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Physical description:
Height: 50 cm
Length: 188 cm
Weight: 15 Kg
Viperwolves are very thin and long felidae creatures with short, grey-ish fur over a thick but very flexible skin. They have long snouts shaping a triangular skull with narrow sharp ears but that does not make them yet canidae. Due to their retractable claws and high vertebrae count with 240 as adults, they additionally have retractable fangs, slit like pupils and thin boney tails.
Mobility:
Viperwolves are very quick and mobile creatures that can traverse through Verathyn's forests somewhere between 56 to 64 kmph.
Their claws help them dig into surfaces and by rapidly coiling their bodies, they use the force of their inertia to propel themselves forward. By these methods of speed and traversion, they don't have any means of stopping or diverting their path which causes them to tumble through their environment or on top of their prey. This is where the high vertebrae count helps with their survival. Due to the flexibility, when their bodies do run into anything, they take next to no damage as the force of impact will travel through without resistance.
Diet:
Viperwolves are carnivores, preying primarily on smaller vertebrates such as birds, reptiles, and fish. However, their diet is not restricted to smaller creatures. An adult viperwolf will also hunt larger prey including devilhogs and people when given the opportunity. In these cases, they will use their elongated bodies to constrict and incapacitate the victim, crushing it into a state that is better for feeding. While eating others of its species has not been documented, some researchers theorized that there's a possibility it does happen in large or overcrowded dens.
Lifespan:
The average lifespan of a viperwolf is around 20 years for both inside and outside The Architect's basin.
Life stages:
Viperwolves have only 3 stages of development:
Egg: a clutch of eggs can consist of up to 10 at a time.Juvenile: from hatchling to 8 months old, juveniles learn how to walk, run and hunt from the safety of their nest and den.Adult: Once reaching adulthood, they usually leave the hatching nest to create their own or inhabit an empty one within the communal den.
Hunting tactics:
Viperwolves are pack hunters in groups up to 10 or 12, making them a very deadly encounter if anyone was to find any number of them together. Because of their slow digestion though, they thankfully don't need to hunt or eat as often unless they have been on the move for long periods of time.
Once they have found a prey in sight, they will utilize their speed to chase down and throw themselves at their prey, biting them when necessary. Their retractable fangs help them hold on to their target, reserved to sink in a mild poison that will exhaust the prey.
Viperwolves hunting tactics are versatile to the environment not just across the forest floors and along trees but also vertically along cliffs and tall vertical walls.
The ones that live along the outer basin walls are particularly dangerous, as they will climb high through the crumbling buildings and shrubbery unseen. Once food is spotted such as a bird or person, they throw themselves from great heights down onto their targets to begin their feasting habits.
Social behavior:
Despite living in large clusters, Viperwolves tend to be very anti-social and disinterested in the others within the den except their mated pair or juvenile offspring. While they do reference each other's social behavior, especially if food is discovered nearby, they do not have coordinated habits.
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Preferred ecosystem:
Viperwolves prefer living within the density of forest underbrush, among the roots of trees and thickly vined areas. This makes it easier to construct their dens by packing together leaves, twigs, and vines into the roots and stems of plants to make a largely woven cocoon. This cocoon branches off into individual nests but retains a large opening at the top where they climb out and fall in.
By measuring the size and heights of these walls, researchers have learned to create a metric to calculate how many viperwolves might be living within each den from safe distances.
Shelter behavior:
These lanky creatures live within dens, the smallest being 6, and no limit to their numbers except survival, predators, and if the environment can accommodate the size of their dens. The largest observed viperwolf den was estimated to have a number somewhere around 60 of them, taking up almost half of one of the large basalt islands.
migration/seasonal changes:
Viperwolves do not migrate during any time of the year, even through rolling storms. If a Viperden was made poorly, that the den fills up with water because there was no irrigation, then the pack will collectively abandon that den to either find a new pack or make a new home in a better location.
Conservation status:
Viperwolves have no threat to their population and are classified as least concerned in regards to species' survival. There are no hunting restrictions set by the Verathyn's leader nor the adventurer's guild. This is emphasized by the fact that some of the materials that can be harvested from hunting of these animals has become one of the world's unique and exclusive trades.