Llabfoolf

The **Llabfoolf** is a small, venomous omnivore native to Ceres.

## Biology & Appearance

Llabfoolves are small and round, only about 15 centimetres high, but quite heavy for their size. The creatures are covered with lime green fluffy fur, which, in fact, is simply modified leaves. And are quite round in shape with only one pair of short legs. (Though the creature does, in fact, have two small arms usually kept tucked tightly under its chin, and which can spring out to capture and eat small animals if needed. Also being used for digging burrows.)

Llabfoolves, when threatened, will sit down on the ground and puff out several long, black quills from their fluffy bodies. These quills are filled completely with venom, which will be injected, along with the broken tip of the quill, into the blood of anything foolish or hungry enough to bite or otherwise touch a defensive llabfoolf. The venom of a llabfoolf usually causes an immediate sensation of numbness in the region of the wound, followed by complete paralysis of the afflicted creature and eventual death via asphyxiation or, in species which breathe via passive diffusion, blood loss and necrosis, however, the Spink, a predatory creature, is immune to this venom, as are other Llabfoolves.

The retractable quills of a llabfoolf have an incredible ability to stretch, but will hold their original shape, meaning that they can be stored quite flat, but will quickly extend great lengths when pumped full of venom from the animal's venom sacs. when the tip is put under enough outside pressure in this state, the sacs will close and much of the quill will be constricted, forcing the venom to split the tip of its vessel and drain out.

## Behaviour

Llabfoolves generally live in a large group of up to 25 individual creatures, and will dwell in a complex burrow system along with the rest of their group, this warren usually has a layout that, though seemingly chaotic, is in fact efficiently organised, having certain chambers for each possible purpose, such as food storage, hatcheries, sleeping chambers, waste pits, ect. generally with the specific use of the chambers corresponding with their depth below the ground. Although llabfoolves have, perhaps, a somewhat similar lifestyle to creatures like ants, they are by no means eusocial, as every individual in a colony breeds and members quite often leave the pack to begin a new one or join another.

Llabfoolves primarily forage and eat seeds, bark and nuts, as these keep well underground, but also eat small Inequaelopods, fruit and leaves, with colonies sometimes even attacking small Leafers, and every llabfoolf seems to eat from the pack's larders, with the creatures seemingly prefering to do this to foraging outside the burrow when possible, likely to avoid predators.

The creatures are quite intelligent as evidenced by their strategies against predation by spinks, such as staging circumstances for a single individual to be attacked by the deceptor or attempting to cause some incident that would put the suspected spink in a position of being forced to either reveal itself somehow (such as by luring a predator such as a Felavis to the colony while the suspect is outside, ideally forcing it to reveal its lack of venom and fight back instead) or be killed.