Pulchra
Tall and elegant, with a distinct cephalopod flair, these predatory yet remarkably wise extraterrestrials inhabit the neighboring planet Enshunu, a lush jungle with sinister secrets.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Pulchra are bipedal with 2 legs and 2 arms. They possess 3 fingers and the fourth possesses a hooked chitinous claw used for capturing prey. They have long ostrichlike legs which display thickened skin and small pebbly gladii on the bottoms of the feet for traction and protection. Their home planet has low gravity, which has allowed their bones to be light, semi hollow, and -compared to humans- fragile. They have small bony plates both above and beneath their skin, akin to the gladius in other cephalopods. These gladii are hollow, chambered, and can be filled with air, therefore able to be used for buoyancy while swimming. These gladii, as well as their claws, are made of chitin, which can produce an allergic reaction among some humans. Gladii are centered around the upper chest, back, and head, and serve to protect sensitive organs.
Their heads resemble that of octopus, with an enlarged posterior sac behind the eyes which contains ink-producing organs. Small ducts run from these ink producing glands to openings at the end of each of their four facial tentacles, which surround their beak and mouth. This ink is used as a deterrent in the water, and can be "milked" for use as a writing material (though only with the pulchra's express permission, pulchra ink is illegal to possess without written permit from the pulchra it was harvested from.)
Respiratory system: Pulchra have, strangely among cephalopods, evolved external structured gills in the form of seven pairs of gills that form frills around the neck and sides of the face. They can breathe both underwater and on land, though in the water the exchange of oxygen is significantly improved. These external gills flare when pulchra engage in strenuous activity, likely to increase surface area exposed to air. In order to force air past their syrinxes for vocalization, pulchra flex muscles in their upper chests and upper backs to control air flow.
Circulatory system: Pulchra have 3 hearts in a closed circulatory system. Two are branchial, which pump blood through the gills for respiration, the third is systemic, and receives the blood that drains from the gills and passes it out into the rest of the body. Skin:
Pulchra skin consists of chromatophores, sacs of pigment surrounded by cellular muscles. External gladii can be any shade of white/cream, red, brown, grey and black.
- Cyanophores- blue
- Melanophores- black
- Xanthophores- yellow
- Erythrophores- red
- Iridophores- reflective/iridescent, change color slowly, hormonal.
- Leucophores- white, base color
Genetics and Reproduction
Pulchra reproduce much like earth octopuses, though they are capable of laying multiple clutches of eggs, being iteroparous like mammals. Most females lay three to five clutches of ten to twelve eggs each in her lifetime.
Fertilization can happen any time of the year. Pulchra are simultaneous hermaphrodites, capable of changing their sex at will. This sex-change is driven by changes in the pituitary gland at the base of the brain, which in turn drives hormonal changes within the rest of the pulchra. This flood of hormones causes one set of sex organs to go dormant until another wave of differing hormones, or lack of hormones, changes the individuals status.
All Pulchra, regardless of sex, have a single, posteriorly-located gonad which is located within a small pouch on the underside of the base of the tail. The testis in males and the ovary in females bulges into a specialized chamber at the base of the gonad where the gametes are released. This chamber becomes, in females, the pouch into which males transfer spermatophores (packets of sperm). This pouch is where fertilization occurs and where the eggs are laid from forty days later. In males, this chamber is where the pulchra "penis" retracts to when not mating.
About forty days after fertilization, female pulchra lay gelatinous egg masses in shallow pools located in temples along the coasts, where fresh water can be irrigated through the pools to ensure constant water movement and proper oxygenation for the young pulchra. The eggs are tended for five months until the young hatch. During these five months, mothers do not leave their pools, do not eat, and sleep in brief intervals.
Each successive clutch presents risk of "The Wastes". The Wastes are an ontogenetic change in female-bodies pulchra that takes place soon after the production and laying of a clutch. Symptoms include lack of feeding, retraction of skin around the eyes, uncoordinated movement, increased undirected activity, and white lesions on the body. This typically lasts approximately a month. This change is driven by secretions in the optic gland, located between the eyes that inactivates the salivary and digestive glands. Activation of the optic gland appears to be affected by environmental factors such as light, temperature, and nutrition that ultimately control reproduction and life span. Thus, The Wastes have been attributed to prolonged lack of sunlight, lack of food, and general physiological stress.
Growth Rate & Stages
Offspring are raised communally, and may call several individuals mom or dad. Pulchra are considered adults at 30 years of age. They can easily reach ages exceeding 100 Del years. Most pulchra are considered geriatric past 230 years of age, and rarely exceed 275 years.
When they hatch, pulchra are precocial and nidifugous, and walk within hours of hatching. young pulchra are significantly different, proportion wise, from adults. They possess relatively short, swollen legs and large heads and eyes with almost comically large expressive gills.
As they grow, pulchra tend to grow upward more than they do outward, and many go through a classic "adolescent awkwardness" stage, in which their limbs seem entirely too long for the rest of their bodies. Upon reaching adulthood, however, they tend to look about "right" proportionately, though they do generally have longer legs than many may expect.
Ecology and Habitats
The optimal environment for pulchra is humid. Humidity is the main restraint placed upon pulchra as they travel to other worlds. With their external gills, they need humidity to facilitate the transmission of oxygen form the air to their bloodstream, without keeping their gills damp, pulchra have been known to suffocate.
Beyond this requirement, pulchra have adapted well to other biomes, with the notable exception of deserts, tundra and taiga. They cannot withstand cold temperatures due to their general lack of insulating fat layers, though with appropriate outerwear, adaptation may be possible given sufficient time.
In it's home, however, the pulchra is an apex terrestrial predator. Forced from the oceans by the formidable Beluut, a gigantic eel-like creature, pulchra swarmed over the landmasses of Enshunu and quickly gained the upper hand with their intelligence, resourcefulness, and ferocious hunting habits.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Pulchra are obligate carnivores. They possess a beak with two salivary glands on either side and a radula used for scraping flesh from bone, much like a cats tongue. Pulchra have a very simple digestive system consisting of an esophagus, stomach, and intestine. Their diet consists of approximately 80% fish, though they are not picky and will readily eat terrestrial creatures as well if available. They do not cook, and find cooked meat to be tough and flavorless. Pulchra living on Delkhii have adopted some dietary cues from the Del, such as bread and beverages native to Delkhii, like kaffe, both of which are readily digestible, though too much bread can result in bacterial overgrowth in the intestines and should be eaten in moderation.
Additional Information
Uses, Products & Exploitation
Pulchra ink can be consensually harvested for use as extremely lightfast, durable writing ink. It is EXTREMELY expensive, and can only be collected from a living, willing pulchra.
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Can be found on any low-lying area of Enshunu, with preference given to coastal areas or areas near bodies of water. The mountains are difficult to live in, but some have tried to establish small settlements there, to no success.
Average Intelligence
Pulchra are very intelligent, comparable to Del, capable of reading, writing, philosophy, religion, and self awareness.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Hearing- pulchra hearing is, frankly, not very good. They lack external ears, and to register sound pulchra use a sac-like structure called a stratocyst. The stratocyst contains a mineralized mass and sensitive hairs that allow detection of sounds of certain frequencies. This limits the frequencies they can hear to frequencies from 14 to 16 hz and as high as 3,000 hz. This gives them a very low range of sound they can hear, comparable to the lowest limits of an elephant.
Sight- unlike their sense of hearing, pulchra have an incredible sense of sight. One major difference in the way pulchra see when compared to other species is the way the pulchra eye focuses. They do so by moving their lens. This is almost identical to the way that you would focus a telescope or camera. By relying on lens movement as opposed to shape-shifting, pulchra suffer from lesser instances of vision problems. It is very rare for pulchra to need corrective lenses. A moveable lens also allows for a pulchra to focus much quicker on an object, even if it is moving away from or approaching its position, which serves to be advantageous in a high-speed hunt through the jungle. They also dont have any blind spots, due to how their optic nerve connects to their brain and how the eyeball can swivel within the socket.
The way Del see color involves different photoreceptors detecting different color wavelengths and then uniting them in the optic nerve and the brain to create a single multi-colored image. Much like a color projector does. Pulchra vision evolved to see in color using an entirely different method. The theory goes that pulchra use their differently shaped pupils to force light to enter their eye from different directions at once. Del pupils are round and are designed to allow light to enter from only one direction. By having pupils which are U-shaped, S-shaped, and even M-shaped, the light entering the pulchra eye is separated into the base component wavelengths of red, blue and green light. There is no need to have three different types of photoreceptors. By using micro-movements of the retina in conjunction with the lens movement involved with focusing, the pulchra can then process the different light wavelengths and combine them in the optic nerve and brain to create a colorized image.
Taste- Pulchra have an unusual, somewhat incredible sense of taste. They don't possess a tongue, so they can't taste like Del do. However, their skin is laced with chemosensory cells- cells that allow them to taste what they touch and things they are near. They also possess mechanosensory cells as well, which allows them to distinguish between inanimate objects and squirming prey. These cells report directly to the hikem- auxiliary brains located in pulchra's limbs, where information is filtered and refined before being sent to the pulchra's dominant central brain.
Brain and Hikem- Pulchra essentially have 5 brains. The main, dominant brain is located beneath the optic gland between a pulchra's eyes, situated low enough to wrap around the esophagus in a donut shape. This brain is essentially what most species would recognize as a brain. It contains the cerebellum, cerebrum, and brain stem of the pulchra. While the pulchras nervous system is technically decentralized, this dominant brain is the closest thing to a "control center" a pulchra will ever have.
In each limb there is a cluster of neurons called a hikem. Hikem are auxiliary brains, smaller than the central brain but equally as important. The dominant brain collects sensory input from these hikem. Hikem manage fine motor control of hands and feet, and sort information from the nerves in arms and legs. If a hikem is damaged or destroyed, the pulchra will lose some functionality of the corresponding limb.
Civilization and Culture
Major Language Groups and Dialects
Conspecific Communication consists of a combination of methods of communication, including pheromones secreted from glands along gills, as well as visual signalling via specific patterns of chromatophore colors and movement known as a pulchra's "Speaking Skin."
Ex: Ralk pulsed Anger, stark bands of red and black coiling around his limbs, where they vibrated in jagged patterns. His skin pulled up into diabolical spikes. Fury rose off his skin, the scent thick and acrid, strong enough to make a man's eyes water.
Allospecific Communication: Pulchra use parroting for vocal species. Pulchra voices are “rhythmic” in ways human vocals are not, likely a result of their respiration patterns. Located at the base of the trachea, pulchrae have a syrinx, much like birds. This gives them an extremely wide variety of sounds, and they can produce more than one sound at a time. These sounds are, when compared to earth-birds with similarly sized syrinxes, found to be much quieter, and with less variety in sound reproduction, though some of this variety can be reproduced in the pulchrae’s mouth via tongue position. On account of the length of pulchrae necks, which provides room for gills, vocalizing is also much less energy inefficient, considering the syrinx rests high in the throat and not down in the chest like birds. As a general rule, pulchrae voices tend to be several octaves higher than expected of a creature their size, and considerably raspy in vocal quality.
Common Dress Code
Pulchra are an unusual people by Del (and human) standards. Clothing is only worn on special occasions, or when living amongst "modest" neighbors. Many pulchra go through their day-to-day activities without a shred of clothing. If a pulchra is wearing something, for example a begaya, it is automatically assumed they're going to something important.
Interspecies Relations and Assumptions
Generally, pulchra are relatively affable and friendly with non-pulchra species. Though there is typically a language barrier, pulchra often put at least some effort into understanding their planetary neighbors, and have a reputation for being friendly and willing to compromise (as long as the compromise doesn't undermine their autonomy as a species and culture).
Scientific Name
cutem pulchram aemulus
Lifespan
275 years
Conservation Status
Vulnerable Species, could be easily decimated by introduced disease.
Average Height
6-9 feet, 182-274 cm
Average Physique
Tall, hunters are typically the most muscular, generally athletic in build.
Body Tint, Colouring and Marking
Pulchra range in color from brown and red to shades of blue, green, and shades of grey, with a white or off white backdrop. They exhibit, on average, stripes, speckles, swirls and dots that can change and shift with their moods and when they communicate with each other.
Geographic Distribution
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