Naachi

Naachi are humanoid, eusocial, egg-laying, parthenogenetic mammals native to the Great Desert. They have brown skin, white hair, and yellow eyes. They have blunt, black, nail-like claws on their fingers and toes, large fox-like ears, and a long fox-like tail. Naachi ears are covered in white fur, with black tips in the case of queen naachi. Naachi tails are covered in fluffy white fur from top to base. Naachi stand 4 feet tall on average and live for 50-55 years.

Naachi are eusocial with a reproductive queen caste and a non-reproductive worker caste. Queens can be visually distinguished from workers by their ears: queen ears have black tips while worker ears are completely white. Queens and workers also produce different pheromones, though this cannot be reliably detected by humans.

By default all naachi colonies have a single queen who lays all the colony’s eggs. If this queen falls ill or dies, she can be replaced by a worker, who will mature into a queen over the course of a year. Which worker will be become the next queen is often contentious, with larger, more attractive, or more popular naachi more likely to succeed.

Naachi are unisexual and naachi queens reproduce asexually, without being fertilized. As a result, naachi are genetic clones, with all of a queen’s children being essentially identical to her. Queens lay a single clutch of 2-4 eggs a year, laid one egg at a time over the course of a week. Naachi eggs are white with black speckles and have a hard outer shell.

Naachi eggs take 6 months to hatch, during which they are incubated by their queen and her assisting workers. After hatching it takes a naachi kit 10 years to reach physical maturity. Unlike humans, naachi have no period of accelerated development equivalent to puberty. After reaching adulthood, naachi remain relatively unchanged until their last few years of life, during which they rapidly decline.

In addition to speech and body language, naachi communicate with each other through pheromones. All naachi can produce alarm, alert, trail, and territory pheromones. Queen naachi can produce queen and egg pheromones. Naachi kits can produce kit pheromone.

Alarm pheromone induces fight-or-flight reactions in other naachi. It can be produced consciously or unconsciously in response to danger or injury. Alert pheromone attracts the attention of other naachi. It is produced when recruiting other naachi to a task or alongside trail pheromone. Trail pheromone marks landmarks, resource caches, and foraging spots. On its own, it is produced as a memory aid. Alongside alert pheromone, it is produced to guide other naachi to the marked locations. Territory pheromone marks a colony’s territory. It is produced to ward foreign naachi away from a colony and to lead colony naachi back to their nest.

Queen pheromone indicates which naachi are queens and suppresses queen development and induces attraction in worker naachi. It is produced solely by queens and queen replacement begins in its absense. Egg pheromone indicates which eggs were laid by a queen. Though rare, it is possible for a worker naachi to lay an egg or stealthily develop into a queen. This pheromone ensures that only a queen’s eggs are cared for. Egg pheromone is produced as eggs are laid.

Kit pheromone attracts the attention of adult naachi and aids adult naachi in finding kits if they misplaced themselves. It is produced solely by kits, and is produced in smaller and smaller amounts as the kit ages. A naachi is considered an adult once they stop producing kit pheromone.