Ganderelk

Drawn by (Viergacht) , who recently has taken to coloring the commissions... I can't complain though, cuz they look AMAZING



This is Hausa såzar, or in Lawspitch, the ganderelk. The scientific name is actually from the Taggish name, hausa, which is a cognate with English 'goose' via Proto-Indo-European, while the second element means 'hissing', referring to the famous hiss-calls that these animals are known for making. Ganderelk are actually larger than the American Elk, one of two animals for which they were named by Simon Drewitt, standing at an average of between 5.2-7.0 ft. in height with males weighing in at 800-1800 lbs, and females at 500-1200 lbs. They belong to the family Dinanseridae, which itself can be placed within the order Nasia (from the Taggish word nas, meaning 'bill', from the Proto-Indo-European word for 'duck'), which are a group of herbivorous descendants of Late Cretaceous troodonts that appeared some 15 million years ago on Eurydice on the continent of Pacharang. Larger than moose, these animals are herbivorous generalists, feeding on anything from conifer needles to the foliage of horse tail trees and anthophytes. They also browse understory ferns and hedges, and sometimes aquatic vegetation as well where they appear in wetlands. They are solitary animals, with enormous claws and powerful tails provide more than enough defense against most predators, save against the ghost-faced alickwall, whom they share much of their range with. They actually make up some 70% of the prey base of this animal, though.

Mating takes place in the fall, and the eggs are laid and incubated during the winter, when many of the predators that would find them delicious are in hibernation. Males compete fiercely for females, and fights can be and often are to the death. This ganderelk rut is a very special event for many of the peoples within these animals' range, with traditions varying from a ritual hunt to an annual gamble. The colorful feathers of the ganders are prized a well for cloaks and headdresses, even by the industrial peoples of Pras, Tagland, Zanir, Heiltsiuk, and Svipur. The Prassians specifically have a headdress known as the tsiptixm that resembles a shaggy papakhi or telpak that is made out of the hair-like blue-green feathers of the body and tail. 


Ganderelk are extremely vocal animals as well, with some 32 distinct vocalizations. The most distinctive vocalization that they make to the Terran ear sounds almost exactly like a camera shutter. This sound is made when they are facing off a predator, or when males are dueling for females, usually after a loud spitting hiss. It is sometimes made slowly, but usually made several times very quickly. Females produce very loud calls that sound like elk bugles with a loud hissing undertone when calling their chicks, and produce a sound very much like the crying of a human baby when 'cackling' amongst each other.