Dryad
From Sedes Draconis
Neodryopus vagasylvestris
- Phylum Mollusca
- Class Cephalapoda
- Order Octopoda
- Suborder Dryopoda
- Family Neodryopodidae
Dryads are a sentient species of dryopod octopus. They are the only living species of genus Neodyopus, but there are at least two other genera of Family Neodryopodidae.
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Distribution
Dryads are found in the mangrove swamps and rainforests beyond the Edgewall on the Hajasith. Most live in small hunter tribes, many of whom have territories deep in the rainforests, away from the coast. Some of the coastal populations are beginning to develop agricultural (or rather, aquacultural) civilizations.
Physical Characteristics
Dryads have an arm span of about 130 to 170 cm and weigh 25 to 40 kg at maturity. Dryads continue to grow throughout their lives, though at a much slower rate after 11 years. Very old individual dryads can have an arm span of as much 270 cm and weigh as much 90 kg.
Like most octopods, dryads' skin contains numerous pigment cells that can be expanded and contracted to rapidly change the color of the skin, and even create complex patterns.
Life Cycle
Gestation Period: 50-75 days
Incubation Period: 25-30 days
Physical Maturity: 1 year / 8-11 years
Life Span: 55 years
See the Life Cycle Key for definitions of characteristics.
The Baby-Harvest
Many dryads do not live at the edge of the great bay where the young make their transition to their land-based adolescent phase. They must migrate to the shore to collect the infants. The larval stage is a period just under a year, so the adults returning to collect young mate and lay eggs just before leaving the bay, which become a new generation of infants at the same time next year.
There is considerable competition between social groups over prime locations and early selection, in order to secure the fittest infants. The traditional trade-off has been between leaving the tribe's hunting territory early, and securing a location, or leaving late and arriving well-fed and ready to oust an early tribe.
Some tribes, especially one with near-coast territories have in the last few centuries began to build permanent buildings at favored locations on the bay, kept in repair the rest of the year, in order to better claim the spot and hold off late-comers. In the last few generations, some of these tribes have started to experiment with aquaculture, to be able to sustain an extended, numerous, and well-fed presence at the bay.
These experiments face yearly incursion from arriving, inland tribes, but they have been notably successful over all. Their sudden increase in competitive exclusion over the best spots has led to an corresponding increase in the violence of the competition, and the frequency of kidnappings as a solution for excluded tribes.
Evolution
Dryads are the final extrapolation of the evolutionary trends of the Neodryopodidae. The young, instead of forming crèches join adult groups where they are protected and provided for during their adolescence, and taught to hunt. Dryads have been so successful with this strategy that they have out-competed other neodryopodid species for the limited ecological space available, and few other neodryopodid species still exist in the region.
Ironically, the large, intelligent, social dryads now often take, in their snares and coordinated hunts, the very birds and monkeys that forced them into their extreme evolutionary path.
The major shift that happened in the evolution of the dryads is one away from semelparity, which is a characteristic of almost all other octopods, meaning they only live to reproduce once, and then they die. Dryads are iteroparous, they came produce young multiple times during their adult lifespan. This evolved in concert with multi-age groups, longer life-spans and higher cognitive abilities.
As higher cognition developed, cultural information became increasingly important. In response, lifespans increased, since it was no longer as a good strategy to simply replace a single adult with several adolescents, because now the adult represented a more fit individual, due to the investment required to create a knowledgeable adult. Also young survived much better if they could benefit, through cultural transmission, from these stores of accumulated information.
All this meant that a new generation would survive better if the adults stayed around, rather than just protecting the eggs until they hatch, and then dying as other octopods do.
But it should be noted there is no way for dryads to identify their offspring (or the offspring, their parents), and the benefit gained by the adults by adopting young into their group and raising them is not a direct evolutionary benefit in that they are not raising their own young most of the time. Instead the adults derive their benefit from it by reinforcing the numbers of their social group with able-bodied new adolescents.
Categories: Biology | Hajasith | Peoples
