Peneli is a lush world dominated by large jungles, dense forests, thick grasslands and frozen tundra. The light from the young blue-greenish sun is bent further as it passes through the world's thick atmosphere and nearly constant cloud cover, giving the sky a distinct soft purplish tint, and providing ample but fairly diffuse light and warmth for a highly active ecosystem. Peneli is the homeworld of both the Whitefang wolves and the Drell lizards.
Whitefang Prehistory:
Little is known of the early history of this species. While Klingons did have computers and recording equipment at the time, there are few surviving records. Early Klingons might not have thought to use them to record history or didn't bother to keep them, or they were destroyed or otherwise lost. Most accounts are from Klingon oral history, which is known to be ...dramatized. Still some actual facts from the traditions have been confirmed, and those facts and speculations related to those facts are presented below.
How Feudal-age Klingons were able to overthrow the oppression of the Hur'q invaders we may never know, but we do know that it wasn't long after that than Klingons began to explore other systems on Hur'q ships and ship designs reverse-engineered from them. These ships often had serious radiation leaks from the poorly understood and crudely built reactors, and therefore had very short operational range before the crews needed to be rotated out or they became too sick to continue.
Whitefangs were thought to be mere animals when the Klingons first landed on Peneli. Due to abundance of life on the planet, it quickly became one of the earliest successful Klingon colonies, as it could provide relatively easily obtained food for any number of crew while they recovered from the radiation poisoning of their own primative ships.
At first the Klingons hunted Whitefangs for food, their moderate size being easier to deal with than the giant megafauna the whitefangs preyed upon. Then as the colony became more established, the Klingons began to use captured and 'tamed' Whitefangs to help hunt the Whitefang's natural food sources, monocerii and other giant herbivores to feed entire Klingon camps. Considering the alternative, the whitefangs were quick to accept the Klingons at the top of what passed for Whitefang culture, as Alphas of their packs.
The Klingons were pleased at how quickly the Whitefangs learned to not only follow orders, but surprised to hear them repeat them back to each other. The Klingons realized the wolves could learn their language, but didn't understand the warrior's path. Instead the Whitefangs were seemingly content to loyally obey the Klingons. The Whitefangs began filling the roles that weren't considered paths to Glory on Honor, but still needed to get done. They may have been the first "kuve" [KOOV] or servitor race, perhaps providing the model that allowed Klingons to accept many other races who might otherwise have been enslaved or destroyed by the (arguably justifiably) xenophobic Klingons, many who had fresh memories of the Hur'q occupation.
Whitefang Physiology:
Whitefangs are one of the species often cited in favour of the "Preservers" theory, the idea that a theoretical ancient race of sapiens who may have seeded proto-sapient, or at least life with a high potential for sapience through the galaxy. Their genetics appears to fall very close to what one would expect of a primitive common canid ancestry adapted to their world.
What few archaeological studies have been done of early Whitefang seem to indicate that perhaps they were another several hundred thousand to a few million years from evolving full sapience without Klingon intervention. Biologically speaking, the interference of their natural evolution by the Klingons was in effect a breeding program, selecting first the wolves that were better at language, and intelligent but still loyal, so they would remain subservient and also feral so they would be easier to control.
Whitefangs have more feral proportions than most sapient species. Their forelimbs are a bit longer, their hind limbs about 5 cm shorter, torsos are longer and more rounded with less defined shoulders. They are capable of running on four paws as well as two, but there are drawbacks. Because of the varied stresses on thier joints they don't have nearly the endurance and are more prone to injury. Also, to support their weight while running over potentially rough terrain, their 'fingers' are much shorter and have thicker pawpads, this reduces their manual dexterity well below the norm for dedicated bipeds have.
Whitefang have tended to have more wirey "fast-twitch" muscles which are a bit faster and forceful but also tire more quickly. When hunting a giant monocerous, you don't have to worry about outrunning it, and the pack is large enough that some members can rest while others take turns harassing it, to wear it out. But when you do strike against such a beast, you need to hit hard and fast. As servants to the Klingons this tended to not be as useful as endurance of repetitive tasks and they tended to have a more typical balance of muscles, but since emancipation they have gravitated back to the bais towards fast-twitch muscles.
Like many wolf species their is much diversity in their colorations, although it might not appear that way to the unaided eye of most species, due to the difference in the ambient light on their world. Browns, Reds and Yellows are absent, while white, black and shades of grey are more often the colors seen by most eyes. However, their markings often appear different to their eyes which are adapted to optimally in the light available on thier world. Their fur often contains purple and even ultraviolet markings.
As mentioned above Whitefang eyes have different photoreceptors which respond to different frequency light, they also retain a more privative structure, including a lower cone(color vision) to rod(black and white) ratio. Whitefang eyes lack a true
fovea, but instead have a structure somewhere between a true fovea and a
Visual streak. This reduces their detail vision(as if they were 20/50 nearsighted, although nearsightedness is a correctable condition) while retaining some increase to peripheral vision. Whitefang lack any photoreceptors which detect the color red and can't distinguish between shades of oranges and yellows. Sufficiently intense red light in a dark environment may however trigger rods and appear as a shadowy grey, but reflected red light is far too diffuse to be perceived. Yellow and orange colors appear as a faded yellow to them. But they can see into the near ultraviolet spectrum, they call the two distinct ultraviolet colors "Amarklor" and "Kalish". Other than the basic colours this skews other colors also, as a wall we see as off-white may appear a pale chartuse if it doesn't reflect ultraviolet.
Due to the increase ultraviolet radiation on Peneli the arsenic-based neurochemistry of the whitefangs is uniquely resilient to the near and even extreme UV bands and even some kinds of X-rays. In order to accommodate the demand for arsenic, a poison which disrupts ATP production and causes hydrogen peroxide and other harmful toxins to build up in the body, the digestive track of the Whitefang wolves includes an additional stomach/liver organ which is lined with potassium compounds to draw arsenic out before it enters the blood stream and affects the whole body. The muscles around this hybrid organ tend to contract when a wolf is under stress, but it is not know if the organ actually 'flips over' as they describe it.
This extra organ makes them more resistant to arsenic poisoning, but the whole system is a very delicate chemical balance. Imbalance leads to several diseases: Insufficient arsenic leads first to irritability(which is life threatening if uncontrolled on a ship full of Klingons), increasingly erratic behavior up to insanity and a break down of the nervous system. Too much arsenic will lead to poisoning like any other species, their potassium requirements are also quite high, without a significant amount of extra potassium they won't be able to metabolize the arsenic they need and still maintain potassium levels for their accelerated metabolism.
The side effects of the elevated arsenic levels is one many of the factors that limits their lifespans to around 60 years, however this is compensated by an accelerated metabolism. Normal body temperatures are the high end of the canine range, 39-39.5 Celcius (102-103 Fahrenheit). Normal gestation is reduced to 5 months and cubs are sexually mature by age 10 at which time they are considered adults.
Interestingly while most facets of their growth are accelerated proportionally, several key brain functions such as language acquisition are deferred until later. A newborn Whitefang cub is born with eyes open, and can start learning to walk within days after birth and begin learning to hunt in a few weeks. But they may not develop above animal intelligence until they are well into their second year. Much of this is due to their recent feral heritage, but it was also reinforced by the Klingons who used this time to imprint the alpha status of homeworld Klingons into their instinctual mind as well as train in manual skills. Whitefangs still use this today, an Admiral's cub will learn to fight with claws and fangs in many environments including microgravity before they learn to say a single word.
Another delayed feature is female mammary development, which does not occur until the first pregnancy, which means some females never develop breasts beyond the male development levels. This appears to be due to their semi-quadrupedal posture (large breasts interfere with forelimbs in vigorous gaits), their feral heritage and the external breeding selection by the homeworld Klingons. The Whitefang body has only started to adapt to the selection of their own mates, while most intelligent bipeds have been doing this for millions of years. Because of this, visual cues such as body shape and symmetry are often minor factors for a whitefang in selecting a mate, while more primal factors such as scent and demeanor are often far more compelling. However there is no environmental pressure or competitive cultural advantage to enforce this trait, the late development genes may be replaced especially with Whitefangs sometimes mating with other anthro canine races.
