Leopard Snowgrune

Leopard Snowgrune are a species of Snowgrune recognisable by their more colourful appearance and leopard spot markings. Leopard Snowgrune's can be obtained in the Specials Shop for two Grey Swirlstones, or they can be obtained by breeding. They cannot, however, be obtained in the Stray Game or from the Pet Shop. Originally there was a quest in which a leopard Snowgrune could be obtained for 200 posts, but that quest is no longer available. While they are not particularly rare, leopard's are considered uncommon in the Xanje universe. Players are often willing to trade/buy their leopard Snowgrunes, or they may allow you to breed your with theirs.

## Description

***"This massive creature is called a leopard Snowgrune. These heavily built animals make the remote tundra and boreal forests of the south pole of Peterra their home, rarely revealing themselves. It is said they use magic to keep their existence a secret, but although they do have some extrasensory abilities, most of their secretive ways are due to just their intelligence as well as their living very spread out from each other.***

***The average weight of an adult male is about two thousand pounds; females are smaller at around 1500 pounds. There are few animals that can match the sheer muscle power of a snowgrune, but a mother Snowgrune must guard her cubs from danger until they grow large enough to defend themselves. The more food she is able to supply for them, the larger and faster they will grow.***

***Snowgrunes are omnivorous and eat just about anything, including many plants, but prefer large land animals, and fish. Their front dewclaws are partly opposable, which helps them grab prey both from land and sea.***

***Snowgrunes are mostly solitary, except for a mother raising her cubs. Each Snowgrune defends its own home range. Male Snowgrunes have much larger territories that overlap those of several females. Female Snowgrunes are tolerant of females from neighbouring territories wandering into theirs sometimes, and will even be friendly with their neighbours, but males will defend their lands vigorously from other males. They leave claw marks on trees all along the border of their lands to mark it as theirs and warn other males away. Most of the time, everyone hunts in their own land and peace is kept. When a male cub grows up and leaves his mother's home, he may wander many miles for a long time before he finds a territory that is available.***

***There exist some places where food is abundant, such as large supplies of fish, where multiple Snowgrunes may gather and socialise. Here, they will form a hierarchy, with the largest Snowgrunes usually claiming the best places to fish. "***

## Stage 1

The first stage of a leopard Snowgrune shows it as a Snowgrune cub.

Young leopard Snowgrunes can be recognised by their leopard spot markings and the fact that they have more colourful pelts than most Snowgrunes do, with common ones having darker and less vibrantly noticeable pelts. They are available in the Specials Shop for two Grey Swirlstones per Snowgrune and can be bred. Pregnant leopard Snowgrunes often take around 18 days to give birth, though various potions can lower this to as short as five days, and cost 1 Minty Swirlstone to breed.

## Stage 2

The second stage of a leopard Snowgrune shows it as an adolescent.

The only change in a second stage Snowgrunes description is: "This Snowgrune cub has grown a lot since birth."

Second stage Snowgrunes can take 150-200 days to grow to their final stage. An adolescent leopard Snowgrune's most noticeable changes is that their eye colour is revealed, where it was not noticeable in the first stage. Their colour palette also becomes slightly brighter and more vibrant than when they were first stage.

## Stage 3

The final stage of a leopard Snowgrune shows them as a fully grown adult leopard Snowgrune. This is the final stage of a Snowgrune and it does not age beyond this.

Fully grown leopard Snowgrunes get a bigger description, and it takes about 150-200 days to fully grow them from adolescence. They are noted to have vibrant colours, often ranging from yellow to bright blue leopard spot patches and more reddish to white base pelts. However, a leopard Snowgrunes eyes takes on a darker colour than it had as an adolescent, which is often quite noticeable.

Leopard Snowgrunes have no known hybrid associated with them, and so if they are bred with another species of Snowgrune using three Pink Swirlstones only the two species will be a possible outcome.