Yūmyīq (juːmjiːq)

Yūmyīq is a species of douji with no limbs living in the south of the Khata Shaghah, the great desert in the southern continent. They resemble rocky snakes and are the largest douji species currently known, with some specimen reaching maybe dozens of meters of length.

Basic Information

Anatomy

No yūmyīq has ever been hunted down or captured and studied, so almost all current knowledge about them is speculation based on distant observations. What is certain is that the hardest scales currently known to exist cover the yūmyīq. They are deemed indestructible, and the general consensus is that their skin is too hard to be used in forges for armours or weapons.
It is unclear how much they can grow in size and even whether they stop growing at some stage of their lives or keep becoming larger. Most sightings of adult specimens report a length of about twenty meters. There are reports of a massive exemplar in the extreme south supposedly long over a hundred meters, but scholars agree it was likely a hallucination due to the desert heat.
A yūmyīq's head presents a wide mouth with a double row of teeth, each usually at least larger than an elven hand. Two cavities are also present above the mouth, likely the equivalent of the nose. No eyes seem to be present, corroborating the idea that yūmyīq are blind. Rumour has it they can sense movement through either sound or ground vibration. Against the first hypothesis, many argue that yūmyīq seem to have no ears either.

Growth Rate & Stages

It is unclear how many stages yūmyīq's life has. There have been several reports and descriptions of smaller specimens about two meters long living together in underground caves, with rests of huge eggs nearby, so the consensus is that cubs are significantly smaller and remain hidden for an unknown period.
It has never been possible to sight the same yūmyīq twice or confirm that successive sightings were of the same exemplar, so their growth rate is unknown.
Scholars are roughly divided into two sides. Some of them believe growth stops since it is already a miracle that yūmyīq get to grow to the size they have in the middle of the desert. Others claim their growth does not stop but slows down over years until they need decades to get a few centimetres longer. An endorsement of this last hypotesis would be the huge yūmyīq sighted in the south. It would be a specimen old centuries, maybe millennia, that steadily and slowly grew to its humongous size.

Ecology and Habitats

It is unclear how such gigantic organisms can survive in the desert. Research about its dietary needs, as well as its biology, is necessary for a deeper comprehension of these animals. Interestingly, yūmyīq are the only douji known to live outside of the prosperous Doujatar hills. A minority of scholars debate whether they are even related to other Douji, given the extreme habitat they live in.
Dangerous expeditions showed that yūmyīq live inside underground lairs they excavate, that they lay their eggs there and that offspring stays inside for several months at least.