Opalescent Dimitriarch

Opalescent Dimitriarch

The Opalescent Dimitriarch is a mammalian bird native to Trisue. It is about the size of a small cat, and lives mainly in the coniferous forests of Quesela. It is most noticeable for its opposable thumbs, located at the front of its wings along with two long, pointed fingers. These are mostly used for foraging for food on the forest floor and cracking open nuts and fruit.
Most Opalescent Dimitriarchs only develop their bright colour in the mating season, as it is used for courting other Dimitriarchs. Both males and females develop the colour, although with distinct differences.
Although Dimitriarchs can fly, they often prefer to use their strong back legs to run from potential predators, and only take to flight for long distance migration and to nest in trees. They also moult constantly, so their feathers are often used for decoration by people. Their shiny quality is due to magic deposits from their diet that build up on the edges of the bird's wings.
Dimitriarchs are known to have some basic intelligence, although so far attempts to decipher their language and communicate with them have been in vain.

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The pic's not so good, but hey!
I was playing around with designing species of animals for Trisue, and I liked this one. It's sort of based on this dinosaur bird thing I saw when I was doing my biology homework.