| Spitting Featherfoot | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| |||
| Naming | |||
| Binomen | Pennapus saltans | ||
| Morphology | |||
| Body type | Gerbil-like | ||
| Intelligence | |||
| Sentience | Sentient | ||
| Sapience | Non-Sapient | ||
| Ecology | |||
| Habitat | Desert | ||
| Diet | Herbivorous | ||
| Locomotion | Bipedal leaper | ||
| Behind the Scenes | |||
| Universe | After Man | ||
| Created by | Dougal Dixon | ||
| Designed by | Dougal Dixon | ||
The Spitting Featherfoot (Pennapus saltans) is a small, bipedal rodent species which evolved circa 50 million years in the future. Members of this species inhabit the great deserts of Africa and Asia, and are known for consuming poisonous plants and storing the toxins from the plants in their saliva. One of their main predators is the Leaping Devil.
The Featherfoot's habits are usually nocturnal, but when forced into activity during the day (for instance, if a predator disturbs it), it will cope with the excessive heat by producing copious amounts of saliva and covering its body in foam. This also confers protection due to the foam's toxicity. If still threatened, the Featherfoot may also spit concentrated toxic foam at its aggressor. However, this defense mechanism does pose the great danger of dehydration, and thus can only be used in the direst situations.
Appearances[]
- After Man: A Zoology of the Future, by Dougal Dixon (1981)