Runo
Anatomy
Runos have an upright posture, standing around three metres tall as adults. As mammals, they possess thick fur, which acts as a thermal insulator. The only place fur does not grow on runos are the palms of their hands, feet, and patches on their face. Their fur ranges from dark greens and browns, to whites, greys, and blacks.
They have flat faces with small mouths and large eyes. Their bodies are generally thin and muscly, with long arms and legs. Runos have short tails, with fur about three times as long and thick than the other parts of their bodies.
Reproduction & Growth
Runos have a gestation period of three hundred days. They typically give birth to two children, and pregnancy for runos is practically painless as children are born and immediately crawl into a pouch. They feed on milk produced by the mother's teats for the first month of their lives while they develop enough to be able to leave the pouch. Once they've left the pouch they will begin to learn how to feed on their own, learning how to catch food and fend for themselves.
While runos make protective parents, they also encourage their children to become independent at very young ages, making sure they can easily kill an adult runo before their first year of age.
Diet
Runos are omnivorous and skilled hunters. While many are gatherers, collecting various fruits, seeds, eggs, and other food items, others are hunters and will actively seek out large prey to bring back to their settlements to be roasted. Runos are not picky eaters and there is practically nothing they can't digest. Aside from ereberries, they should be avoided by everything.
Runos take great pride in the presentation of their food. Quite often entire campsites of runos will dine together, eating an entire giant animal from the insides out. The insides are stuffed with food collected by the gatherers, and the entire animal is placed on a massive fire to be spitroasted.
Forest Settlements
The depths of the Maze Forests are where the runos call home. They usually live in very small groups of ten to a hundred, each with specific roles in their group. You have the hunterers and gatherers, who go out to collect food each day. They never collect more than a day's worth of food, since these people are often nomadic.
The houses themselves are made of large branches, woven together with thick vines, with leather blankets over the top. The leather blankets have moss woven on the tops, so when the tents are laid out they appear as a moss-covered rock. The houses are designed to hide themselves from predators. There aren't many animals that would actively hunt a runo, but when they're asleep they are most vulnerable.
Southern Hemisphere
The most bitter rivalry in the entire Yonderverse is between the runos and the white tigers. While the white tigers inhabit the entire Northern Hemisphere, the runos inhabit the Southern. Dividing these two Hemispheres is the Equator Range, a massive mountain range that circles the planet perfectly on its Equator.
Ever since runos first came about they have dominated the Southern Hemisphere. When they first started appearing, they attempted to cross the mountains into the Northern Hemisphere, but were quickly met with resistence. Ever since, the two species have kept to their sides of the Equator Range, praying that the other doesn't cross over and initiate a global war for planetary dominance.
A small runo can kill a big runo? :O I don't want to get on their bad side.
Yesss, but these people are very nice!