbivorous, eating the rocky producs of a subspecies of Estebyel. The leafy subaqueous vegetation are small plants with bioluminescent bulbs on their stalks, being reminiscing of their own antennae. The bulbs are cyrstaline structures packed full of a micorbiom with all the nutrients they could need. The bulbs glow a slightly greener blue than their antennae, and are only one bulb compared to the antennae's many. When their prefered food source is low, they will eat other fiberous plants.What Eat Them
Bohbaegzjul most often succumb to river parasites. While not killing them on their own, the bohbaegzjul's lack of touch can lead to them being infested by parasites digging into their skin. If they do not kill the bohbaegzjul in their own home, they will during mating. The bohbaegzjul, weak from travel and from the many creatures eating it, will expend what little energy it has left to attempt to create offspring. This is most common with older bohbaegzjul who have collected so many parasites, young bohbaegzjul who regularly injure themselves, inadvertently scraping the parasites off, tend to be just fine. As they are not the largest within their ecosystem, predators such as crocodiles, Wendigo, bears, and others eat bohbaegzjul.Mating & Social Structure
Bohbaegzjul live solitary lives, excluding when taking care of their young. It is also when they mate that they group up. Many swim to some point only known to them to create a mass of bohbaegzjul hundreds strong. They then spend a week mating, laying eggs and inseminating them. They wait around for the eggs to hatch, only taking a day or two, then the survivors swimming back to their "property". Many older bohbaegzjul die during the festivities, as the amount of parasites have their energy and life so low, that mating expends what they had left. Younger bohbaegzjul, without so many parasites, are still plenty fit to wait the three days it takes for the eggs to hatch. They have their mass mating every four to five years. The location seems to be some random property of some random bohbaegzjul, it changing each occurrence.Growth
- The first, and shortest, stage of a bohbaegzjuls life is the egg. After being fertilized, they only take a day or two to mature enough to hatch.
- After they hatch, they swim to be with the closest adult with the least amount of young around them. After the orgy is finished, each adult bohbaegzjul, male and female, will have a small pod of young that attempt to follow them back to the adults property. The young that make it back then stay under the protection of the parent for about a season. It is during this time that parasites are extremely dangerous. What only munch on portions of an adult can quickly kill a small bohbaegzjul. To combat this, young bohbaegzjul are even more aggressive than the adults. They scrape against stone, pick fights, and lash out to gain awareness of the waters around them and to prevent parasites from sticking to their skin.
- After a season, the bohbaegzjul are grown enough to claim their own property. They swim off to unclaimed areas of the river then live their lives as adults. Only two, maybe three, of the young that first followed the parent live long enough to become adults, the rest dying to predators and parasites.
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