AHCTD stuff

Neropoulies

Yes, I know I was supposed to be making the history on the After Wars and all that but first let me talk about birds.

Neropoulies are a species of bird that are native to Pandora, and although their behaviors vary from different areas, the ones I'll be talking about will be the Northwest Neropoulies, which are the Neropoulies around where AHCTD takes place. Their name derives from the Greek words "nero" meaning "blue" and "pouli" meaning "bird".

These birds are believed to be close descendants of a species of parrot, specifically cockatoos. They can not only make various noises, including tweets, growls, meows, and even words if they are surrounded by humans for long enough, but they are also extremely intelligent for birds, only being slightly behind crows and parrots.

These birds are about the same size as a cockatoo, colored blue with yellow stomachs and wings, but one of their coolest features is their face patterns. It is extremely rare for Neropoulies to have identical face patterns, and so these patterns are used to identify certain birds. Female Neropoulies have much longer tails, with the males having a short, blue stubby tail and the female's having a yellow, fluffy tail that is more often than not larger than its own body. Their wingspan can stretch out to 3 times the width of their body on average, so they usually end up hitting the ground trying to take off. Male's wings are extremely dirty because of this, but female's wings don't tend to be because they clean them very often. The males' eyesight is 20/50, and females' eyesight is 20/30, but both can see a larger array of colors than the human eye can.

Another cool feature about these birds is how their defense works. Most animals will attempt to make themselves look bigger to their enemy, and therefore more intimidating. The goosebumps we get on our skin used to serve that same purpose, but they don't anymore because we're not wild animals. However, Neropulies' feathers are attached loosely on their skin, so instead of perking up and making the bird look bigger, they will rotate 180 degrees to flip to the other side of the feather, which will turn the bright blue and yellow of the bird to a dark green and brown. This helps them camouflage in the surrounding forest for a better chance of escaping. Sometimes Neropulies will be born with feathers that are tightly attached, so instead of rotating like they should, they perk up. These Neropulies are hard to find in the wild since they're not only rare to get in the first place, but they're also born without the proper defenses needed to keep them alive.

Neropoulies are not traveling birds at all. In fact, they never migrate. They make a nest somewhere near food, preferably in trees around blackberry bushes since that's their favorite food right next to worms, and they stay there for the rest of their lives unless something causes the area to be destroyed. Even then, the Neropouli will relocate to a place very near to the original nest.

As stated before, Neropoulies love blackberries and worms, but they have a much larger variety in their diet as well. Most fruits and vegetables can be consumed by these birds, as well as many different bugs like grasshoppers, butterflies, and others. For some reason, they seem to despise raw cherries, but don't mind cherry pie. If food becomes scarce, the birds will resort to slightly larger prey like toads, small fish, and even snake eggs. These birds are completely tamable and can eat almost anything, but if you ever do own one, do not give it any form of gluten. If they have any gluten, from bread or other gluten products, it can absolutely wreck it's digestive system and kill it. And also remember that they'll try anything once, so keep gluten products away from it. They might just get into it without you knowing.

That's all I can remember right now about them, I made a whole page in my comically large sketchbook™️ about them, so I might just pop back up with more information later. Until then ig