>>5867226>Cookie bug!The cookie bugs are native to the ancient city area, can be found hiding in anything that’s hollow, and are due to burst out when they fully mature. They can be heard skittering around inside the object as they grow over the course of a few months. At first, our researchers weren’t sure how they got inside these hollow spaces without destroying them. However, after learning more about their life cycle, we have managed to explain this strange phenomenon.
An adult male cookie bug will emerge from its makeshift hollow in order to seek courtship with another. It will climb up to the highest point it can find and refract sunlight rays through the gems on its back in order to create an alluring array of colors. After mating, the female will then lay its one or two eggs in a place that seems similar to the one where they first emerged. Because of this behavior, they are most common in the ancient city, due to all the empty containers and abandoned buildings, and may be found conducting their activities during the day.
As eggs, the newborn cookie bugs will hatch into their tiny, extremely hard to see larval form. They will then use some form of unseen sense to find the nearest small, hollowed out space, and simply enter because they can manage to slip through the cracks in this state. We feel like this “sense” might somehow be linked to the way that the brachyurus use their telekinetic powers to scan an area by means or force feedback on everything in it, which they then use to map out the location without needing to see it.
We call them cookie bugs because of the gems that seem to grow on top of them. When found, they’re usually right in front of you, like a cookie on a counter. This is the opportunity for one to strike and take some of the haul. One good heavy impact on the back, and the otherwise bulky little beast sheds the gem, or multiple gems, up to 6 in the biggest recorded haul. After that, they’re free to be obtained, and the bug skitters away.
We had assumed that taking these gems would interfere with the process of their mating ritual, which can be very important to the continued survival of some creatures. However, it seems that the most vital part of a cookie bug’s life is not its gem. In fact, it is the hollow which it lives inside. We only noticed a decrease in their population when we actively went about destroying the containers they were hiding inside. Or rather, we noticed that cookie bug mothers that emerged early from a box that was broken open did not return to that location to lay their eggs, and neither did any of their young. However, when the container is opened or moved instead of smashed, this problem does not occur. Something about using the same box is important to them. We’ve come to understand so much about these creatures, yet we don’t even really know that much about them.
(Take this as a study on cookie bugs, which may influence the culture of people around the nation)
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