Boloo

Stella stepped up to the window of her starship, admiring the beaming star Xauei. She slowly drifted toward the asteroid belt directly in front of her, softly landing on a large floating boulder. The ship's scanners went haywire as other asteroids flung past, along with a small fleet of peculiar creatures. They had soft, squishy bodies, and they clashed and jumbled together in an unorganised mess. Several dropped down from their cluster to greet Stella as she stepped out of her ship, and she reached out a hand. They sniffed and snorted, quickly flying back to greet their friends and continue the animal's migration.

— Stella Clarala

Commonly known as space cows, boloos are large sirenians from the Xauein System. They exclusively circle the star in the Kokhon Belt, crashing into one another in large migratory clumps.

Anatomy

Boloos are in the order Sirenia, containing sea cows, dugongs, and manatees. Their dense, squishy bodies are equipped to survive the spacial void, with armour plates just below their thick blubber that absorb the impact of asteroids they may crash into. Adult boloos are anywwhere from seven to fourty metres in length, males on the lower spectrum and females in the higher.

Their thick skin comes in an array of soft pastel colours, most commonly blues, pinks, and greys. Their heads are marginally larger than their necks, with small black eyes, curled whiskers, and a large mouth lacking teeth. Their tails are long and paddle-shaped, ending in a small white lump used to bat away other boloos wanting to mate.

Taxonomy

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Sirenia
Family: Astrosirenidae
Genus: Astrotrichechus
Species: A. bothynus

Extra Information

Colouration:
Average Length: 7 - 40 metres
Average Lifespan: 400 - 1000 years

Diet

Boloos are algivores, consuming space algae. It grows in abundance in the Kokhon Belt, in and around asteroids and smaller debris. Their mouths are designed to swallow anything that fits in it, and their stretchy stomachs can expel anything out their anus that is large enough to fit in their mouths.

Reproduction & Growth

Like other sirenians, boloos rarely have young. They mate once every couple of years, only having a single calf. They are taken care of very well because of how few calves any boloo produces. Females typically have five to thirty calves in a single lifespan.

During breeding seasons, males chase the much larger females around for days and days, the females swatting them away with their giant paddle tails.

Habitat

Boloos inhabit the Kokhon Belt, the only asteroid belt in the Xauein System. They rely on the space algae that only grows here, so they have not explored beyond this region. Boloos float between asteroids and debris in large clumps, and with their poor coordination, crash into asteroids and other boloos. They often stray too far from this asteroid belt and can't figure their way back, succumbing to starvation, unless they miraculously figure their way back.

Behaviour

Boloos have been intensely studied by atomians for hundreds of years. Boloo brains do not have a fully developed hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls aggression.

It is not physically possible for a boloo to be aggressive, and their passive and docile natures have led them to become extremely popular with space-faring atomians. Many people have boloos as pets, especially those that live in zero-gravity homes.

Eggy Placeholder by Dr Emily Vair-Turnbull

Scientific Name

Astrotrichechus bothynus

Lifespan

400 - 1000 years

Average Length

7 - 40 metres

Geographic Distribution

• Xauein System

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