Re: Kassi oral anatomy (was Re: Kassi Kiss (...))

My apologies for the delay.

Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
> If they are avioid, i.e. bird-like: do they have beaks?
No.  Their mouths are suspiciously humanoid.  :-)  Life on their world
is very different from that on ours.  For example, there are plants
(plant-analog, I suppose would be the technical term) that have a low
level of intelligence (insect-level or so).

> (What does a Kassi look like, anyway?)
They belong to the six-limb group of animals (what would be a good
scientific word for "six-limb"?  hexa-something, I assume?).  The middle
limbs evolved into bat-type wings, i.e., long stretched out fingers with
thin membrane across them.  They have a feather-like covering over their
body, and give birth to live young, and the females lactate.  So,
they're really more mammal-like.  Perhaps bat-like would be a better
term, then.  The wings are useless for flight, their ancestors gave up
flight millions of years ago.  The muscles have atrophied greatly, and
they have become less streamlined.  The wings are used to radiate heat
away from their body, and can be used to fan themselves.  Also, part of
the panic response in their species is an involuntary flapping of the
wings, a vestige of their ancestors' ability to fly away from danger.
The Kassi's species (which I have come to informally refer to as
"birdhead", after a friend's joking slur on them) have six digits on
each limb.  They also have *three* eyes, two in front providing
binocular vision, and a rear eye that therefore lacks depth perception
(and also has much lower resolution), but is useful for detecting
danger.  It also means you can't sneak up on a birdhead.  :-)  They have
a longer lifespan than humans (in technological times, they have life
expectancies of almost 2 Earth centuries), and a good percentage of them
have latent telepathic abilities, the strongest telepaths making up the
Secret Sisterhood, or Traderfolks as they are also known.  The very
strongest of the Secret Sisterhood are the Guild of Communicators, who
form a network of telepaths across all the inhabited regions, allowing
instantaneous communication between any two points.  They are extremely
fertile, having many natural predators.  However, having achieved
protection from most predators and many dangers, the fertility is a
grave danger.  They ration out birthing rights via a powerful natural
contraceptive known as Root of Life.  Various cultures have different
methods of rationing out birthing rights.  Among the Kassi, the Council
of Elders determines which families shall be allowed to birthe each
year, the Family Heads then determine which woman or women among them
shall be given the right or rights.  Which means their populations tend
to be much more stable than human cultures, always ensuring that the
population is somewhat lower than what the agricultural yield of a
typical year can support.  Famines are thus much rarer, as there are
always plenty of stored grain for poor years.  This is why the plant is
known as Root of Life, everyone is aware that to not use it would result
in severe starvation.  Archeological evidence shows that before the
discovery of Root of Life, most children were murdered after birth, some
societies sacrificing them to gods, and some cannibalizing the children.

They're adapted to hot climates.  Their planet is quite a bit warmer
than ours.  They would find our tropics to be comfortable, and
subtropics to be bearable, but would not venture into more temperate
climates, were they to visit Earth.  Their planet's atmosphere also has
more oxygen and more carbon dioxide.  I'm estimating ~23.2% oxygen.
Atmospheric pressure is around 1.2 atmospheres.

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