Galus Widower

## ***Basic Information:***

***Pronunciation:*** Gal-us wid-o-were

***Common Name:*** Tesphet Venapro, Widowing Mantis

## ***Description:***

The Galus Widower is a hostile creature native to **Aurdovi** that looks like a cross between a crab, a scorpion, and a spider. It is light brown with a long neck and a sharp horn coming out of the back of its head. It has a large abdomen and eight purple legs. It is most active at night and thrives in cold temperatures. It is also believed that it is distantly related to an Earth creature called a "Mantis".

## ***Habitat:***

This creature thrives on the snowy Aurdovi, hiding in the shadows of tall **Frostium Pinesefia** and caves. They are nocturnal, staying in the caves during the day, and only coming out at night to feed.

## ***Behavior:***

The Galus Widower is an extremely territorial creature. Both male and female members secrete a transparent gas from their abdomen to mark the boundaries of their homes. Female Galus Widowers become doubly hostile when guarding eggs.

## ***Reproduction:***

The Galus Widower's mating ritual begins with a quest for a mate. The male will attempt to attract a female through the initiation of a mating dance, which primarily involves head shaking. If he is successful in attracting and impregnating the female, the pair must then find a carcass in which the female will lay her clutch of 10 eggs. The widowers will often cover their chosen carcass in a thin preservative layer of mucus and a silk-like substance to slow the carrion's decomposition. Widower's eggs generally take 5 months to hatch, and their young will make their first meal out of the carcass by eating and digging their way out of the flesh. The mated pair do not return to guard their eggs or nurture their young, and thus they hatch Precocial. (Independent and fully developed into their juvenile state from a day after birth.)

Galus Widower have no sex chromosomes. Instead, gender is determined by the number of chromosomes. An organism with half the number of chromosomes is male, while an individual with the full number is female.

## ***Related Species:***

The Widowers are rivals of the **Gnakiki**, and will often band together to fight them off their territory. This is the only time when Widowers gather in groups. The Galus Widowers and the Gnakiki are in the same family, *Gardvus.*

## Ecology:

### ***Where in the Food Chain?***

The Galus Widower is an apex predator. It is a heterotroph, meaning it can't make its own food.

### ***Diet:***

This creature scavenges for fresh organisms, attacking quickly and then scuttling away with its prey. It will sometimes stalk helpless creatures that can't find shelter in the frigid nighttime and wait for them to freeze to death.

It can hunt prey larger than itself, but nothing bigger a than an **Avijotun** calf.

The presence of *Terastasi Cocco* and *Isterichya Caulee* allow the Widower to quickly break down the remnaints of its preys. Whilst the first is a kind of bacteria present in its early intestines that feeds off of other creatures' shells or exoskeletons, the second is only equipped to absorb a beast's flesh and inner organs. This seems to be related to the Galus Widower's vast range of prey items.

### ***Predators:***

The Galus Widower has no natural predators; however, it can and will attack unsuspecting Gek and Human travelers. Thus thus the Galus Widower's only threats only threats are the Humans and Gek who kill them in self defense

### ***Role in Plant Pollination:***

The Galus Widower is the main seed spreader of the **Meyzinc root**. The Galus Widower rubs zinc from the plant on its exoskeleton, to be absorbed by the bloodstream. When doing this, it unknowingly lathers the Meyzinc roots seeds on its body as well. As it walks around, the seeds get dispersed, and grow into new plants.

The Galus Widower and Meyzinc root have co-evolved and formed a symbiotic relationship in the process. They require each other so much, that if one of the two species went extinct, the other one would too.

## ***Episodes:***

The Galus Widower is seen in the following episodes:

**Our First Vicious Alien!! - Episode 4**

**Acquiring Biological Specimens!! - Episode 5**

**Creatures of the Deep Caves - Episode 6**

**A Nose for Rare Isotopes!! - Episode 9**

## ***Crew Members Who Researched the Galus Widower***

(If you added to this page add your wikia username and where you helped) (OPTIONAL)

Coral Godwin = Helped add Episodes

Tatianna Peters - Helped add episodes and changed current episodes on wikia so it was easier to understand and didn't take up as much space.