Creature:Bidonite

Bidonites are a species of sentient eusocial insectoid aliens. As with all eusocial creatures, Bidonites feature division of labor by sexual and reproductive lines, collective rearing of children, and overlapping generations. Bidonites build enormous hives that house several hundred individuals working cooperatively to survive. Bidonite hives exhibit a swarm intelligence that allows large groups operating in unison to accomplish much more than what an individual Bidonite can do. Each hive holds multiple egg-laying queens who control the hive through a combination of pheromones and a certain resonance in their voice, though Bidonite workers' natural inclination towards obedience to authority serves to bind them under the queens' authority even when they aren't close by.

Bidonites are omnivorous, with much of their food coming from cultivation of fungi, but meat forms a significant portion of their diet.

Biology
Bidonites share many features with Earth arthropods but cannot truly be called so, given certain significant differences between Bidonites and insects. Male and female Bidonites display a large degree of sexual dimorphism.

Your average Bidonite is smaller and weaker than a baseline human. However, they make up for the disparity with better mobility, agility, and sheer numbers.

Anatomy
Bidonites have two skeletons: a thin, flexible exoskeleton covering their outsides and a rudimentary endoskeleton that protects their internal organs. Their exoskeletons can be a wide range of colors, but the most common color seen is a mottled blue/purple. Their bodies are divided into three segments: a head, a thorax, and an abdomen.

All Bidonites have six limbs (four legs on their abdomens, two arms on their thoraxes) and a set of wings. All six limbs have two joints each, and fine hairs on their feet similar to a gecko's pads allow them to climb surfaces that would normally be too steep to traverse for other aliens. Should a surface be too steep, a Bidonite can bend down to walk on "all sixes", and in this way can scale almost sheer surfaces. However, their wall-climbing ability has limits: it relies on their hands and feet being uncovered, and they cannot walk surfaces past 85 degrees, as the weight of their own bodies becomes too great to bear.

Bidonites have three fingers per hand and three toes on their front feet. Their front feet are just as dexterous as their hands.

Bidonite possess two pairs of wings, one large and one small. With these wings, male Bidonites are capable of flying moderate distances, though usually not as quickly as they can sprint. Female Bidonites, however, are flightless. Instead, their wings are used to disperse their pheromones by moving the air.

Male Bidonites have acid glands in their jaws. Similar to bombardier beetles, Bidonite acid is a mixture of two different chemicals that react violently when mixed. By opening their mandibles and exerting certain muscles, a Bidonite combines the two substances and spits the resulting caustic liquid in a brief, focused jet with a maximum range of twelve feet. While not potent enough to melt flesh, Bidonite acid is strong enough to cause burns and frequently scarring, and if directed into sensitive areas such as the mouth or eyes is capable of incapacitating even creatures several times larger than a Bidonite.

The acid glands in female Bidonites are repurposed to produce royal jelly. Initially a liquid, royal jelly rapidly congeals into a waxy, gelatinous substance essential to the creation of new queens and drones.

Senses
Bidonites have two compound eyes. Their range of vision extends into the ultraviolet spectrum, though at the same time Bidonites are red-colorblind.

Bidonites have a limited sense of taste, with no real mouth to speak of: only a flexible set of mandibles.

Like earthly insects, Bidonite antennae are used to detect scent. Bidonites have an acute sense of smell. In Bidonite males these antennae are thin and spindly, but prehensile and highly flexible. Female antennae are broad fans like feathers but lack the same dexterity.

Pheromones
Pheromones play an important role in communication within the Bidonite species, though they are mostly undetectable to Human-comparable noses. Every Bidonite has pheromones. Over a dozen specific scents have been documented. Most pheromones are a mix of the same few chemicals, simply in different proportions: one scent might be an even mix of oils a and b, another might have two parts b for every part a, and one more might be entirely a.

The prevalence of pheromones in Bidonite communication means that a person who cannot perceive them will be unable to accurately read a Bidonite's current mood or attitude. This can be compared to being unable to read body language, or incapable of detecting tone of voice. Different ethnic groups have subtle variations in their pheromones, which can lead to conflicts in communication.

Emission of pheromones is an unconscious reaction. They can be stifled if one makes a conscious effort, but active control of what pheromones one emits is impossible, with one exception: command pheromones.

The command pheromone is unique. It is only produced by female Bidonites, and comes in two variants: the "royalty" variant produced by queens, and the "noble" variant produced by infertile females. Both variants impel lesser Bidonites to feel a sense of loyalty and obedience to the ones emitting them, with two caveats: queens are unaffected by any command pheromones, and infertile females are unaffected by the "noble" variant. The use of command pheromones ensures that the entire hive moves according to the queens' will.

Queens
Every Bidonite hive houses multiple queens, often with a single "alpha" queen holding dominance over the others. The queens serve a twofold role in supporting the hive; first, they must reproduce to bolster the population, and second, they hold absolute authority over the rest of the hive.

A queen's ability to control other Bidonites is rooted in two factors: the unique command pheromones they emit and a certain vocal resonance only they can produce and which all other Bidonites are biologically compelled to obey.

Compared most other eusocial insects, Bidonite queens lay eggs in very small numbers: perhaps a dozen per week, as Bidonites are significantly larger than most eusocial insects and are thus fewer are needed to accomplish a given task.

Your average queen stands around six to seven feet tall and is immediately distinguished by her long and bloated abdomen, unique to her caste. There are usually a few drones near her whose specific duties are to carry it when she needs to walk somewhere far.

Drones
Drones are fertile Bidonite males, and typically make up the second smallest percentage of the hive's population, beneath the queens. The drone's role in the colony is to reproduce with the queen and attend to her needs, from bringing food to fighting in her defense.

Their constant close proximity to the queens means some of their pheromones rub off on them, granting them some degree of control over the workers of the hive, but in terms of general hierarchy they're still lower than infertile females.

It's worth noting that in any given hive, 90% of the drones present come from a different hive, with the remaining 10% usually either not yet matured or still being groomed. Drones born in one hive often spend the rest of their lives in another, being sent partly as tribute and partly to maintain genetic diversity. Even without the manipulations of courtly intrigue, drones develop an instinctive wanderlust once they come of age, driving them to leave the hive in search of others.

Drones are essentially identical to infertile male Bidonites except for smell, which is a variation too subtle for most people to pick up on anyways. They're also a little larger, but as with all living things your size may vary.

Regents
Regents are sterile female Bidonites. While less powerful than their fertile sisters, they still serve an important role in controlling the hive in that they produce a similar "authority" pheromone as the queens. Although less potent than the queens', this pheromone still grants them control over the worker population. As they are still subservient to the queens, the regent's control of the workers ensures that the will of the queens can be carried out across distances the queens cannot themselves cross.

Regents hover around six feet tall and lack the distended abdomens unique to queens; however, they still share the same feathery antennae and wings.

Workers
The lowest on the Bidonite social hierarchy, workers are sterile male Bidonites and perform all the basic functions required to support the hive, from construction to gathering food to defense. Workers are naturally subservient to authority figures; this, in combination with the command pheromones and vocal resonance the queens produce means that they are essentially bound to the queens' will.

Workers should not be taken as mindless drones. First of all, drones are fertile males. Second of all, workers are every bit as sentient as the queens, with all the thinking and problem-solving ability that implies. They are simply compelled to follow the queens' commands and see nothing wrong with having essentially no free will. After all, how would you know what to do if nobody told you to do it?

Workers are the most common Bidonite variation and also the shortest, averaging just five feet tall.

Reproduction
Every Bidonite hive begins with a queen and her drones. First, a mature drone leaves his birth hive in search of another hive, often escorted by a small number of workers and/or a regent. Upon reaching and being accepted by the hive, the drone may either take up permanent residence there or be sent away with a new queen to begin a hive elsewhere, accompanied by a variable number of workers and fellow drones.

A fertilized queen rapidly begins producing eggs, laying an average of twelve per week. Newborn Bidonites are hatched from them as wriggling grubs approximately the length of your forearm. These larvae are fed a mash of cultured fungal matter and cared for by workers in the hive's nursery, where they thrive in heat. They are always hungry. Larvae have a rapid metabolism and grow quickly, up to twice their starting length and girth once fully mature. Once they have reached maturity, their skin darkens and hardens, entering the pupa phase of development.

Upon pupating, workers transfer the larvae to a separate chamber to grow. The pupa itself begins to swell as the Bidonite within develops. After about nine days of gestation, the pupa splits and a newborn Bidonite emerges.

While fertilization spurs the initial development of eggs, it is not a requirement afterwards. Bidonite queens may lay eggs unfertilized. Unfertilized eggs hatch into sterile males while fertile eggs hatch into sterile females. During the larval stage, sterile males fed on a diet of royal jelly will pupate into drones, while sterile females fed on the same pupate into new queens. Thanks to how reproduction works, Bidonite queens may easily regulate the population of each caste in the hive.