Utigog and Medjed

Living in the caves of Mars must be both a dull and unnerving existence for tiny little creatures like the medjed. It is a simple, bipedal organism, without much of a “head”, whose daily life consists of scraping bacterial scum off cave walls. Not much outside that happens, though their lives are almost always ended violently. Not only may the arms of the speleotax lunge out of every crevasse but so too do the huge jaws of the utigog. 

The latter, as can be seen, is a close relative of the surface-dwelling ganguar. Whereas the ganguar is a placid herbivore, subterranean life has made its cousin a rather unpleasant fellow, its muscular jaws lined with long, needle-like teeth. Larger and stockier, more somnolent, it usually lies in wait inside burrows and waits for the right opportunity to strike out at unsuspecting prey. Though its single eye is well-developed, it also utilises long and sensitive vibrissae and eyelashes to sense its way through the dark world it haunts.

Not much else can be said about these creatures. Their subterranean life makes them difficult to observe and study for our astronauts. It remains interesting to note that the utigog and medjed are somewhat closely related. Both are members of the phylum Hemicalyxia, though the medjed represents the more basal members of the phylum, much like the netchu, while the utigog and ganguar belong to the more derived class Craniopoda. The medjed is also known to let out adorable little chirps, almost like a baby bird. How exactly it produces those noises remains a mystery, as it has no mouthparts except for a crown of tentacles. Perhaps there is some hidden bone-contraption inside the hemicalyx that produces the sound mechanically like a güiro. Likely the calls serve as mating calls through the wide caverns.