Polar Boar
Polar boars are an invasive species of wild pig. Mutated to colossal size as a result of exposure to the mildly radioactive environments of the northern Tesseract and southern Tesseract, polar boars pose a threat even to travelers equipped with auto-armor even while gnawing a path of destruction across the landscape.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Woolly and possessed of a pair of mighty tusks, a polar boar is indistinguishable from its mundane cousin except for its titanic size; these huge hogs can weigh half a ton or more when fully grown and possess an appetite to match. Though polar boars reproduce at a slower rate than other wild hog species, they represent a much larger biomass - and, by extension, a drain on local ecosystems - overall than their smaller cousins. Moreover, most of this extra mass is comprised of thick, fatty muscle and fur, providing exceptional defense against the teeth of would-be predators and the small arms of would-be hunters alike. Polar boar wool is thick, wooly, and usually comes in shades of gray.
Ecology and Habitats
Polar boars roam the Dorsal-influenced plains of Northern E, Dorsal F, Dorsal H, and Southern E. Dorsal cubes outside of these regions may host small, transitory populations of polar boars, but these seldom remain in one place for long. It has been theorized that polar boars may have some ability to subsist on radiosynthetic microbes resident in their digestive tracts, allowing them to reach their prodigious sizes even when food resources in a region are becoming depleted, but the difficulty in retrieving samples from live specimens makes confirming this theory difficult.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Polar boars, like other pig species, exhibit little in the way of selectiveness when it comes to their diets. Omnivorous and detritivorous, polar boars consume almost anything that can fit in their mouths that lives or once lived. Because of their mass, polar boars only give chase over short distances, prefering to corner live prey before closing in for the kill. It is usally easier for polar boar herds to push other predators off of fresh kills and steal the meat for themselves, as even big cats can only bring down polar boars with great difficulty. If surface food has been depleted, polar boars use their sensitive snouts to root out underground foods, such as mushrooms, burrowing animals, or buried bodies. After these reserves are depleted, the polar boars will usually move on. During lean times, polar boars are also not affraid to eat eachother, and the frightful struggles that ensue between mutual predators can wreak chaos on the surrounding countryside; often, the eldest and largest males in a herd get to be that way by consuming scores of their former competitors.
Behaviour
Polar boars are ornery, obstinate, and somewhat territorial. Far from attacking out of fear, polar boars charge interlopers as much to consume other animals as they do to drive off competitors. All but the stoutest of trees provide no barrier against polar boars, who often use their incredible mass to shoulder their way through underbrush and man-made barriers alike.
Additional Information
Uses, Products & Exploitation
Polar boar meat is edible, but unhealthful due to its bioaccumulation of radioactive isotopes. Curing and dry-aging the meat allows radioactive elements to decay, making the meat more edible if gamey and potentially still invested with parasites. If proper precautions are taken, a single polar boar kill can feed an entire expedition for a week or more. Unfortunately, field dressing a polar boar in situ is a terrible idea, as the smell of polar boar offal will attract other hungry polar boars looking to push the supposed apex predator off of their carrion.
Geographic Distribution
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