General Appearance
The azdov species was designed by Klivord (a.k.a. Timuron ).
That’s me (the owner of this website).
The appearance of the azdov body can be described as having draconic, feline, and some even equine elements. Apart from their muzzle, their posture is ironically similar to that of humans and so is their average height.
Their signature features are their “ears”, prongs, and tail. Their tail is simple, pretty much just a lion tail. The ears are not ears at all, but triangular appendages with bones inside of them. These “ear plates” operate much like the lateral line of a fish but amplified. Their third signature feature is their prongs. The prongs are bony extensions at the openings of their mouths covered in skin and fur. There are two prongs on the upper lip and one on the lower jaw. The single lower prong is posterior to the two upper prongs. Azdoves only have teeth in the form of molars in the back of their mouths.
Azdoves are chesmomammalians and are covered in fur. Healthy normal azdoves always have two fur colors. One for the majority of their fur and a secondary color for their “ear” markings and the tuft of their paintbrush-like tail. Occasionally males will have random secondary birthmarks on their chest, but they are always symmetrical.
Sex, Sexuality, and Reproduction
On average male azdoves live to be 90 earth years and females live to be 100 earth years.
That is about 32.85 chesmian ror for males and 36.5 chesmian ror for females. Azdoves spend the first 13 to 15 earth years of their lives without a biological sex. Once they hit puberty the sex chromosomes they received at birth activate and they become either male or female. There is an extra set of chromosomes that on rare occasions allows for an azdov to develop as both a male and a female, and this is called a bothsex azdov. In even rarer cases, congenital defects and various diseases in early life may hinder puberty all together and result in an azdov that remains sexless their whole lives, this is called a nosex azdov and being nosex is considered a disorder. In general, 49% of healthy adults without defects are male, 49% are female, and 2% are bothsex. Nosex azdoves are about 1 in 1000. Nosex azdoves are most common on highly polluted planets.
Azdoves give live birth. An azdov female is pregnant for about the same period of time a human female would be. Birthing is much less painful for azdoves than humans. An azdov mother typically only has one or two ‘dovlets per pregnancy but is capable of having up to a dozen in her lifetime, especially on new azdov colony planets. Four to five is the average birth rate in rural environments and three to four is the typical birth rate for urban areas. Only on extremely populated planets such as New Chesmo and its population of over 1 trillion does the azdov birthrate fall to replacement levels. Despite these high birth rates (high relative to humans), overpopulation usually isn’t a problem because azdoves are usually fairly willing to move to other planets when needed if they can afford to.
Newborn azdoves (called ‘dovlets) are born with weak acid glands, closed eyes, and without secondary fur coloration. Their eyes open after a week. In their first year of life their secondary coloration will come in and their acid glands will begin strengthening to normal levels. Until their acid is at full strength they must drink maternal milk.
Some azdoves don’t appear to develop secondary coloration because their primary and secondary fur colors are the same color. Sometimes these azdoves will artificially apply a different secondary fur color with fur dye.
Azdoves don’t age the same way humans do, signs of old age don’t usually appear until 70 earth years of age in females whereas in males signs of old age don’t appear at all. Despite this males still die before females due to a horrific condition nicknamed “death puberty” which is a form of azdov testosterone poisoning. When an azdov first becomes male, azdov testosterone production gradually increases throughout the course of their entire life and by the time they are elders (between ages 70 and 80) it reaches a toxic point where the fur begins to darken and the azdov man begins to become uncharacteristically aggressive until they start having episodes where they have dangerous outbursts. Eventually the person the male azdov was is totally erased and all that’s left is a snarling animal that tries to digest everything that approaches it. Before this happens, the elderly male is taken from their family and put in a special facility. If the family doesn’t choose to euthanize their loved one they’ll die from either organ failure or exhaustion. Bothsex azdoves also tend to get death puberty.
Biochemistry & Internal Anatomy
For the most part, azdov biochemistry is identical to human biochemistry. Azdoves are terrestrial, have red blood, breath oxygen, are carbon based, and drink water. The only major differences are their extremely powerful digestive system, their fat tolerance, and their mode of blood circulation. Azdov cells are also more oxygen efficient.
They tolerate fat levels being high in their bodies via an extra type of blood cell called a yellow blood cell (or lipocyte) that removes fat from the walls of veins and arteries and transports them to fat tissues where they don’t impede blood flow.
Their mouths produce azdovic oral acid in order to instantly digest any organic foreign matter that enters the mouth. This acid is produced by the oral acid glands . A byproduct of this phase of the digestion process is black smoke that goes into the throat, then up into the nasal cavity and out the nostrils. The azdov itself is protected form its own acid via layers of mucus wherever the acid normally is. This is why the inside of the azdov mouth is unaffected by the acid, but an azdov licking the hand of another azdov would burn that azdov’s hand. Azdoves are unable to taste, but they can smell. They are very voracious regardless of their senses.
Internal azdov anatomy is mostly similar to that of humans with some quirks. While lipocytes and oral acid glands have already been mentioned, some other notable quirks of azdov anatomy include the livreas, gall bladders, intestines, and biocore. The livreas is located near the stomach and does the jobs of both a liver and a pancreas. The azdov has two gall bladders and three intestines.
The azdoves have a biocore which acts as both the heart and lungs of the azdov. Although being similar anatomically to a heart and lungs, the biocore doesn’t need to maintain a consistent “pulse” to keep functioning, so an azdov can hold their biocore rate and their breathing for a very short period of time if they wanted.
It’s actually not accurate to say azdoves even have a pulse, as their blood circulation can be more accurately described as a cycle of the biocore sucking blood in from the veins and then squirting it into the arteries, in rhythm with breathing. The heart like part of the biocore does have valves to insure the sucking and squirting happen in the correct directions.
(The azdov reproductive system is currently not depicted in any diagrams on the website.)
Psychology
The Azdoves are generally known an obsessive race infatuated with the ideas of success and obligation. They are most notably incapable of committing suicide.
Chesmo & Azdov Evolution
Originating on the planet Chesmo around two million years ago, the modern Azdov or Hablo vulgaris is a member of the family Hablodae, the order Acidosae, the class Chesmomammalia, the phylum Chesmochordata, and the kingdom Chesmoanimalia.
Chesmo is an arid world orbiting in the habitable zone of a red-orange dwarf called Amande. It’s hardly any bigger than Earth and only has slightly stronger gravity. The Chesmian hydrosphere operates almost reverse to Earth’s. There are huge freshwater oceans starting at the poles fed by ice melt and by sea-ward rivers. These huge super lakes drain through mega rivers which branch out into hot flat basins full of salt with an evaporation rate that prevents them from filling up. Evaporated water circles back poleward and comes down as rain (or snow if it reaches the ice caps). Chesmo also has extensive cave networks which have their own rivers and lakes.
If desert iron oxides get mixed in due to a sandstorm, rain can fall as blood rain. Blood rain is common enough on Chesmo that local azdoves don’t get disturbed by it. The planet’s atmosphere is 77% Nitrogen, 20% Oxygen, and 3% Trace Gases.
The lineage of chesmoanimals that azdoves are a part of evolved acidic mouths to be able to better consume any of the tough organisms on the planet. This was crucial as famines were common for much of early azdov history. It’s because of their strong mouth acid that azdoves cannot taste. Males evolved the ability to resist fat related diseases so they could hold on to fat deposits so that they could focus more on feeding their families than themselves.
Like humans, azdoves were long distance endurance predators that chased their prey over long distance. When not hunting food, azdoves foraged all forms of flora as well. Azdoves are omnivores.
One of the biggest anomalies regarding the planet Chesmo is the fact that it should be tidally locked to its star, Amande, but isn’t. Some theorize a traumatic impact during its formation gave Chesmo it’s rotation, others theorize there is an ancient pre-azdov device inside the planet maintaining Chemo’s rotation somehow. Of course, the clergy will tell you that I’awa himself ensured the planet would keep spinning right before he went to rest.