Porcuplumpus

A chubby frog-like creature with a deadly defense, the porcuplumpus may look endearing, but is best to be looked at - never touched.

The porcuplumpus is a fairly large (relative to its ancestor, at least) species of lumpus native to the northern soglands that has evolved an excellent defense against predators. Fat and slow, the porcuplumpus usually weighs around 8 pounds and is incapable of any locomotion faster than a plodding waddle at less than 2 miles per hour. As it sits in the mud with little reaction to its surroundings, except for an occasional lunge forward to engulf some small bug into it wide mouth, It seems to be easy prey to almost anything, from small snoots to fierce sawjaws - but only the dumbest or most ignorant creatures dare to bother this rotund specimen, for it carries a virulent defense. When threatened, this lumpus inflates its belly with a big gulp of air, which pushes on tiny erector muscles attache to needle-like spines that are pushed up through pores in the skin of its back, turning it into a ball of spikes. These spines, hyper-keratinized growths of the skin surface, normally retract out of sight when the porcuplumpus is relaxed. Worse yet, if something still tries its luck and dares put this tribbet in its mouth, the lumpus' spines sting. It still produces a toxic brew of toxin in its skin, mostly present in a waxy secretion that is released from glands behind its ears and groomed across the surface of its body. As its spines rise through their pores, they become covered in this wax and are turned into stinging darts that cause intense burning pain and temporary localized paralysis as they break the skin of hungry predators' mouths. Only some species of sniffler are immune to this chemical weapon, but the great size of the porcuplumpus and its physical defenses are still sufficient to make it a difficult prey animal; adults are mostly too large to flip over and subdue, but young ones may be preyed upon. These babies are still born quite large however and may weigh as much as 30% of their mother's weight at birth - as a result, they are born singly, and recieve parental supervision from their parent for several months. Mothers will defend their babies with their aggressive defenses and will even lunge to bite enemies that come too close; the baby is only eventually abandoned when the next young is born as long as 7 months later, when the first one is nearly as big as its parent. With so few enemies, the porcuplumpus can afford to breed at a slow rate, and has a long lifespan for its size in excess of 25 years; it has the capacity to live even longer, and some especially large individuals could be more than 50 years old. While growth slows dramatically at a year of age, it never stops completely, and extremely old specimens may surpass the norm for their species significantly, growing to weights in excess of 20 lbs. These giants are rare and seclusive, spending most of their lives holed up in the ground and only emerging to feed every few months under cover of darkness: to spot one is a very rare thing, and their seclusive nature compared to younger animals may mean that such outliers are not as rare as might be thought.

Like other lumpus, the porcuplumpus is mostly carnivorous. Its diet is broad, and anything meaty will be accepted - though it is frog-like, it is not restricted only to moving food items, but can recognize non-living food by scent and will even scavenge carrion. Insects like tiny ground beetles were the typical prey of its ancestor, but it rarely takes them now, being so large. It now sports large, slicing teeth in its jaws that can be used to catch vertebrate prey, including birds, molodonts, and other lumpuses, though not usually its own kind. Its stomach is hugely expansive, able to swell wide enough to accommodate 2/3 of its own body weight in a single meal, after which it will bury itself in the mud for up to a month to rest and digest, moist and unbothered. This lumpus is also omnivorous, though, and will also eat significant amounts of algae that it collects from shallow water. This may be more to acquire the chemical components for its toxic defense than for nutrition, as some types of cyanobacteria that grow in slimy sheets among the algae in warm, stagnant sogland waters contain neurotoxic alkaloids that may be synthesized within the porcumplumpus' body into the ingredient in its own weaponized wax. The porcuplumpus produces a sodium-channel blocking brew of chemicals similar in function but not of identical origin to that of its ancestor, which acquired batrachotoxin from a diet of toxic beetles. As it no longer feeds exclusively on such beetles, this lumpus may now need to consume this bacteria in order to remain toxic on a diet of otherwise non-toxic prey.