Welcome to the Ecology of Aqua Laguna, today we will be talking about the Berserker class races that are native to The Forest of Tajna, (Ruby: Eh? All of them?/ Blake: They did seem to be the least interesting of the classes.) let's start off by listing them: We have the fruit eating Tomokoes, the shell craking Tebattas, the snipping Akuchas and the fluffy Nagabasuroes.
"Those names are a bit... what's the word?" Cinder thought about what exactly to say, "Over the top?" Weiss suggested, "Yes thank you." Cinder nodded in confirmation.
The first one will look at is the Tomokoes, a very peculiar monkey like creature that has three to four eyes, a tail shaped like a wand of some kind and large hands. A picture of the monkey creature from the previous video is shown, and indeed it has four eyes, large hands covered in green fur and a tail that ends in a weirdly shaped boney profusion.
"Oh my goodness it's back!" Ruby squealed, "The tail is quite off-putting honestly!" Emerald pointed out.
A Tomoko is almost never seen with both pairs of eyes open, (Yang: So it doesn't need the extra eyes?) it keeps one closed during the day and the other during the night, (Ren: So like the eye patch thing pirates used to do.) this strategy allows the Tomoko to be able to see even with the absence of sunlight, (Penny: That's very smart! By keeping their eyes closed they make sure that at least one set of eyes is adapted to the low light!/ Winter: But the eyelids are too thin to block out all the light, and closing the other pair in the dark makes them also adapt to the dark.) like a cat changing the shape of it's pupils, this works thanks to one pair of eyelid being made of a thick light reflecting skin, while the other is bioluminescent.
"Bioluminescent?" Nora repeated in confusion, "They let out a glow, think fireflies." Phyrra explained.
Moving onto the hands, these allow the Tomoko to keep a tight grip onto tree branches with minimal effort, (Cinder: Not bad, maximizing the area that has a grasp on the branch to have it take as little effort as possible.) but that's not their main usage, (Cinder: Hold on what?/ Winter: What else could those be used for?) as you may have noticed, these hands are huge mounds of muscle, this was developed to allow them access to their prey, the previously mentioned Akuchas. An image of a black crab with very thin pinchers is show. We'll get to it later, just know that these things are though and mainly water breathers.
"Why would bigger hands help them catch those things?" Jaune said outloud, "To break their shell I guess." Blake replied, "But that still doesn't help them catch the Akuchas." Jaune repeated.
The wand tail of a Tomoko is used for fishing, (Jaune: Oh that's how!/ Blake: But it's just used for fishing?) by stabbing into the water and pulling out the fish, (Winter: sounds like it could puncture organs, but then again I don't think they'll care about eating organs.) this applies for the Akucha too, the large hands are required to peel the shell off, (Ren: That must mena that they're incredibly muscular./ Blake: It couldn't have been entirely bone.) but they're also the tastiest part and the wand tail is useful to make a thick tasty broth.
"Oh no!" Ruby exclaimed, "Why would they do that!?" Phyrra questioned, "Everyone there is basically a wild animal, I doubt they give a second thought about eating something that's substantial." Emerald reminded.
Moving onto the Tebattas. A picture of a scorpion like creature that instead of pinchers and stinger has large mace like appendiges. (Nora: Hammer time!/ Ren: Don't break anything this time.)This creature is purely a predator, (Ruby: But it's a so small!/ Yang: So are Boarbetusks, but we both know how that ended up./ Weiss: Oh Hah Hah!) but being on the smaller side, it sticks to pretty small prey such as Akuchas and Tomokoes, (Cinder: I guess Akuchas are just supper!) although the opposite is also true for the latter, (Winter: A spring loaded muscle against the dexterity of an arm, I think it's obvious who wins.) a Tebatta needs a precise strike with its crushers if it were to kill a Tomoko without having it retaliate, (Penny: A precise strike is certain to incapacitate, if not kill something the size of a Tomoko.) not that It's easy since the Tomokoes are very agile, (Penny: Of course there's this to take into consideration too./Winter: But the Akuchas are far slower, that must be the reason as for why they're such easy prey.) another story is the Akuchas, the few times they move onto land to feed on the rotting tajna fruits, (Phyrra: Oh they're bottom feeders!/ Jaune: So they feed on waste?/ Phyrra: Yes.) they become very easy prey as their shell isn't strong enough to resist the heavy blow, their crushers aren't very resistant either though, (Winter: And that's why there's teams./ Ruby: Imagine fighting an Ursa by yourself./ Weiss: I'll pass. bigger creatures can open them easily and feast on the tasty albeit slimy flesh they contain.
"Why do they keep ending up on ways to eat these?" Nora wondered, "You should be asking why they make it sound like they're incredibly tasty?"
Speaking if Akuchas, their job is cleaning the water in the forest, (Penny: So it's confirmed they're bottom feeders.) they stay in it most of their life and feed on the algae that forms on the rocks at the bottom of the small lakes and rivers around the forest, (Blake: It sounds like creatures there won't go thirsty anytime soon./ Yang: It also sounds like Neptune's worst nightmare.) they keep the waters clean from any sort of invasive species, (Nora: There's parasites in water?/ Emerald: They probably mean leeches./ Nora: And what if they don't?/ Emerald: No clue.) they also travel to land when necessary to feed on the decaying Tajna fruits, more specifically the seed inside so that too many won't get injected into more worms, (Weiss: Wow, population control really is an issue there!/ Cinder: You didn't believe it before?/ Penny: Tajna plants sound a lot like a double sided weapon, they furnish the land with nutrient, but there's quite too many to sustain.) they also feed on the spores of living plants to avoid too many from spreading, the Tajna fruit is an invasive plant after all, (Ruby: So they are parasites! Just straight up!) despite this diet however, the Akuchas remain very tasty, very often being used to complete a seafood platter.
"They must be quite delicious, crabs are already tasty by themselves." Weiss pondered, Indeed, and with the additional nutrients thanks to eating straight up Tajna fruits they must taste even better!" Ruby cheered clapping her hands slightly at the thought of eating an Akucha.
Lastly there's the Nagabasuroes, (Jaune: Alright I know the others also had some outlandish names, but this takes the cake!/ Ren: I wonder what it means...) they're flying creatures that vaguely resemble owls, with the difference that they don't fly and have very elongated beaks. A picture of a simil owl that has very thick legs, with green feathers and a very, very long beak is shown. (Yang: Holy moly! How is it standing!/ Blake: It must be the legs!/ Ruby-Nora-Jaune: But those are even more absurd!) The green feathers are there to act as camouflage, due to the sheer quantity it's easy to mistake them for leaves, (Cinder: Honestly I did almost mistake it for a bush.../ Phyrra: It's also pretty round too.) this way many predators which would be more than happy to feast on these guys can't even find them, talking about feasting, their unfertilized eggs are very tasty and filled with protein, their flesh not so much, stick to the eggs.
"An omelette made with these thing's eggs... Maybe." Winter thought to herself, "I would like to try them hard boiled." Emerald commented.
Now that we talked about how you can eat them, let's talk about how they feed, (Ruby: Oh yeah! We skipped that entirely!) their long beaks allow them to peck inside the trees and eat the worms that feed on their sap, as this feeding isn't healthy for the tree, (Weiss: This forest is just full of pests...) while some worms become carriages for Tajna seeds, not all of them do, so the fact that Nagabasuroes evolved the way they did was a great development for the system.
"Thankfully they did, I wonder what would have happened otherwise..." Jaune said, "Giant worms probably." Penny responded, "Oh dear Oum, NO!" Everyone else yelled in disgust.
Next time we'll be talking about the humanoid races that inhabit the forest.
"Already!?" Ruby exclaimed excitedly, "The forest must be to claustrophobic to house any behemoth class.." Penny hypothesized, "Probably, let's see what the humanoids are about then." Weiss said as she pressed play on the next video."