Streaking Pasha (AngieYaz Sonic Underground reboot)

Streaking Pashas, or just Pashas, are creatures that appear in the AngieYaz/RoseOfSharon reboot of the Sonic Underground television series, emigrated from the Sonic the Hedgehog comic series and its spin-offs published by Archie Comics. They are a breed of horse-like Mobini. While the Mobians (usually the royals and the aristocracy) also have mechanical horses for riding, agriculture and mail delivery among other things, they also breed Pashas for exactly the same purposes. It is one of the few extraterrestrial species that belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and the genus Equus. Pashas are adapted to run, allowing them to quickly escape predators, and possess an excellent sense of balance and a strong fight-or-flight response. Related to this need to flee from predators in the wild is an unusual trait: pashas are able to sleep both standing up and lying down, with younger pashas tending to sleep significantly more than adults. Female pashas, called mares, carry their young for approximately 11 months and a young pasha, called a foal, can stand and run shortly following birth. Most domesticated pashas begin training under a saddle or in a harness between the ages of two and four. They reach full adult development by age five, and have an average lifespan of between 25 and 30 years.
Pasha breeds are loosely divided into three categories based on general temperament: spirited "hot bloods" with speed and endurance; "cold bloods", such as draft horses and some ponies, suitable for slow, heavy work; and "warmbloods", developed from crosses between hot bloods and cold bloods, often focusing on creating breeds for specific riding purposes, particularly in Europa. There are more than 300 breeds of pasha on Mobius today, developed for many different uses.
Pashas and Mobians interact in a wide variety of sport competitions and non-competitive recreational pursuits as well as in working activities such as police work, agriculture, entertainment and therapy. Pashas were historically used in warfare, from which a wide variety of riding and driving techniques developed, using many different styles of equipment and methods of control. Mobians provide domesticated pashas with food, water and shelter as well as attention from specialists such as veterinarians and farriers, just like horses on Earth and similar equine creatures on other planets.
==Description==
The Pasha is a creature resembling a horse from Earth, albeit with a more alien appearance. Mobians began domesticating pashas around 4000 BMCE, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BMCE.
===Anatomy===
Pasha anatomy encompasses the gross and microscopic anatomy of pashas, ponies and other Mobini equids. While all anatomical features of equids are described in the same terms as for other animals, there are many pasha-specific colloquial terms used by pashestrians.
====Skeletal system====
The pasha skeleton averages 205 bones. A significant difference between the pasha skeleton and that of a Mobian is the lack of a collarbone—the pasha's forelimbs are attached to the spinal column by a powerful set of muscles, tendons, and ligaments that attach the shoulder blade to the torso. The pasha's four legs and hooves are also unique structures. Their leg bones are proportioned differently from those of a Mobian. For example, the body part that is called a pasha's "knee" is actually made up of the carpal bones that correspond to the Mobian wrist. Similarly, the hock contains bones equivalent to those in the Mobian ankle and heel. The lower leg bones of a pasha correspond to the bones of the Mobian hand or foot, and the fetlock (incorrectly called the "ankle") is actually the proximal sesamoid bones between the cannon bones (a single equivalent to the Mobian metacarpal or metatarsal bones) and the proximal phalanges, located where one finds the "knuckles" of a Mobian. A pasha also has few muscles in its legs below the knees and hocks, only skin, hair, bone, tendons, ligaments, cartilage, and the assorted specialized tissues that make up the hoof.
===Hooves===
The critical importance of the feet and legs is summed up by the traditional adage, "no foot, no pasha". The pasha hoof begins with the distal phalanges, the equivalent of the Mobian fingertip or tip of the toe, surrounded by cartilage and other specialized, blood-rich soft tissues such as the laminae. The hoof of a pasha is either in twos or in threes (as pictured). The exterior hoof wall and horn of the sole is made of keratin, the same material as a Mobianan fingernail. The result is that a pasha, weighing on average 500 kilograms (1,100 lb), travels on the same bones as would a Mobian on tiptoe. For the protection of the hoof under certain conditions, some pashas have pashashoes placed on their feet by a professional farrier. The hoof continually grows, and in most domesticated pashass needs to be trimmed (and shoes reset, if used) every five to eight weeks, though the hooves of pashas in the wild wear down and regrow at a rate suitable for their terrain.
===Teeth===
Pashas are adapted to grazing. In an adult pasha, there are 12 incisors at the front of the mouth, adapted to biting off the grass or other vegetation. There are 24 teeth adapted for chewing, the premolars and molars, at the back of the mouth. Stallions and geldings have four additional teeth just behind the incisors, a type of canine teeth called "tushes". Some pashas, both male and female, will also develop one to four very small vestigial teeth in front of the molars, known as "wolf" teeth, which are generally removed because they can interfere with the bit. There is an empty interdental space between the incisors and the molars where the bit rests directly on the gums, or "bars" of the pasha's mouth when the pasha is bridled.
An estimate of a pasha's age can be made from looking at its teeth. The teeth continue to erupt throughout life and are worn down by grazing. Therefore, the incisors show changes as the pasha ages; they develop a distinct wear pattern, changes in tooth shape, and changes in the angle at which the chewing surfaces meet. This allows a very rough estimate of a pasha's age, although diet and veterinary care can also affect the rate of tooth wear.
===Senses===
The Pashas' senses are based on their status as prey animals, where they must be aware of their surroundings at all times. They have the largest eyes of any land mammal, and are lateral-eyed, meaning that their eyes are positioned on the sides of their heads. This means that Pashas have a range of vision of more than 350°, with approximately 65° of this being binocular vision and the remaining 285° monocular vision. Pashas have excellent day and night vision, but they have two-color, or dichromatic vision; their color vision is somewhat like red-green color blindness in Mobians, where certain colors, especially red and related colors, appear as a shade of green.
Their sense of smell, while much better than that of Mobians, is not quite as good as that of a Mobini dog. It is believed to play a key role in the social interactions of Pashas as well as detecting other key scents in the environment. Pashas have two olfactory centers. The first system is in the nostrils and nasal cavity, which analyze a wide range of odors. The second, located under the nasal cavity, are the Vomeronasal organs, also called Jacobson's organs. These have a separate nerve pathway to the brain and appear to primarily analyze pheromones.
A Pasha's hearing is good, and the pinna of each ear can rotate up to 180°, giving the potential for 360° hearing without having to move the head. Noise impacts the behavior of Pashas and certain kinds of noise may contribute to stress.
Pashas have a great sense of balance, due partly to their ability to feel their footing and partly to highly developed proprioception—the unconscious sense of where the body and limbs are at all times. A Pasha's sense of touch is well-developed. The most sensitive areas are around the eyes, ears, and nose. Pashas are able to sense contact as subtle as an insect landing anywhere on the body.
Pashas have an advanced sense of taste similar to that of Mobians, which allows them to sort through fodder and choose what they would most like to eat, and their prehensile lips can easily sort even small grains. Pashas generally will not eat poisonous plants, however, there are exceptions; Pashas will occasionally eat toxic amounts of poisonous plants even when there is adequate healthy food. They are in fact immune to poisons.
===Diet===
Pashas are herbivores with a digestive system adapted to a forage diet of grasses and other plant material, consumed steadily throughout the day. Therefore, compared to Mobians, they have a relatively small stomach but very long intestines to facilitate a steady flow of nutrients. A 450-kilogram (990 lb) Pasha will eat 7 to 11 kilograms (15 to 24 lb) of food per day and, under normal use, drink 38 to 45 liters (8.4 to 9.9 imp gal; 10 to 12 US gal) of water. Pashas are not ruminants, they have only one stomach, like Mobians, but unlike Mobians, they can use cellulose, a major component of grass. Pashas are hindgut fermenters.
Cellulose fermentation by symbiotic bacteria occurs in the cecum, or "water gut", which food goes through before reaching the large intestine. Pashas cannot vomit in many cases, so digestion problems can quickly cause colic, a leading cause of death. Pashas do not have a gallbladder; however, they seem to tolerate high amounts of fat in their diet despite lack of a gallbladder.
===Movement===
Just like the horses from Earth, all pashas move naturally with four basic gaits:
*the four-beat walk, which averages 6.4 kilometers per hour (4.0 mph);
*the two-beat trot or jog at 13 to 19 kilometers per hour (8.1 to 11.8 mph) (faster for harness racing pashas);
*the canter or lope, a three-beat gait that is 19 to 24 kilometers per hour (12 to 15 mph);
*the gallop, which averages 40 to 68 kilometers per hour (25 to 50 mph), but the world record for a pasha galloping over a short, sprint distance is 61.97 mph.
Besides these basic gaits, some pashas perform a two-beat pace, instead of the trot. There also are several four-beat 'ambling' gaits that are approximately the speed of a trot or pace, though smoother to ride. These include the lateral rack, running walk, and tölt as well as the diagonal fox trot. Ambling gaits are often genetic in some breeds, known collectively as gaited pashas. These horses replace the trot with one of the ambling gaits.
==Trivia==
* On Mobius, Pashas are used in idioms such as "look a gift Pasha in the snout" and "felt like I was getting kicked by my Streaking Pasha!"
* An animal closely resembling a Streaking Pasha is seen in the episode "When in Rome...", but is referred to as a horse by Dingotus.
* The Streaking Pasha's design is taken straight from that of the Equort species featured in the show Thundarr the Barbarian.
==See also==
*Draft pasha (AngieYaz Sonic Underground reboot) - a large pasha bred to primarily be a working animal
Category:AngieYaz Sonic Underground reboot
Category:Horses
Category:Owner:Angie Y.