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Ancestor: Grassy Rabbit

Size: Length from nose to tail. One-year-old adult: 45cm, Ten-year-old adult: 90cm

Dietary Needs: The baby megors stay on milk for longer, which larger mature adults can provide for more babies due to their size. The longer life spent on milk prepares them for having to grow larger later in life. It is not unusual to see a near adult young megor approach an even larger individual to suckle for milk. Young life involves much calcium depositing and building, but later like this calcium is leeched back out of their bodies and provided to the next generations.

Young megors that are weaned have a mixed diet of grasses and herbs. They prefer softer, younger shoots, buds, plump soft roots, flowers and fruits but due to their lower hierarchical position to their hungry elders they must sometimes settle for rougher, less digestible material such as old dying grass, coarse dry lacey roots or stripped bark layers. Elders have a more choice diet, just follow their younger subordinates and take over what they're eating if it's good. But in lean times they will settle for rougher, coarser foods if it's all there is. Elders seem herbivorous but on very rare occasions will spontaneously eat meat, usually something like a mouse, bird or lizard. Sometimes they will eat one of their subordinates if fighting has broken out due to stress. This most often occurs if the elder is malnourished and needs a top up of vital nutrients. This can especially happen if rains have failed and thus food is failing to grow. Meat can provide salt as well as the more obvious nutrients, something easily lost alongside water. They will masticate small bones and eat those too.

This taste for meat and bones begins young. It is not unusual to see a younger megor that has found in the environment an old dry rib or similar sized bone, chewing on it like a cigar until tired or bored and then they spit it back out somewhat scraped up by their teeth. They may also eat carrion scraps if they quickly became preserved by sun drying and an elder doesn't see them first (but will not eat wet, putrid carrion).

Life Cycle: Although they live in family groups guarded by an elder or two, females with babies dig a solitary burrow and stay alone with her newborn babies for a few days. This is usually until they grow large enough to start moving around and opening their eyes, at which point their immune system will be able to handle the exterior of the burrow.

Litter size is dependant on age of the mother. Young mothers usually bear litters of around four or five, with as few as one surviving until adulthood. Elder mothers produce litters of around ten. More than that, and at least a few will be outcompeted by their siblings over milk in the early days. The rest will have high chances of reaching adulthood unless the mother develops issues providing milk. When it comes to dangers such as predators she will make sure none get near.

When they become reproductively active at around five months their skeleton has not yet fully "set" or calcified. This is because they have more growing to do. Growth still slows at adulthood even though it continues, and it takes a decade to reach their peak as the skeleton becomes more set. With age bone growth slows first.

Other: Elders are larger, older megors that protect the rest of a family group from predators. The elders are usually a mating pair. They favour the young rabbits that are their own offspring, while favouring elders that are prospective mates. They severely bully young rabbits that aren't their descendants them (as detected by smell), while driving out upcoming elders that are their descendants, or elders that are competition for them getting mates. 

They all have thick fat, thick skin and longer fur around their necks. This becomes more extreme with age, making it very difficult for predators to strike an effective killing bite. The megor may sustain punctures but avoids damage to vitals. Their ears additionally provide protection, becoming more like a sheet of tough leather with age. As well as protecting it from the teeth of larger cats they also need protection from each other when they become competitive with each other. They may be herbivores but their large incisors can still be deadly.

Elders have a more prominent sagital ridge, while in young adults it is nearly invisible like in the ancestral rabbit. In elders there are other more defined ridges on the skull that provide anchorage for muscles of the ears This is because the ears are heavier and require more strength to move.

Aside from continuing to grow outwards and in length well after they have become reproductively active, elders also change shape and density internally. As well as piling on more muscle and fat, the consistency becomes hard and wall-like, more like the flesh of a pig than the tender tissues of a rabbit. The last part to stop growing is not the bones or muscles, but the ears and skin. Very old megors have clear skin folds in places like between their legs and body, and enormous ears.

Species:

All Megauris species are principally similar, with an extended growth post-adulthood that serves the purpose of protecting future generations, and ears that enlarge and become protective.

There are some variations in maximum size, choice of plants in their diet, fur length and colour and some mild variations in build between slimmer and leaner, to more bulky and robust. They have been very successful and have almost fully spread along East Catland, with East species being more muscular, more melanistic and more stout, while West Catland species tend to be more fatty, have looser skin and have a golden colour.