Sturmbeest

The sturmbeest is a large buffalo-like herbivore.
== Anatomy ==
The sturmbeest has a massive buffalo-like head, six legs and indigo and orange coloring. Its skull features a single large bony hornlike extrusion above the eyes. Extrusions are reddish or orange, with striped slashes of blue. The creature has bioluminescent patterns on the ridge and both sides of the body. It also has chitinous armor, which is perfect for the construction of gongs when dried.
The male (or 'bull') is about 15 percent larger than the female (or 'cow'), has a larger ridge bone on its back, and also has a dramatic top horn that is used for defense against and contest with other bulls. Avatar: The Game suggests that male sturmbeest have stripes which are primarily red with some faint blue near their backs, while the female sturmbeest have entirely blue stripes.
The average sturmbeest weighs about 2,000 pounds (907 kg).
== Behavior ==
Sturmbeest are herd animals. They are extremely social and highly protective of their young. They are also territorial and will mass for attack against any would be predator. When the predator is too large or in too great a number, they will stampede, often breaking off into smaller packs for evasion.
Their brain-mass-to-body ratio is low and the creatures are slow to react and slow to stop reacting. The young, elderly, and sickly are prey to the largest or fiercest predators, such as viperwolf packs, the thanator, and occasionally a large great leonopteryx.
== Feeding Ecology ==
Sturmbeest are land animals that feed on grass, shrubs, and various fungi. Hornlike jaw extension acts as plow for digging up roots, grubs and other subsurface food. They are highly territorial and will occasionally kill an RDA soldier if one gets too close to the vegetation.
== Na'vi culture ==
The Na'vi are known to eat sturmbeest. They are effectively a source of food that, due to their large size, provide a lot of meat while also minimizing the amount of animals that have to suffer and die to provide it. As such, the Na'vi revere the sturmbeest. A number of different clans extol the virtue of the animal in textiles, music, song, dance, and art.
== Trivia ==
* The relationship of the Na'vi to the sturmbeest closely echoes that of Native Americans to the buffalo, which they hunted and depended on as a source of of meat, hides, and bones which were used as building tools.
* In the Project 880 script, every now and then a massive herd of sturmbeest would migrate past the Omatikaya Hometree. Killing a sturmbeest was a rite of passage, as well as providing food for a good while. The Na'vi, while mounted on ikran, would use spears tipped with the heads of domesticated slingers. Hitting a small gap in armor between the front shoulders with this spear would score a kill.
* Jake (Josh in the script) misses his target but retrieves his spear and jams it into the chest of a stampeding sturmbeest to earn his place among The People.
* The sturmbeest hunt, while cut from the theatrical release of Avatar, was reinserted into the extended re-release and later the Extended Collector's Edition of the film. In both of the latter versions, sturmbeest can also be seen during the avatar team's flight to the Pandoran forests and during the final battle.
* Some hunters brush an ochre stripe on their right arm to indicate that they intend to fell a sturmbeest that day.
== Source ==
* James Cameron's Avatar: An Activist Survival Guide pg. 95-96
== References ==
de:Sturmbeest
fr:Métabête
pl:Gromowół
ru:Стурмбист
Category:Avatar
Category:Avatar: The Game
Category:Avatar: Reckoning
Category:Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Category:Creatures
Category:Herbivore
Category:Terrestrial
Category:Na’vi diet