Arboreal pircio

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Arboreal pircio
(Pethra anthimus arborus) 
 

 

Origin
Arboreal pirci are small animals originated on the planet Furioh, a rocky celestial body located in a far solar system that rotates around a red star: the Lilyar System.
This species, originated and mainly present around the area of the Big Puddle, collects in itself a series of traits that makes its survival to this day a real mystery. However, from a series of fossil findings it was easy to estabilish that this is actually a relatively ancient species, descending from the pirciocyon, an ancestor that sported charactertistics apparently much more useful to its survival in nature. How it happened that the pirciocyon had later evolved to become this poor creature constitues another logical challenge for the researchers, still unsolved.

Etymology

The arboreal pircio owes its name to the furiohus physicist Arboreus, which discovered this species and the force of gravity at once when he literally stumbled upon it.

“Pethra”, the Latin name that distinguished its family, comes from their habit to sleep balled up that, due to their gray color, ends up making them look like stones.“Anthimus” is a Latin word that only indicates the arboreal pircio, and it means "one that doesn't like to stay on the ground". When pirci are on the ground, indeed, they're clumsy, and easy prey of their natural enemies, the Shabatt. Their problem is that they don't fare much better on trees.

A single individal is called a "pircio", more than one are "pirci".

Average life span
The exact life span of a pircio is unknown, since these small animals have never been bred in captivity and get predated, or die of non-natural causes, all the time before the natural conclusion of their life cycle. Studies about it will soon get conducted.

Appearance
The pircio is a small sized animal, which scores from five hundred grams to a kilo of weight, for twentyfive-thirty centimeters of max length, including its slim, long tail covered in thin hair. This tail doesn't get used for balance at all, being the pircio completely devoid of it. Normally, indeed, it keept it slightly lifted from the ground, and he moves it only when it's scared or in an alarmed state. The real use of the pircio's tail will be revealed only later on during its biological cycle, only for a certain period of its life: it's used to cling to other pirci in the water, when the current is very strong and threatens to drag them away.
Although potentially both the male and the female could reach a good size, males are more often able to reach the maximum dimension of the species.
The profile of its rounded body is reminiscent of the one of an animal from the Arvicolinae family, but its muzzle is thicker and heavier, ending with a strongly pigmented nose and characterized by big, black eyes (the white of the sclera isn't visibile). Although a pircio can seem related to dormice at first glance, it's actually genetically closer to a canid.
The pircio is covered in a thick, partially hydrorepellent gray fur, which fades to white on its belly and to brown on their back, and which isn't considered useful nor precious in the fur sector.

Behavior
The arboreal pircio, despite its name, is terrible on the ground and is completely inept at climbing. To avoid falling while it walks, the pircio adopts a typical slow, cautious gait, that become arythmic and wobbly when it goes faster.
On the other hand, the pircio is a splendid swimmer, a skill that helps it survive n his favorite environment but is otherwise useless seeing its lack of memory, intelligence, and sense of direction.
Pirci are famous for their phobia towards blonde people, probably traceable up to the terrible Shabatt, a predator from Furioh that occupies the same habitat as pirci: these animals are covered in a blonde fur and are easy to find at a certain height, clinging to trees. This generates some confusion in the pircio's mind, which probably sees the hair of blonde people as Shabatts ready to devour them.
Arboreal pirci aren't bred as pets, both because they seem to be totally uninterested in creating bonds with species other than their own, and due to how hard it is to make them survive (even if they're fairly hardy, they're virtually unable to understand the dangers surrounding them and avoid them). It has been observed in nature that their social life can only be focused on one species at a time: the specimens that have been raised by other species, like the young pirci stolen from the amisci owls, show no attachment to their species of origin.
So, nobody wants them in their home.

Birth and growth
Pirci's lair are small holes in the ground, that have a use only during the raising of their babies, and in the last months of the mother's pregnancy. These holes are dug almost under the roots of plants that produce nuts or berries, in order to hide and cover their lair with leaves and easily find food at the same time; the shrubs under which it's easier to find them are the hay spheres, tasty berries that have overabundant nutrients that will sustain both mother and offspring during the cold seasons. Due to this, the hay spheres have also gained the name of pirci-spies, because it looks like they're always peeking inside the holes dug by these animals.
The burrows of arboreal pirci are simple, because otherwise, seeing their scarse sense of direction, they wouldn't know how to come out of them.
Baby pirci are born in the cold season, after four months of gestation. It's usually two puppies at a time, that the mother will have to care for on her own since, once their reproductive season in autumn is over, males forget about having a family and leave.
However, pirci barely manage to bear the cold, and the mother, which has trouble even in finding food for herself alone, isn't able to keep alive both the puppies. Usually, the weakest of the two doesn't reach the two months of life; sometimes, though, they're found by amisci owls, which are famous for taking care of young that aren't their own, that will bring them away and care for them.
The fight between mother pircio and owl doesn't happen at all, alas, since the mother is not even able to go after her opponent.
Even after the family is being lightened from a vulnerable member, one way or the other, it's still hard to overcome winter due to the food competition with the terrible pikadons and the predators always lurking.
After three months, the little survivor starts to waddle outside of the burrow and the loving mother runs away, leaving the pup on its own.
Even if it lacks the support of its parent, it's now instinct that helps the little pircio, indicating it to search for water, in which it will be able to move freely. However, for how helpful instinct may be, the sense of direction of pirci is still pitiful and it will force the baby to wander for months before reaching any spring, river, or lake.
They usually manage to reach water in the middle of summer, during which waters become a gray swarming of pirci. For a young arboreal pircio, this is the first occasion to see another adult of its kind that isn't its mother.
Since they usually gather in the rivers of a certain area, which have notoriously strong currents, pirci get dragged away easily; their youth and lack of experience doesn't allow them to resist it. It's now that they use their tail to cling to other pirci and stay in the same point of the river! Due to their poor organization skills, though, the only change operated will be that they will now be dragged away in block.
This is how pirci unknowingly help the distribution of their species in all of their area and in the close valleys, avoiding overpopulation.
But even when they're in the water, the environment in which they feel safer, dangers aren't over: here wait their aquatic predators, the cocofunsies, and many pirci are killed by fisherfolks that confuse them for little stones and pass over them with their boats, often unaware of their mistake.
However, this moment of their life is relatively less dangerous than the rest, and even having a cocofunsie invade their territory is a pretty rare event.
After spending the last half of summer splashing in the water, dealing with not being the last survivors of an extinct race, being dragged away by water, and meeting possible lost siblings (which, having been raised by amisci owls with rodents, have become bigger, aggressive and prone to cannibalism, and will have a very short life because too much meat is bad for them), finally autumn arrives.

Courtship and reproduction
During this season, after recovering from the dismay of leading a life in group, pirci start looking for a partner among those left, and, once found, they get out of their beloved water in favor of the mainland, on which they're clumsy and uneasy. Here, away from the risk of floodings, they will dig their burrow together.
Pirci courtship isn't particularly spectacular. They just try to convince a pircio of the opposite sex to follow them, and the first to accept will be their mate for the season. It' fairly common that the couples will be composed by the first pircio of the opposite sex of which one specimen has clung to with their tail in summer.
At the beginning, scholars tried to understand why there was no form of sexual selection or valid courtship from any of the two partners, but, to be fair, even reaching the end of summer is already proof enough of the worth of the pircio and makes it a veteran.
At the end of summer, the male will go away and search for water again, while the female will follow his example only when the puppy will be able to go out of their den on its own. Due to their horrible sense of direcion, both of the parents will have forgotten the water's location, and they will probably find it again only in the middle of the next summer.

 
Habitat and diet
The habitat of the pirci varies depending on the season, but in general it's easy to find them not too far from water, unless you have a sense of direction worse than the one of a pircio.
These tiny animals are omnivores, with a strong herbivore tendence. This means that they're able to digest meat, which they're only able to find in nature by stumbling upon animals that are already dead, but they're absolutely unable to make of it their main food source.
They have a sweet tooth for berries instead, of which their favorites are, of course, the hay spheres. They favor berries that don't have a strongly sweet taste, and they also eat small, unripe fruits that fall precociously from trees.

Distribuzione e conservazione
Somehow, this isn't an animal under threat of extinction. It's found in every area near the Great Puddle, and despite the huge demographic fluctuations, the pirci population still manages to remain rather stable, most likely thanks to the intervention of the amisci owls.

 
Magic
Probably none.

Trivia 

• The arboreal pircio is without a doubt the most unlucky one among all Pethra:  in fact, several rethoric figures are inspired by it, among which "throwing pircio", which is a synonym for casting the evil eye, sending bad luck someone's way, and "to dance like a pircio" or "to walk like a pircio", referring to the wobbly walk of this creature, is of course used to describe someone that lacks grace and balance.

• A block of pirci that are holding each other by the tail and getting dragged by the river's water together are called "mattula".
  

   

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