Dayju

**Dayju** (identical singular and plural) are the only known sapient and civilization-forming species in the world.

## Anatomy

Dayju are omnivorous, warmblooded, egg-laying, cursorial vertebrates with centaurism (two pairs of arms, and two pairs of legs), with four pairs of eyes, 4 pairs of spiracles, and a pair of antennae and a set of neck frills lining their neck and thorax. Females have pointy and triangular frills, wheareas males have larger and rounder frills accompanied by wattles that hang down from base of their neck frills.

### Respiration

They breathe through four pairs of spiracles along their thorax, three pairs of which function as speaking organs, giving rise to extremely intricate and highly developed polyphonal languages. The bottom-most pair exclusively used for respiration.

### Eyesight

Their eyes are highly evolved, with one pair contributing the majority of visual data and the other three pairs contributing movement and other sensory information. They are capable of seeing a wide spectrum from infrared to ultraviolet.

### Hearing

Their large, pointy ears are also highly specialized, and capable of hearing sounds ranging from near-infrasonic to ultrasonic. They can also independently pivot and swing in the direction from which they ditect sound.

### Communication

As previously mentioned, the Dayju speak through three sets of spiracles located along the sides of their thoraxes. Connected to these spiracles are also five sets of frills along the back of their neck, which are capable of shifting between a wide range of colors from infrared to ultraviolet. Dayju languages are often comprised of a combination of color patterns and sounds, and in some languages also include gestures by the four arms.

### Sexual Dimorphism

In the Dayju species, females are the larger and more aggressive of the two genders. Males are roughly 10-20% percent smaller than females, with larger, rounder neck frills and wattles on their necks and torsos. This has led to males in most Dayju cultures to become the weaker sex that must protected, collected, and objectivised. The reasoning for the dimorphism stems largely from their evolution as coming from pack hunting animals that lived in matriarchal packs where males would only be allowed to stay in order to mate with the dominant females and to help raise pups, and only a few at that. Though they would largely live on their own or in small, loosley connected bachelor groups of juveniles.

### Species and Sub-species

There are a couple of different forms of Dayju on the planet, both living and extinct.

The Giants are so far as Palaeontology and Archaeology is concerned the only known case of speciation in the Dayju evolutionary history. They are a species from the Western Continent that was pressured by predators, competition, and fewer resouces to become larger, stronger, and more generalized.

Other variations of Dayju include the elves, dwarves, and snow stalkers. They are subspecies of Dayju that became extremely adapted to teir environments before and during the ice-age. The High Elves were extremely well adapted to the harsh and dry conditions of the deserts and savannahs. The Snow-Stalkers as their name implies lived in the cold polar regions of the world as well as the polar ice caps themselves. The Dwarves were specially made for the numerous small islands of South Eastern continent and its archipelago, where their small stature made it possible to get by without great resource expenditure. Interestingly the Wood Elves were group that lived almost exclusively in the trees of the rainforests and jungles between the Northern and Southern Continents. These are not different species or genus but subspecies of Dayju that adjusted themselves to their habitats very well. Unfortunately for most, they are largley extinct. Either purged during encouters with other dayju civilisations, killed off by plague, disappearance of their environment, or even interbreeding with some Dayju cultures.