Ri ' Dar Ri ' Dar were sentient flying primates from the forests of the planet Dar ' Or . As adults , they had a wingspan of three meters and were approximately one meter long , counting their furry tails . Ri ' Dar evolved from tree - climbing creatures who had evolved flaps of skin between their arms and legs in order to glide . Over time , the simple gliding flaps evolved into true wings supported by extended fingers on their hands . The energy needed for flight required Ri ' Dar to consume up to half their body weight in food each day , usually in the form of insects , fruit , and fungi . Ri ' Dar were agile fliers on Dar ' Or and other low - gravity planets , but they could not fly in environments with heavier than one standard gravity . The Ri ' Dar became known to the galaxy after their homeworld was transformed into an Imperial nature preserve , not for any of Dar ' Or ' s native fauna , but for a predatory bird called the elix . The animal came from a high - gravity planet that was on the brink of destruction from a looming supernova . Since Dar ' Or was a low - gravity planet , the elix proved even deadlier predators after their relocation . The Ri ' Dar , already preyed upon by the sabretoothed indola , had only their swiftness and keen senses to protect them from the new threat . On their homeworld , Ri ' Dar lived a simple existence in their treetop warrens . Their technology consisted primarily of wooden spears , bow s , and similar tools . The typical Ri ' Dar was nervous and fearful by nature , since flying away from their many predators was their most effective defense . They tended to live for the present rather than the future , as they often had little confidence in their long - term survival . Such libertinism also gave them a mercurial temperament : a Ri ' Dar had the capability to become very angry or very happy with little warning . During courtship , Ri ' Dar engaged in mating dances . Ri ' Dar were surprisingly common away from their homeworld , as they sometimes stowed away with smugglers and poachers who arrived on Dar ' Or to hunt elix for their valuable meat . Ri ' Dar were often found as companions of smugglers , either as pets , servants , or , rarely , full crew members . Biology and appearance . Beings who averaged one meter in both height and length , the Ri ' Dar were winged primates whose bodies were covered in soft , brown fur . Although the Ri ' Dar body followed a roughly humanoid physique and musculature , with a head , torso , and four limbs , the primates ' long wings and stubby legs set them apart from many other species in the galaxy . The Ri ' Dar ' s feet featured toes with which they were able to grasp objects or hang upside - down from branches . Their wings resembled triangular membranes , with an edge that ran from the tip of the elongated little finger to the small toe , and another along the sides of the body and arms . At the apex of the wing , a Ri ' Dar had between four and eight clawed digits , although a six - finger configuration was the most common . The average Ri ' Dar wingspan stretched three meters , a body plan that made the species swift , agile aerobat s on planets with less than one standard gravity and deft gliders on worlds with heavier gravitational pull . The bushy tail ' s long , wide , and flat shape allowed it to act as an airfoil rudder to help maneuver in flight . Despite a relatively small cranium and cantered forehead , Ri ' Dar were fully sentient , their brains on par with those of many other intelligent species . Each Ri ' Dar had a pronounced brow ridge over two enormous eyes , which blazed various shades of red . Their pupils appeared as slits when contracted but as dark disks when dilated . The species ' countenance was hairless and mutable , with a small , flat nose and powerful mandibles , the lower of which jutted out slightly . Two large , pointed ears stood erect on either side of the head . In tandem , the features granted the Ri ' Dar keen senses of sight , smell , and hearing . Their sense of long - distance vision was particularly powerful . Ri ' Dar were omnivores who subsisted on fruits , fungi , and flying insects . They preferred to eat vegetation whenever possible . The species ' metabolism was so active that a Ri ' Dar had to eat half of his or her body weight each day for basic nourishment . The species reproduced sexually , and after a male and female mated , the female gave birth to a litter of young that usually numbered five or more . Youths grew and developed rapidly , and reached maturity in only a few weeks . Society and culture . To members of other species , Ri ' Dar seemed to have two overriding personality traits : freneticism and paranoia . The two characteristics created a feedback loop : members of the species frantically scurried about out of the belief that instant death lay around every corner , which made basic needs and urges the only impulses worth acting upon . As such , Ri ' Dar operated very much in the moment with little concern for the future . Similarly , the flighty primates were prone to capricious mood swings , as their feverish minds reacted to stimuli that sent them from one extremity to another . Ri ' Dar society was largely conservative , as the beings tended to avoid innovation and change as potentially dangerous unknowns , and they preferred to ignore problems if at all possible rather than actively seek solutions to them . Only the sense of immediate danger spurred a Ri ' Dar to act , and then usually only to flee , not fight . Questioning Ri ' Dar about their edginess and timidity often confirmed their suspicions that the individual asking such questions was obviously hiding something and had best be avoided . Not even intimate friends were trusted completely . Nevertheless , the two main facets of the Ri ' Dar psyche , hyperactivity and fearfulness , served the small primates as defense mechanisms against the ever - present dangers posed by the predators of Dar ' Or , the Ri ' Dar homeworld . For most of their history , the Ri ' Dar ' s main threat came from the sabretoothed indola , also known as the sabretoothed tree sloth . The carnivore was particularly adept at raiding Ri ' Dar warrens , where it found its favored meal : Ri ' Dar young . During an indola attack , Ri ' Dar adults raised an alarm , and all able - bodied members of the group fled . However , the warning often came too late to save the children ; some indola attacks were known to completely wipe out a community ' s young . After the rise of the Galactic Empire over much of the galaxy , the Ri ' Dar also had to contend with a species of bird known as the elix , introduced from offworld . The predators traveled in flocks and attacked airborne Ri ' Dar en masse , skeletonizing a full - grown member of the species in seconds . Although adult Ri ' Dar were able to escape the slow - moving indola by taking to the air , they were no match for the swift elixes , which made escape from an attack by the avians a questionable proposition . Instead , Ri ' Dar had little choice but to use their keen perception to detect elix attacks ahead of time and to reduce their exposure to the avians by confining open - air movement to the night , when the diurnal birds were inactive . Groups of Ri ' Dar lived together in communities known as " warrens " . Such social groups consisted of clusters of family " nests " , dwellings built using locally available materials and the species ' relatively simple stone - based technology . Warrens were located in the middle levels of the canopy of Dar ' Or ' s vast forests of waza trees , each tree constituting its own warren . Several trees , in turn , formed a city , a settlement that might have housed as many as a thousand inhabitants . Settlements thus served as the backdrop for Ri ' Dar life , which , due to the primates ' high metabolisms , included a disproportionate amount of time eating . Such behavior sometimes prompted non - Ri ' Dar to paint the flying sentients as gluttons . Ri ' Dar met and mated in such communities ; copulation was preceded by mating dances particular to the species . Ri ' Dar raised their offspring for the first few weeks after their birth , at which time the children were considered full members of the group and expected to fend for themselves with the spears , bow s , and arrows characteristic of the species ' technology . Ri ' Dar at rest sometimes hung upside down , grasping a perch with their feet . Ri ' Dar could learn to speak Basic , although at least for some , an accent caused / " S " / sounds to come out as long hisses . On Dar ' Or , the species wore little clothing save simple adornments like necklaces . Those members of the species who left their homeworld sometimes adopted clothing characteristic of many other spacefarers . History . The Ri ' Dar evolved on Dar ' Or , a low - gravity planet in the Dar ' Or system . The species developed from non - winged primates with lanky limbs and prehensile tails who lived in the branches of their planet ' s trees . Over time , the world ' s multi - tiered waza tree ecosystem fostered the development of wings , which allowed the ancestral Ri ' Dar to better access the fruits , berries , nuts , and fungi upon which they subsisted . From arboreal climbers , the Ri ' Dar became aerial gliders , and from aerial gliders they became true fliers . Meanwhile , their tails flattened into ailerons to better steer them while airborne . Simultaneously , the presence of the sabretoothed indola encouraged the Ri ' Dar brain to evolve as well . The species mastered the use of tools ; spears and arrows became a means of defending their warrens against predators . After the world was visited by travelers from beyond the system — an event that occurred by 3959 BBY — Dar ' Or and its system became part of the Jospro sector in the Outer Rim Territories . From 3 , 959 to 3956 BBY , during the Jedi Civil War , the world fell within the domain of Darth Revan ' s Sith Empire , but from 1004 to 1000 BBY , during the New Sith Wars , it remained controlled by the Galactic Republic . The Ri ' Dar homeworld fell into Separatist space as the Clone Wars raged , and was more commonly labeled OM973 on Imperial star - chart s in the times of the Galactic Empire . At some point in the latter years of the Galactic Republic or the early years of the Galactic Empire , the Ri ' Dar ' s environment was drastically altered when offworld ecologists relocated the predatory elix bird to Dar ' Or in a bid to save it from extinction when its own world ' s star went supernova . The bird ' s home planet had a gravity 1 . 1 times standard . As a result of Dar ' Or ' s relatively low gravity , they became even more adept at flying and killing prey in midair . The Ri ' Dar soon learned that the birds considered them to be a source of food . In combination , the dual threat posed by the indola and elix severely depressed the Ri ' Dar population on Dar ' Or . The sentient primates only escaped extinction due to their high birth rate . They completely shifted their hunting and gathering activities to night , when the elix was less active . Meanwhile , the Empire named Dar ' Or an Imperial Species Preservation Zone , a designation that limited travel to and from the planet . Nevertheless , elix meat was considered a delicacy among galactic gourmands , and indola were in demand among those who collected and trained animals , so smugglers visited Dar ' Or clandestinely to capture cargoes of such beasts for sale . Spacers speculated that the Empire ' s concern for environmental preservation was only a cover , and that the true reason for the Imperial blockade of Dar ' Or was entirely different . Whatever the truth of such rumors , the Imperial sentientologist Obo Rin included an entry on the Ri ' Dar in both editions of his " Catalog of Intelligent Life in the Galaxy " , a project commissioned by the Sith Lord Darth Vader to detail those sentient species of most interest to the Empire . Emperor Palpatine kept at least one datacard with information about the Ri ' Dar ' s mating dances in his storehouse in Mount Tantiss on the planet Wayland . By 137 ABY , the Ri ' Dar homeworld had fallen into territory controlled by the Sith Lord Darth Krayt as part of his Galactic Empire . Ri ' Dar in the galaxy . Despite their natural timidity and forced seclusion from the galaxy , Ri ' Dar eagerly left their homeworld to explore — often on a whim — when given the opportunity . Once smugglers began to trade in elix and indola , some Ri ' Dar were able to escape Dar ' Or on visitors ' freighters . Such Ri ' Dar usually filled the role of pet or servant to smuggling teams . More rarely , they proved themselves useful and were considered full members of the crew . Over time , the number of Ri ' Dar in the galaxy grew substantially . After the novelty of having a Ri ' Dar on board wore off , though , more and more freighter crews marooned their Ri ' Dar passengers at port , forcing them to find their own way in the galaxy . Other problems faced by the species away from Dar ' Or were their inability to fly on worlds with standard gravity or higher and their tendency to develop profound homesickness away from their warren . Due to their first non - Ri ' Dar contacts being members of the galactic fringe , many Ri ' Dar - at - large took on criminal occupations of their own . In 8 ABY , one such Ri ' Dar managed a gambling hall in the upper levels of the Underworld , a portion of the planet Coruscant known for its clubs and nightlife . When the Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker came asking about a Human named Han Solo , who had gambled there previously , the Ri ' Dar agreed to show him the security tapes after the Jedi offered a bribe . The Ri ' Dar identified Solo ' s sabacc opponent as a Drackmarian named Omogg for another furtive handout . Other Ri ' Dar capitalized on their keen senses to find work as snipers . In its campaigns against the Galactic Empire , the mercenary group known as Churhee ' s Riflemen gladly accepted Ri ' Dar members due to the species ' superb long - range vision . Behind the scenes . The Ri ' Dar entered " Star Wars " continuity with their inclusion in the 1989 sourcebook " " , written by Troy Denning for " " and published by West End Games . The book ' s description of the species includes game statistics to allow players to portray Ri ' Dar characters ; the species is shown to be highly agile and perceptive but slightly handicapped in intelligence and machine - using abilities . The species ' description was slightly expanded and modified in 1994 with the publication of the of the supplement , revised by Chuck Truett . In the new version , the Ri ' Dar retain their high dexterity and slight deficiency in machine use , but suffer severely in intelligence and strength . The species also suffers penalties when faced with a frightening or stressful situation , and has a smaller pool of resources from which players may create characters than is the case with most other species . Truett ' s revision also corrects an error with Denning ' s description of the species : in the first edition of " Galaxy Guide 4 " , the text suggests that all Ri ' Dar have six digits per limb , yet the illustration shows a Ri ' Dar with only five . Truett ' s revision , on the other hand , stipulates that while six is the most common number of digits , Ri ' Dar may have fewer or more digits per paw . The species has only been used sparingly by other " Star Wars " authors . A Ri ' Dar character appears in " The Courtship of Princess Leia " , published in 1994 and written by Dave Wolverton ; the book spells the species ' name " Ri ' dar " . The book " Specter of the Past " , written by Timothy Zahn and published in 1997 , mentions the species and suggests that the Imperial interest in Dar ' Or had something to do with the Ri ' Dar themselves .