Thresher Maw

Thresher Maws are subterranean carnivores that spend their entire lives eating or searching for something to eat. They are enormous, violent creatures that burst up from the ground without warning when disturbed. They reproduce via spores that can lie dormant for millennia and are robust enough to survive prolonged periods in deep space and atmospheric re-entry. As a result, thresher maw spores appear on many worlds, spread by previous generations of space travelers.
Biology
Thresher maws are solitary creatures; two or three at most can be found on a single planet. They live alone in nests spanning large areas underground. They can grow in excess of 30 meters above the ground, with a body nearly twice that size beneath the surface. The body of an adult thresher maw never entirely leaves the ground; only the head and tentacles erupt from the ground to attack.
Aggressive and highly territorial, thresher maws feed by absorbing significant quantities of solar radiation and survive best on planets, asteroids or moons with little or no atmosphere. They also consume minerals and ores from the ground itself for use in an unusual form of photosynthesis. This metabolic process, utilizing solar radiation and minerals as raw materials, creates the fuel that powers their various biological processes and allows them to move their significant mass with surprising speed.
Due to their size, and their burrowing method of movement, thresher maws are mostly immobile above ground, but can move at incredible velocities through subterranean environments. They can absorb a tremendous amount of damage and are very hard to kill. Their attacks consist of spitting a powerful, viscous acid that splashes on contact, burrowing up from beneath their prey, and smashing their targets with their claws in close range while emitting infra sound. Due to the overwhelming, direct physical nature of their attacks, shields are completely ineffective at mitigating any damage that is taken.
History
The first encountered threshers on the colony of Akuze in 2177. After contact was lost with the pioneer team, marine units were deployed to investigate. The shore parties were set upon by hungry threshers, and nearly the entire assault force was killed. Since then, thresher maws have been discovered throughout the galaxy, surviving even severely hazardous environments. Their physical and biological origins are unknown, although it is widely assumed they were "spread by a previous generation of space travelers", possibly before even the...
Category:Wildlife