Silithid

**The Silithid** is an inhabitant of the world of Drenia. They are dog sized beetles that lives in tunnels they dig in sandy and desertic biomes. This species of beetles is a very peculiar one, as their name comes from the fact that they often store great quantities of silicates to then heat up in a special pouch in their body, which is then shot out as molten glass towards their ennemies. Silithid burrows are easily recognizable by the smooth glass-like walls that adorns the tunnels, as they also use that substance to harden their structures.

## Physiology

### Physical description

As stated in the introduction, Silithids are beetles the size of a large dog. Just like any other beetle, they have an exoskeleton and are six legged, but unlike their Earth cousins, those ones are unable to fly. Their chitin is coated in a thick smooth layer of glass and their wings do not serve them to fly, but are used as magnifying glasses for their defense mechanism. An expandable translucent pouch is located underneath the wings of the silithid, in which is stored a considerable amount of silicates that are replenished regularly.

Silithids generally tend to adopt browns, desaturated oranges and yellows to blend in with their environments. Since the vas majority of silithid colonies are burrowers, their colours lean towards paler tones due to the lack of light in their burrows.

## Ecology

### Diet

They are omnivorous in the largest sense of the term. The biomes they inhabit generally don't harbor much food, so they heavily rely on carcasses of overconfident creatures to get their source of nutrients and hydration. Things such as agriculture and myciculture aren't a far fetched concept for them as well, as they also tend to crops and fungus they grow themselves. In periods of starvation, they can also depend on cannibalism to sort out the strongest from the weakest, using the carcasses of the weakest silithids to keep the toughest ones alive.

Their diet can vary greatly, they can get their nutrients from plant matter, animal sources, carcasses, fungi, anything that can be chewable with their mandibles.

## Behavior

### Social structure

Silithids are a swarm. They live in a complex and organized society led by a matriarch that is a hundred times the size of a soldier. A matriarch is to silithids what an ant queen is to ants, and is the sole producer of offsprings for its colony, as well as the lead hunter when on a hunt. Different casts help differenciate the several individuals that composes a colony. The vast majority of those are workers, and they are the smallest cast of silithid one can find, often dedicated to the nursing of larvas and pupas, tending to the integrity of the burrows and the well being of their potential cultures.

Then, there are the soldiers. Those are guardians of the colony, and their mandibles as well as their silicate pocket has been greatly distorted to accomodate their life style. The strength of a silithid soldier's mandibles can easily equal that of a grizzly bear.

Lastly, there are the hunters, and those ones are the fastest and most agile of the colony. Despite their usual nature as scavengers, silithids can also be ferocious predators to smaller animals, and will hunt in large groups

### Communication

Just like any other insect, silithids uses pheromones to communicate with each other and act like a hive mind. Unlike any other insects, they use vibrations to ward off predators or other dangerous creatures and protect their colony. To mark their territory, they usually spit out puddles of glass that delimits an area and scratch at whatever rocks or vegetations they can find.

### Life cycle

The Matriarch lays a large group of eggs - around 250 per lay - that are then brought into the nursery where they will elongate themselves and take the shape of a first instance larva. There, they will hatch into a second instance larva, which is significantly bigger and hardier than the first instance. From there, they will feed on cultivated mushrooms and roots that has been reduced to a goo by the nurse silithids. Once they have gathered enough nutrients and fat, they will turn into a pupa, similar to a caterpillar making a chrysalis, and will gestate for about three weeks before turning into a full imago.

The type of nutrients fed to the second instance larva will determine its role in the colony, and an equal combination of mushroom and roots will make a Worker, more mushroom than roots will make a Hunter and more roots than mushrooms will make a Soldier. However, to make a new Matriarch, the first Matriarch must first be deceased. The Workers will then take the corpse of the previous Matriarch and retrieve the fat stored inside to feed it to the new Matriarch. It is separated from the rest of the eggs to ensure its development and health.

## Interactions with dragons

Silithids are generally not threatening to dragons, as their small size cannot achieve much alone. Do not, however, get spit on by a silithid. The molten glass spat from the