"Tori are a genus of carnivorous mammals of the Torus family"


Appearance
The tori are distinguished by grace and elegance, while at the same time possessing a powerful and athletic physique. Strongly built, but without excessive bulkiness and overdeveloped muscles. The body of the Torus is wry and light, almost rectangular. The neck is long muscular. The lower line of the chest does not reach the elbow joints, the sternum protrudes forward, the ribs are convex. The upper line of the back and croup forms an almost straight line. The limbs are slender and strong. Tori are artiodactyls, although their hooves are more like tapir fingers, only the hoof is longer. In addition, fingers with claws are located on either side, which move can independently.


The tail is quite thick at the base, thinning towards the end, slightly curved, flexible. At rest, it hangs down, reaching to the hocks. When moving, a torus will keep it higher. If there is a desire or need, the tail can be used a weapon. There is unusual hair growth on the tail: at the base of the tail there is ALWAYS a bald patch of 5-8 cm, after which the hair growth begins. It may grow on either the anterior or the posterior sides of the tail, or cover the entire tail.


The heads of the tori are narrow, with a barely noticeable hump, which is visible only when viewed from the side. The Tori have no lips, therefore the teeth are immediately apparent, very sharp and tightly spaced. Front, upper and lower teeth are mobile. The lateral ones are motionless and smaller than the others in size. Their number is varies from 6 to 8, while the front ones have a constant number: there are four of them (2 pairs) on top, six of them (3 pairs) on the bottom and they are longer than the side ones. Tori's mouthes have internal carnivorous teeth - premolars and molars - very strong dental units, the main task of which is to grind bones and cut meat. The approximate bite force is 750-800 kg / m2. The outer teeth also have dense enamel with pigment, which can have a variety of shades, sometimes depending on the colour of the Torus itself.


The ears of the Tori are large, thin, tapering towards the base, erect - the a torus keeps them high. Very mobile. The tongues of the tori are thick and rough, not very long.


The most important feature of the tori is, of course, the tusks. Tori tusks are not a modified tooth, as in most animals, but a horn - an outgrowth with a bony core. They may be different shapes, sizes, colours, depending on the density of pigment in this area (same as in the hoof and tooth enamel). The grow out of the temporal bone and usually are no longer than the muzzle. The tori can grind down their tusks if they get in the way.


The coat is modified feathers, short, close fitting, shiny, fine and harsh. In some individuals, it shines from a fatty covering and is similar in effect to the iridescence of magpie feathers. The fatty covering also has hydrophobic qualities. Some tori have wings.

Physiology
The tori live up to a hundred years, and it is very rare to find individuals whose age surpasses this mark. As working animals, they are used only up to 60 years and after this age the animal becomes weak and even hunts with difficulty.


A thorus is a warm-blooded creature. Its body temperature is normally 41°C. They can live in almost any climate and anywhere in the world. Tori can be found in the north, south, east and west. As for the domestic ones, they are resilient to any temperature changes. Tori cool themselves and regulate their body temperature by breathing rapidly through their noses as well as via the circulation in their large ears.


The tori have good hearing. Their large ears are able to pick up even the quietest sounds. It is worth noting that Tori are born deaf. Only after 10 days, the pup begins to hear; at first their hearing is horrible, and over time, it improves. Naturally, loud sounds may startle the animal as opposed to sounds that are similar to ones heard in anture. It is worth noting that a torus is very easy to teach to perceive quiet sounds, as, for example, if the owner gave the command in a quieter calm voice. However, if the animal is hyperfocused on something else, then it is worth giving a command with a louder intonation in order to attract its attention.


Their olfactory sense is probably their most amazing and interesting ability. The sense of smell allows him to distinguish many smells, including old ones or those that are at a great distance. Tori are known to be very sensitive to smells. Using this sense, it is able not only to find food and locate other animals at considerable distances, but also to determine whether they one is familiar or a stranger, what sex they are, what their physical and emotional state is. With the help of the sense of smell, a torus will distinguish a huge number of objects and freely navigate the terrain. It constantly senses smells, and it would be more correct to say - lives in the world of smells. Tori mostly rely on their sense of smell, so they are not as afraid of losing their sight as losing their scent.


The structure of the vocal apparatus is similar to that of a bird, which gives the Tori the ability to make various sounds. They have good memory and often parody sounds they've heard, and may even consciously use words and form whole phrases. Domestics are able to learn Stradomorian and other languages and thus communicate.


It is worth noting that tori are adept at climbing in steep, rocky terrain, using their hooves the way goats use them. It is quite a mystery how they manage not to fall, because they are, in fact, quite hefty.


When we watch how the tori move along sheer cliffs with surprising grace, we wonder with amazement how they do it. Tori are not at all miniature in size, however, they move with such ease. On average, a torus weighs 400-600 kg, and a large specimen reaches a weight of 800 kg. That is a big animal to be mountain climbing. The habitat of the mountain Torus, who live closer to the peaks, starts from 1.5 km to 4 km above the sea level.


When moving, the utilise small ledges, gripping onto them with the pads on their paws. The tori are very agile, using their tail for balance and their sharp eyesight for finding ledges to grip on. Even in early childhood, pups go to the mountains with their parents and train their muscles. In the west and north of Stradomore local thori jump not only on rocks, but also on trees. This is how they get their food. In rocky places, they forage for moss, grass, leaves.


Rhythm of life. Tori sleep 12–14 hours a day, that is, 50% of the time they are dozing, 30% are awake and just lying around, and only 20% are actually active. How much sleep a torus needs depends on several factors: activity, age, and health. Pups and old tori sleep more than healthy adults. They sleep lying down.


Vision. The tori have great night vision. Due to this, the Tori see objects that are invisible to a humanoid eye in the darkness.


Their vision is binocular, it offers depth perception. At the same time, the animal does not make quick eye movements following the moving object - it does not have such a need, since it sees well with the entire retina. But Thorus' vision is less sharp. He sees objects of medium size at a distance of 100-150 m. However, this is not important for Torus, since its vision relies mostly on movement. In particular, a torus perfectly distinguishes the movements of another animal or a Stradomor, including reading the gestures and facial expressions. A torus can detect a fleeing deer at a distance of up to 400 m, and after certain training - up to 800 m. In turn, if the deer does not move, then Torus may not notice it even at a distance of 100 m, until it detects it by smell.



Diet. The tori are omnivorous, but it is difficult for them to digest everything, such as bones and bark. For this, a special enzyme is secreted, capable of breaking down most of the organic food. It is similar in molecular structure to their venom and is included the composition of this enzyme. The secretion occurs when absolutely necessary and at the request of the torus itself. On the lower and upper jaws there are glands that secrete the enzyme, and thus in the oral cavity there is a mixture with saliva enzymes, which increases its activity.


The main food of any torus is meat. However, it is not possible to get it in sufficient quantities in all biomes, so the species has adapted to eating almost everything.


In the north, catching something alive is quite problematic, so tori have to look for berries, grass under the snow, or roots. For the same reason, cases of attacks on settlements are common there.


The southern ones, although they live by the sea, do not eat fish, at most - crayfish, turtle or bird eggs, snakes, frogs, lizards. They are intolerant to fish. The smell of fish can cause vomiting in pups. Due to the way their special enzyme reacts with fish, it turns into a dangerous compound and poisons the torus.


In the west, closer to the forests and mountains, there is already a wider variety of food: bears, foxes, deer, elks, goats, birds, rodents, wild boars, and so on.


In the east, in the deserts, food is much scarcer, as is in the cold habitats as well, as there are mostly only small rodents and lizards with insects, but here the tori do not eat people as often as their counterparts in the north. They do however steal. They steal chickens, geese, dogs, cats, all kinds of livestock from farms - everything that is edible. Often farmers try to cull the local tori, it is mostly for naught.


Coastal tori eat other foods and, if nutrients are scarce, will store them, like camels or hibernating animals. Not only the coastal ones have learned this kind of survival. So, for example, the northern ones are also able to adapt the body to extreme hunger. However, often coastal tori have enough food and do not have to starve. Seabirds, crustaceans, crabs, mollusks, turtles, lizards, algae and everything that comes ashore in edible form, this animal will gladly eat.

Poison and its properties
Tori have poison - this is the second special trait of this species. The poison does not harm the tori themselves, but helps in hunting and eating food, especially if the Torus is already old - with age, the poison does not weaken, but rather strengthen its properties. If the victim is bitten by a young Torus, it will either be weakened or simply temporarily fall unconscious, but if an adult Torus injects one with venom, then this is potentially life threatening. The strength of the poison depends on the color of the oral cavity. If the mouth and tongue are blue and purple, the poison is very weak; if the shades are green, yellow and orange, the poison is of medium degree, and the most dangerous poison is shades of red, brown and very rarely black. The mobile fangs possess a groove that funnels the poison when needed; the poisonous glands are located in the upper part of the jaw in the palatine region.


There is also an exception to the rule - if the mouth is white, the toxicity of poison is difficult to determine, as it can range wildly from the deadliest to the mildest varieties.


Torus venom is necrotoxic, similar in action to the venoms of spiders and snakes. This venom acts on the tissues and bones of the victim, liquidating them for easier consumption. However, not all animals are affected in this way.

For example, most fish are lucky in this regard - the Tori do not eat them due to the way their poison enzyme interacts with their muscles on a chemical level. Their enzyme accelerates the putreficatory processess in fish meat, releasing toxic substances quicker. Toruses are not scavengers, respectively, and do not have a highly acidic stomach, therefore, their sensitive gut microbiome cannot handle the rapidly decomposing fish. If a torus eats it, he will certainly be poisoned by toxic substances. Very small puppies, not yet properly trained by their mother, may eat foul-smelling prey, even though the smell of rotting fish is naturally repulsive to them. If the pup survives the poisoning, it will never touch fish again in its life. Adults who have never encountered fish may try to bite one out of curiosity, but after getting a whiff of the rapidly decaying flesh, even with the slightest smell of still living fish will be revolting to them. Please note that the amino acid composition of the fish and the composition of the torus saliva enzyme are somewhat different from the composition we are used to.


Death from the bite of a torus occurs in about an hour. All this time, the predator will watch over its dying prey, and when it expires, the animal starts eating. Tori poison can be released in different quantities depending on the size of the victim, but it acts the same on everyone: at first there is a slight intoxication, after that there is a dull pain in the bones, as if something is compressing and twisting them inside, after that - changes in perception, and to the victim it seems that the whole world has changed colors, like a sudden manifestation of color blindness. Then hallucinations - objects or creatures which will scare the victim. It goes into a wild panic and tries to shield itself from all directions. As a result, death from organ failure. On other tori, the poison of his relatives acts as a sleeping pill, amd the Torus itself is resistant to its own poison.

Genetics and Mind
The genetics of Tori colouration is very diverse and they have not only natural colors, but also completely unnatural ones, for example, green, purple, blue. The eye color of Tori is most diverse and the most important thing is that the pupil is never black - it is always darker than the iris. A blind eye has a pupil that is lighter than the iris. Eye with blindness can becompletely gray, depends on how it was damaged. The tongue can also have different colors, and even a variety of patterns.


Tori are fairly intelligent creatures. The level of their intelligence corresponds is the same as a fifteen year old human. Learning is not difficult and does not take much time, but it is worth training a torus from an early age, the same goes for speech.


Reproduction: courtship. Pregnancy. Childbirth.

The mating season of the Tori is called "rut". It usually lasts about a month, in rare cases one and a half, this is due to the fact that males travel a long distance in search of females, because they live in different territories; moreover, throughout the full mating season the Torus is able to fertilize about 8-10 females. Ruts happen in the spring and late autumn, closer to November.


During the rut, the males lose a lot of weight. This is facilitated by aggressive behavior, emotional stress, hormonal surges, constant bussiness with courting females and lack of time for feeding. All of this depletes their body of its resources.


Females begin to participate in reproduction from the age of three. A favorable time for fertilization is spring, the Terrians bred the autumn rut out of domestic Tori. It is at this time that females most often begin their "call". In the wild, the female Torus calls the male with a song and releases pheromones so nearby males can sense her location. The mating song itself is varied and individual, each Torus selects the sounds and the sequence personally.


Fertilization is possible during ovulation in females. Its onset can be determined by the enlarged ovaries and the behavior of the animal. The open genital tract, the release of fluid and the squealing of the female signal the beginning of the "call". The female raises her tail and sets her hind legs wide. Wild females choose their own male.


In the wild, males fight for a female, this is a prerequisite for a duel between two male Tori. The females, however, sometimes also choose the loser. Mating duels serve a display purpose, and the female evaluates the male's different attributes, not just his strength. If there is no potential rival, then the male begins to dance for the female and sing in a peculiar way; in this case, it is much easier to win her over, as she has no choice.


The gestation period of Tori is 10-18 months. The female usually births one cub, rarely two. Just before delivery, a wild female seeks shelter in her territory, where she can safely give birth and hide her pups for the first six months of their life. Until this time, the female is thoroughly preparing for the birth, she can even stock up on food, like mushrooms, nuts, even grass. She also makes her “housing” more comfortable for herself and the cub. So that predators or other unwanted guests do not harm the new family, the female looks for foul-smelling grass as a repellant from other predators.


Childbirth lasts about two hours, after the mother licks her baby and helps it to its feet, but until it gets stronger, she tries not to let it out of their den. The cub feeds on its mother's milk and sometimes it can gnaw food from the reserves. Breastfeeding lasts six months, after which the mother teaches the puppy to hunt and obtain plant foods until he is two years old. Females may also develop the “continuous motherhood” syndrome, in which case she does not let go of the baby and takes care of him almost all her life. Usually such specimens do not survive, as the torus is not independent enough to provide for itself. After two years, an already adult Torus receives part of the territory from its mother and expands it, sometimes taking it from other animals or other tori.

Sexual dimorphism
Scientists found a way to distinguish between female tori and male tori by a protruding dimple in the groin or the presence of an udder (nipples), the latter of which are only visible when breastfeeding. Until now, sexing tori had been extremely difficult lest you look under its tail. The Birkogs are much more difficult to sex due to their dense fur.


Now, it has become easier to determine the sex of tiru, as they began to be domesticated. It became possible to find out the sex at 10-12 weeks of pregnancy of the female with the help of ultrasound. As for the wild ones, in this case only capture and inspection or very close observation helps, since the behavior of males differs from females, including their locomotion. Females are quieter, more agile and elegant, and male movement patterns are sharper and broader, however, in order to determine the sex using this method, you need to watch Torus for a very long time.


Voice. It was believed that only males can produce sounds in the lower, bassier range, but it turned out that Torus of any gender is able to imitate any sounds, even if he it is taught to speak, and females developing a more "feminine" voice is not a given, as is males speaking in a lower voice - it all depends on their teacher and what their Birkuna teaches them.


Sexual behavior, another way to determine gender. Sexual behavior is shown only by males. They may chase females, flirt with them, show aggression, bite them on the neck, nod their heads, dance or fight with other males. Females sometimes imitate this behavior during childhood, but before the age of one.

Hierarchy of subspecies
Tori are known for social bheaviour. When several individuals meet, this congregation is lead by a female, as she cares for the offspring, is able to hunt, find shelter for herself and her cub, and also has the right to choose a male that impresses her more.