Ghyll:Mute Chukarandos

Mute chukarandos are the domesticated form of the Common chukarandos. Properly raised they produce several useful byproducts.

Identification and Field Marks

All chuckarandos – members of the ghastly-things-with-fur-that-lay-eggs family - have certain traits in common: thick, brown, curly fur with black stripes and a white underbelly. They can grow as large as a nanit in length when standing on all three legs. They have elongated snouts and jaws that can open nearly a meter wide. Inside their powerful jaws they have flat teeth with sharp serrated edges for grinding. Their saliva is quite acidic and can leave a nasty burn. "Indeed, having a Mute chukarando chewing on your ankle is rather worse than getting divorced and finding out that your future ex-wife had genital warts after all, but only just barely."

Mute Chuckarandos do not have the distinctively loud “growl-squawk” of the Common chuckarando however \[\[link to fairy-penguin sounds\]\], this having been bred out of the species – and hence the label “mute”.

Biology

Chuckerandos’ primary food source is the fefferberry. In fact, the decimation of the Evesque Valley wild fefferberry bush is due largely to the introduction of chuckarandos to the Valley roughly around -100 EC* an event related to the extinction of the budgerigar birds in the wild.

For the chuckarando, the task of digesting a fefferberry bush (not just the berries, but the entire bush) requires a remarkable fortitude. It is aided in this by the phenomenon of Awal shrinkage. The powerful jaws of the chuckarando mash the bush and the berries into an emulsion that combined with the acidic nature of chuckarando saliva created a waxy solution.

In the Chuckarandos’ first stomach, the mixture is heated and combined with the digestive spelgof. The growl of the chuckarando makes the mixture obithly contract and eases its passage to the second stomach where the nutrients are absorbed. A further growl and squawk allows the chuckarando to pass the depleted material. During this process the Chuckarando glows faintly orange.

Mute Chuckarandos, on the other hand, digest much slower and without the sounds of other chuckarandos around them it means they are not such voracious eaters. It also means they require a special diet of prepared fefferberry mash. It was the Smallwood family who discovered the breeding required to render the Common Chuckarando mute. Mute Chuckarandos cannot survive in the wild as they are unable to digest unprocessed food.

Similar Species

Common chuckarandos are also related to the extraordinarily rare Extraordinarily Rare Chuckarando and the Tuckarando. Children may recognize Fijjit Mejora’s long-time friend P’Jubal in the best-selling “Fijjit and the Fefferberry Failure” as a Tuckarando.

Habitat

Mute Chuckarandos are completely reliant on domestication. They lack the adaptations to survive in the wild. They are raised primarily in the Evesque Valley. Baron Claude Lloyd Albert Smallwood is the foremost expert on the breeding and raising of Mute Chuckarandos alive today.

Common chuckarandos live primarily in the Andelphracian River Valley, although smaller bands of Common chuckarandos live throughout the Evesque Valley where they are considered a nuisance animal. Tuckerandos live in the Sarfelogian Mountain valleys.

Economic Importance

Because Mute Chuckarando guano isn’t completely depleted of luminescence it is therefore a vital component in the manufacture of Luminescent manuscripts.

Chuckarando flesh has a light flavor that is slightly fruity and is usually prepared with fefferberry chutney or a light Adlorst sauce.

The fur of Mute Chuckarandos is used in the lining of gloves, shoes and cold-weather gear for its superior thermal qualities.

Chuckarando teeth are used in the crafting of Freege Horn keys.

Footnotes

• presumably by the Carsokians.

Citations: Fefferberry, Tuckerando, Andelphracian River Valley

--Dr. H. L. Ackroyd 19:32, 18 Dec 2004 (EST)