Barblett

Barbletts are small, pale, squid-like terrestrial parasites. These creatures are slow moving and graze along the dirt at a snail's pace. They boast several arrays of tendrils jutting from their body which are covered in a natural glue. When a creature steps on their coiled body in the woods, the sticky barblett hooks into them.
In doing so, the barblett uses magnetoception and the host's superior mobility to seek mates and as a general vehicle for transportation - for migration, food or otherwise. It incites pain when the host walks in an undesirable direction or behaves unruly. Stopping even momentarily causes the barblett to bind and constrict severely, stabbing through the hosts flesh with hundreds of sharp hooks. Several have died of exhaustion from barblett encounters, unable to stop for sleep or rest.
Removal of a barblett must be handled with extreme caution, but is quite possible for those well learned in bushcraft.
In specific situations certain bushmen tribes have been known to use barbletts as navigational aids - which involves the capturing of a male and a female specimen. The male barblett perpetually "remembers" the location it last saw or interacted with a mate prospect. Giving away these "activated" male barbletts to be worn allow individuals to be guided to various locations such as water sources, enemy camps, etc. Painful as its constrictions may be, a barblett will not inflict pain if a steady pace is kept in the direction of what it believes is a mate. Wearing an activated barblett for navigation is often a task forced upon various animals of the bush - who are then tailed by bushmen to the destination.
Category:Species
Category:Formerly Canon