Mutuari Carnis

## Meat Snake

***Mutuari Carnis*** (Latin for: ***To Borrow Flesh***), commonly referred to as the **Meat Snake**, is the 3rd member of the Carnis family, and the 2nd product of the Crawl. Meat snakes are found worldwide, however they are mostly clustered around regions with moderate temperatures.

## Physical characteristics

The Meat Snake is not too dissimilar to an ordinary snake being a worm-like organism with a head and tail. All meat snakes share a meat-red colour like other members of the Carnis Family. It is also mostly made out of meat tissue and flesh. The Meat Snake however is much larger than an ordinary snake, averaging a size of 5 metres. Similar to the Trimming, each meat snake has unique traits that can differentiate them from each other. The main difference between meat snakes is the skull.

Over its lifespan, a meat snake will swap out its skull with those of its different meals. However, it only changes out the skull if the previous one is damaged, or it prefers the newer skull. Otherwise it will be excreted like other unwanted materials. If a Meat Snake has eaten a dead stag, it's face will resemble a stag. The Meat Snakes flesh turns a deeper shade of red the more it consumes.

However, this effect is very slow and requires the snake to consume thousands of meals. The Meat Snake has a fleshy membrane that is imperative in keeping it alive. If this membrane is broken, the snake will perish. The Meat Snake is said to have an unpleasant odor.

## Behaviours

The Meat Snake's behaviours are similar to that of other snakes, however unlike other snakes it solely consumes dead organisms. The Meat Snake cannot and will not eat living organisms, making it easy to tame and detain. The Meat Snake will only act defensively if anything tries to attack it while consuming prey.

### Eating habits

The Meat Snake has the ability to locate prey through a tongue like organ that can sense particles of rotting and decaying meat (similar to ordinary snakes). It consumes a corpse by opening its maw and completely swallowing the meal. The Meat Snake will release a variety of chemicals inside its body while digesting the meat. Some will break down soft tissues and joints for easier digestion through the tract, while others will help preserve the meal. After these processes, the Meat Snake adds the tissue to its own body, extending the snake. Unwanted bones, hairs and fingernails will be excreted.

## Life cycle

The Meat Snake begins its life like many of the creatures in the Carnis family, as a node from the Crawl. Upon separating from the Crawl, the Meat Snake is only a few centimetres in length, from this point the Meat Snake will consume rotting meat products until averaging a length of 5 metres. The Meat Snake's only goal is to consume, and is entirely reliant on this factor to survive, the entire population of Meat Snakes is solely dependent on the number of corpses in the area. The Meat Snake also has no predators and is immune to a multitude of diseases because of the chemicals it produces, making starvation, burning or loss of membrane the only threat to the Meat Snake population.

### Reproduction

The Meat Snake is the only member of the Carnis family to have reproductive abilities. When a Meat Snake reaches a substantial size, and finds itself in the correct conditions, it will commence mitosis. After completely cloning all genetics of its structure and creating a new Meat Snake, the 2 snakes will go their separate ways as 2 different organisms.

## Benefits to humanity

The Meat Snake poses no threat at all to humanity, instead providing several benefits. The key advantage of the Meat Snake is its ability to disinfect and consume meat products, allowing for a safe method of disposal. Because of this, Meat Snakes are mainly used in butcher shops to rid of rotting and expired meat, warzones with hundreds of festering bodies, zoos with dead/sick animals, and diseased roadkill.

## Trivia

* In 1945, there was an anomalous case of a Meat Snake found in a tunnel that had reached the size of 304.5 metres. Besides its large size, it had many unique traits unseen in other meat snakes.