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FRIC — Viewing Species: Scale Mimic

Guest@FRIC:~$ fric detail 'scale mimic'
Loading species file #56

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Species Info
Grouping: Elemental, Arthropod
Rarity: Common
Time Per Stage: 19 Hours
Wild Caught: 6919
Captive Bred: 80
Total Population: 6999

Wild Caught Acquisition

Excavation — Acquired by excavating at the Great Plume.

Common Chroma Breakdown

Red
885 Total
Green
555 Total
Blue
469 Total
Purple
478 Total
Orange
444 Total
Pink
528 Total
White
582 Total
Tan
536 Total

Rare Chroma Breakdown

Obsidian
322 Total
Silver
324 Total
Gold
314 Total
Bronze
299 Total
Rainbow
325 Total
Sapphire
305 Total
Emerald
330 Total
Ruby
303 Total

Baby Stage Notes

This tiny egg is perfectly spherical, but also heavier than it looks, with a texture like corroded metal. It's hard not to feel as if one has seen a material like this before, but it's hard to tell with all the metallic creatures on this planet.

Juvenile Stage Notes

The spherical egg hatched into a disconcerting-looking, eight-legged worm-like creature. Its main body is white and segmented, but its head and legs are a deep blue which seems just as familiar as the egg it emerged from. The larva mostly seems to eat vegetation scrap it's given, especially leafy greens, but care must be taken to keep it away from metal.

Adult Stage Notes

The Scale Mimic is, as its name suggests, a tiny parasitic arthropod that mimics the scales of a Fulminifer. Though these creatures are herbivores as larvae, once they reach adulthood they exclusively parasitize the dragons whose scales they mimic, feeding off the same metals which would otherwise reach the Fulminifer's outer armor. Because of this, the adult Scale Mimic takes on the colour scheme of the host, to better blend in with its surrounding neighbors and avoid notice by the dragon.

Scale Mimics are able to fly long distances in search of a suitable host. When it finds one, it nestles in between the Fulminifer's scales and works away at the root of one scale in particular, trying to loosen it. When the scale is finally shed and falls away, the parasite takes position at the follicle, burying its proboscis in the empty space to feed on the oil that coats the Fulminifer's scales with metal and pigment. The dragon may experience minor irritation in the area for a time, but as the Mimic settles in, this fades. Most wild adult Fulminifers carry at least a few Scale Mimics, which are naturally weaker than real scales but otherwise almost indistinguishable.

Common Chroma

Red
Green
Blue
Purple
Orange
Pink
White
Tan

Rare Chroma

Obsidian
Silver
Gold
Bronze
Rainbow
Sapphire
Emerald
Ruby


Artwork: Keileon