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Deformomys

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Description

(Made in Spore)
Deformomy or Ugly Gopher
Size: 14-20 cm , Queen 18-27 cm
Weight: 100-200 grams, Queen 160-250 grams
Diet: Herbivore, but will eat bug grubs and worms.
Habitat: woodlands, scrubland, farmland, sandy grasslands, Savannah, and dry savannahs.
Description:
One of the few eusocial mammals, they live in colonies with one queen and all female workers. A single colony can have up to 75-80 average but reach up to 100-150 individuals. Males are called princes and are short lived. Only living after mature for about a year whereas females workers live up to 10 years and the queen can live up to 20 years, but they average 10-15 years for females and 20-31 years for queens. The worker build and maintain the very complex tunnel systems that have storage rooms, nursery room, flood rooms (rooms to divert any water that floods into the tunnels to prevent flooding in the tunnels and possible drowning of the colony), escape tunnels, foraging tunnels, and sleeping chambers. Also the female worker do the majority of the forage, while the queen does all the nursing and infant care. The queen produce a hormone to keep the other females infertile, but if a female become fertile and the queen detect the pheromone of another fertile female. The queen will attack the other fertile female for dominant of the colony, the victor will be the queen and the loser will become quickly a infertile worker. Normally the fight will be mainly just wrestling with some biting, but rarely any injury as they rarely bite hard just simply to grip or grab her opponent. The exception is princesses young females become fertile normally the first born and largest on the litter but the princess always leaves as soon as she sexually matures if even not encouraged by queens harassing her with pushing and light biting to the neck and head. Princes simply forage and dig temporary small burrow(s) as they stay in one areas for maximum of one month. Princes live completely mainly solitary nomadic as the search for princess and queens to mate with. Princes forages mainly during dawn and dusk, but will forage during both the day and night. Female Deformomys only forage above ground during the night using their sense of smell, low-light sight, sense of touch, and acute hearing the same senses they use for foraging underground. Princes only forage above ground, due to they do not have foraging tunnels needed to find underground roots and some grubs and worms that sometimes drop down that colonies have. Thus princes are forces to forage above ground, and they are far more vulnerable than colony members that have complex tunnels systems to hide and escape with. So truly males could survive beyond a year, but cold winters and predators ultimately killed them each year. All Deformomys are non-migrating and for colonies they will hibernate but males simply die out as they cannot survive the cold. Hibernation of colonies is simply as they intensify foraging during fall for winter storage to feed on during hibernation which they will feeds on, but they will reduce feeding as they sleep most of the time. Deformomys are very wide spread and very common in especially in dry grassy areas with low water table that allow the colony to dig deeper tunnel systems. They are the prey for many nocturnal predators and burrowing predators like the red death dragon due being so numerous and wide spread. Their stiff bristle hair allow them sense tunnel integrity, vibrations, and even deter predators.
Reproduction:
In plenty years, they will breed year round, but otherwise it is in the spring. An adult prince may mate with a queen or princess anytime of the year, and the mated female will hold the sperm when conditions are good which any be immediate or next spring based on conditions. Mainly males will not fight each other unless they encounter the same fertile female at the same time, and if this happens the princes will wrestle and shove each other until the rival retreats. The princes will nibble the rear and smell the rear of fertile female to show his interest in mating, and if the female accepts she will stop and submit by laying down flat with her rear lifted up. If the female is not fertile or not interested in the male, she will walk away and even attack the male if he does not get the message. Normally a queen will give birth after gestation period of 70 days to average of 3-12, but can give birth up to 23 pups and up to 3-4 litters a years to produce 45 individuals a years max.Normally a spring is about 3-12 newborns with 1-6 princes, 1-2 princess, and the rest of the litter being workers. However in years of plenty, there will be a total of 3-5 princess,12-20 princes, and the rest of course being workers. The newborns are nursed and cared solely by the queen while other colony members forage, build and maintain tunnels, and fill the storage room with food which the queen and young will feed from. Males quickly matues especially in plentiful years where they can eat alot and grow quickly to mature by next spring which they leave the colony to find and mate with princess and queens. Princess take 2-4 years to mature, and workers take average of five years. All newborns nurses for a month, then the young are help in feeding by the queen using food from storage room ,and the queen's and workers' feces which contain needed digestive bacterias. Actually the whole colony will feed regularly on thier feces to further digest food to maximize nuturients absportion and maintain digestive bacteria cultures levels.
Humans:
The systematic feeding of a colony means often crop destruction for farmers and thus Deformomys are seen as pest. They are seen as nearly impossible to get rid of. Since flooding, smoke, and predators often failed to kill or get rid of the colony and at best only kill just a few. Poisons are few things that work, but very few poison work. However since the colony shares collected food, posion root vegetables often do heavy damage to the colony, but sometimes due to improper posioning leads to colony survive as they are very resistant to posions in general. Also improper allow the colony to build up a resistant to the poison which is the reason they are resistant to poisons as they eat alot of plants including poisonous ones. People simply hate them finding them to be ugly and destructive. However people do love thier eusocials system and effective teamwork, and they are often impressed by the large complex tunnel systems despite sometimes accidentally stepping into a tunnel and sometimes spraining an ankle.
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