Festering Wound (ID: sWH8qU)

Grouping: Mammalian

The Kreekiki is a curious animal, resembling a giant bat with four wings, and is a distant relative of the Lutreo. It lacks eyes, but makes up for its blindness with a set of four ears and long whiskers to navigate its environment. Its superb sense of hearing and shrill, high chirps during flight combine to create impressive sonar, allowing it to avoid obstacles and predators as if it had perfect vision. Its whiskers can sense even the slightest vibration in the air, and have photoreceptors near the roots, so it registers and instinctively avoids high light levels. The sensitivity of these whiskers registers not only air vibrations, but also subtle vibrations in the walls; Kreekiki are known to use this trait to fly away from an approaching Tunnelwyrm before it even knows the bat was there.

Kreekiki live in vast underground tunnel networks, where cave walls trap their sonar and give them a three-dimensional impression of the tunnels and caves around them. Though they fly to the surface to eat fruit and the occasional insect, they naturally subsist on bioluminescent moss and lichen. The photoreceptors in their whiskers let them determine where this moss grows. The patterns on their wings, however, seem to serve very little purpose for the bats themselves; they are not used to attract mates, are often too bright to serve as camouflage in the dark tunnels, and most patterns are not striking enough to intimidate predators. However, the remnants of eye sockets in their skulls suggest the Kreekiki once had eyes, and if this is the case, it is likely the wing patterns are simply leftovers of that earlier creature.

Artwork: Keileon