Editing The Yaotl (section)

== Biology ==

Yaotls are large, six-legged creatures bearing a superficial resemblance to certain species of Terran salamanders, although  their biology is so freakishly divergent that none could suggest a link between them and Terran life. Yaotls are omnivorous and even slightly lithovorous, and possess sharp, bony plats in lieu of teeth capable of both shearing through and crushing their food. Yaotl demonstrate trilateral rather than bilateral symmetry, with the surplus limbs being located on the organism's back and providing it with high degrees of mobility in enclosed environments such as Yaotl structures or the subterranean warrens they call home. It is worth noting that non-cyborgized or otherwise modified Yaotl specimens are vanishingly rare, with each individual of the species apparently 'improving' themselves at every possible opportunity. 

Yaotls are defined most by their bizarre system of reproduction. Yaotls are naturally hermaphroditic; each individual possesses the means to both produce eggs. Yaotl eggs, however, are fertilized by absorbing genetic material from around the egg; this means that the egg must be implanted in another Yaotl to be fertilized. Since Yaotl pregnancy results in several young Yaotl chewing their way out of the unfortunate parent, a Yaotl will not willingly mate outside of their defined mating season, when hormones force them into a state of insatiable lust. Matings resemble duels, with both partners attempting to impregnate the other Yaotl without themselves becoming impregnated; the dominant partner successfully reproduces, while the beta pays the intense physical cost of 'childbirth'. While in previous generations 'childbirth' was almost always fatal, at some point in the past the Yaot race was genetically engineered on a large scale; now most survive their pregnancies, causing rapid population growth. 

Immature Yaotl or Yaotl who have recently been impregnated are driven by hormones into slavish devotion to their Alpha, forming a natural clan structure in the species. Yaotl are naturally highly territorial, and clans do not tolerate individuals not bound to their Alpha except during mating season. Upon maturity, the young Yaotls wander off into the ill-defined borders between clan territories and attempt to survive until they can mate, start their own clan, and claim territory for their own. The need to acquire new territory and avoid large-scale social conflict, fed by this instinctual behavior, has been one of the driving forces behind Yaotl expansion.

The most alarming trait the Yaotls incorporate into their bizarre biology, however, is the rise in intelligence in a dominant Yaotl following a successful mating. Still poorly understood by Imperial scientists, after a Yaotl implants another with its eggs its neuron density begins to increase rapidly; over a period of several Terran months, the Yaotl in question will have gained roughly 10% more neurons than it previously had. No limit to this growth has yet been discovered, although as the brain grows to the extent that the body cannot support it the individual Yaotl often upgrades itself to compensate with cybernetic or genetic enhancement. Whether or not this trait was engineered into the Yaotls is unknown and highly debated among the Ordo Xenos. Yaotl do not possess brains in the manner that most Terran life does, instead distributing their intelligence via a neural mesh throughout their entire bodies. It's fiercely debated among the Explorators and Ordo Xenos as to whether or not Yaotl individuals, in the human sense, exist at all or whether 'individual' Yaotl are more akin to biological process mimicking sentience. Lack of psychic ability or any presence in the warp at all seems to support the latter theory - the Yaotl are, by any definition of the word, soulless. 


How evolution produced such a hideous species is hotly debated among the Magos Biologis. Some have gone so far as to assert that such a development is not, in fact, possible via natural processes. Should this prove true, whichever race engineered the Yaotl, and for what end, are unknown.