THE
KUATU
("QUIRRL",
"SQUIRREL") |
Found throughout forests in Sarvonia, these noisy reddish-brown and black-striped rodents can be seen leaping from pine tree to pine tree gathering the seeds out of the cones, their long fluffy tails serving as a balance. The Kuatu is also known as Quirrl, Treejumper, Squirrel, and Ku’errel.
|
|
![]() |
Appearance.
The Kuatu is a small, furry rodent with a plumy tail that appears to outweigh
the rest of its body. It prefers to sit upright on its haunches, and in this
position is about a hand to two hands tall, its tail stretching another
hand-and-a-half behind or below it. Its two front legs are jointed so that it
can bring its small palms together to hold seeds and nuts up to its mouth, while
the back legs are slightly longer and more muscular to allow it to leap from
tree to tree. Tiny sharp claws on all four footpads help the Kuatu cling to the
bark of the trees where it lives.
The head is roughly the size (and shape) of a large chestnut; rounded at the
back where the skull curves to protect the miniscule brain, tapering to a pointy
snout with fine black whiskers and sharp white teeth. Two large dark eyes give
the Kuatu a deceptively peaceful, innocent appearance, not hindered by its
appealing trick of cocking its head to one side and perking its feathery long
ears up.
The fur is short and bi-coloured, with a reddish-brown hue on the back and sides
of the beast, and a lighter tan or grey on its belly. This would usually make
the Kuatu hard to spot from above as it blends into the reddish bark of the
pines it favours, and from below as its lighter shade merges with leaves,
overcast sky, or simply moving shadows. However, its natural camouflage is
usually rendered invalid by its insatiable curiosity and inability to keep still
for long periods at a time. Did the Kuatu not reproduce themselves as
prolifically as most rodents (in fact proverbially, as the northern barbarians
say, “breeding like Quirrls”!) they surely would have become scarce or
non-existent in most parts of Sarvonia!
Slightly darker stripes run along its back, from neck to the base of the tail,
also helping to break up its outline, while the head is often mottled with soft
red-orange hairs which extend along the animal’s fringed ears as well. The
pads of the feet are black or brown.
Colouration varies from area to area; in the Mithral
Mountains the Kuatu are usually reddish with visible darker stripes, while
farther inland on the plains and around central
Santharia they tend to be more of
a tan hue, the stripes standing out as a terracotta colour. Northern Kuatu
(Quirrls) range from dark brownish red to a smoky black where the stripes are
almost invisible.
Males (Kuati) generally have more prominent teeth, and darker colouration.
Females (Kuata) are smaller-tailed and have a double row of tiny nipples on
their belly, three on each side. On the rare occasion when a litter numbers more
than six, the weakest members are shunted away by their siblings and usually die
within a day without nourishment.
Special Abilities.
If talkativeness were to be considered a special ability, the Kuatu would take
honours. It chatters incessantly; warning whistles when humans
or other beasts wander into its territory, purring chitters to its offspring,
loud sociable cheeps and barks to other Kuatu, and little mumbling ‘eeks’
and ‘gurbles’ when simply going about its day-to-day affairs.
Watching a Kuatu looking for a buried and long-forgotten nut cache is as
entertaining as watching a child wander through the marketplace, and it is
difficult not to think of the little thing as having some awareness when it is
constantly ‘complaining’ to itself, ‘announcing’ its successes, and
‘scolding’ its fellow Kuatu. Scholars tell us, though, that this is merely
an illusion, and certainly the tiny skull of the Treejumper could not hold the
ability for language and all its ramifications!
Be that as may, however, the Kuatu has no special abilities beyond its
entertaining and sociable nature. It has a place in the ecosystem and fills that
place with as little effort as any beast of Caelereth
might.
Territory.
The Kuatu’s range is throughout Sarvonia,
as evidenced by its large number of dialectal names. It invariably lives in
well-forested areas and prefers pine, baych or
oak trees, as its main food are
the seeds of pine cones, baychnuts,
and the acorns of oaks.
Habitat/Behaviour.
Kuatu spend most of their time looking for food, finding food, caching that
food, and then forgetting where they have hidden it and scurrying around
frantically looking for it. They also mate randomly and rapidly throughout the
year (in warmer climates), protect their territory vociferously, and raise their
young.
About eighty percent of their time is spent in the trees, so they are excellent
leapers and climbers, and can whisk from branch to branch as quickly as the eye
can follow.
They do have some endearing social customs, if we may be permitted the
expression; at a certain time of the evening, near dusk but before the grey
twilight, every Kuatu in the neighborhood will come out on a branch of its home
tree, sit up on its haunches, and begin a loud trilling. As they do not bother
to harmonize or in any other way demonstrate musical ability, the sound is
rather like a pond full of young frogs or mistuned bells. This evening chorus
only lasts for a few minutes or so, perhaps as long as a quarter-hour, before
the individuals begin to duck back into their nests and the trilling slowly dies
away to a few lone diehards who keep it up until the
sun sinks below the
horizon. They also seem to have their food supplies in common; a Kuatu watching
another find a store it has hidden will not remonstrate or defend its cache,
though it may very well dash down to fill its own cheeks. However, some skeptic
scholars claim this is merely due to lack of memory, pointing to the Kuatu’s
well-observed forgetfulness.
They are reckless, sociable, noisy creatures who are rarely fearful of humans
and seem to have very little concern for most of the other natural dangers that
beset them from day to day. They can be tamed, and many farm children do so for
a short time, although why one would want a sharp-toothed, perpetually hungry
and talkative rodent climbing up and down one’s body throughout the day is
beyond most adults’ comprehension.
Diet.
Primarily, Kuatu eat pine nuts (the small waxy seeds between the prongs of pine
cones), acorns, baychnuts,
and other seeds and nuts. They will also browse on low plants at certain times
of year (generally the pregnant or nursing Kuata females, or the babies whom
they are weaning off Quirrlmilk). Any esculent leaf is fair game and seems to
provide them with extra moisture as well as nutrients. They have been observed
chewing on tree limbs, but this appears to be either a nervous habit arising
from excess energy, or a way to hone and sharpen their teeth. Most of their
fluids are either obtained from licking dew off leaves, or sipping (rather
messily) puddles after rain; they avoid moving or flowing water for some reason.
They enjoy dried fruit, bread crusts, and other human
food when they can get it, as when travelers deliberately feed them or
inadvertently leave their supplies open.
Mating.
Treejumpers come in the usual male and female, with the typical discreet
reproductive organs common to rodents of their size. In the warmer areas of the Sarvonian
continent they seem to be continually in season, or rather have no particular
season, so that all throughout the year one may see adults, young leggy
adolescents, and the leafy nest-balls of gestating/nursing Kuata mothers. In the
North the cycle depends more upon the climate, since the Kuatu must sleep
through the winter, so that they wake and breed in spring, give birth in the
summer, raise their children through fall, and then are ready to go into
estivation in the winter again.
The motherly Kuata, during her gestation, prepares a large, untidy nest of
leaves and moss, all crammed together into the crotch of a tree or in a hollowed
trunk. She gives birth to three to six naked babies at a time and nurses them
with a pale yellowish ‘Quirrlmilk’ which she secretes for up to three
months, after which time the babies are weaned onto chewed-and-spat-out nut mush
and soft green plant leaves, then taught to seek nuts and seeds on their own.
Kuatu grow from blind and furless babies the length of a finger-joint into
sexually mature adolescents in about five months; again, were it not for the
number of their predators and their natural recklessness, we would have enough
Treejumpers to give every woman in Caelereth
a Kuatu coat!
Myth/Lore.
While not significant enough to feature in legend or great stories, the Kuatu
have more than their fair share of similes and other work-a-day expressions.
Ashmarian barbarians
say, when speaking of a man who has more children in his family than they
consider prudent, that he ‘breeds like a Quirrl’. “Quick as a Quirrl” is
another common expression around the Celeste Lowlands, while “Noisy as a Kuatu!’ is likely
to be a derogative hurled by mothers at rampaging children. Woodcutters in the
Hovel Front region (Northern Sarvonia) refer to themselves (but only among themselves) as
‘Treejumpers’ and are proud of their ability to climb and leap from tree to
tree in the process of limbing and felling. “Kuati-skull!” is an insult
schoolboys hurl at each other, (along with the usual ‘numbskull’, ‘thickskull’,
and ‘woodenhead’!) “Were you raised by Kuatu?” an angry fellow will be
sure to bark if you track in a lot of leaves and other litter when entering his
shop.
“Ku’errels have tails and girls have curls / Clouds have rain and trysters
pearls” is a common line from a much longer folksong of the
Mossy Rocks Cove area,
usually quoted to express the sentiment that "everyone has some quality or
ability of worth, no matter their exterior character".
Information provided by
Bard
Judith
|