Group Limits

• Business
  • Up to 30 sub/adults. Unlimited offspring.
• Grove
  • Up to 5 sub/adults. Unlimited offspring.

Nest Limits

• Blooming Season: 0 eggs
• All other seasons: 6 eggs, 5-hour Interval
  • A maximum of 2-3 eggs per jill+hob combination.
  • Before mating with the same partner again, at least 2 hours need to have passed.

Sexual Dimorphism

• Males
  • a.k.a. hobs, have a bulkier body.
  • Suitable subspecies: Djellali, Smaugini
• Females
  • a.k.a. jills, have a slimmer body.
  • Suitable subspecies: Duncani, Tilleti
• Other
  • Sexual dimorphism is mandatory.
  • Tenontosaurus accept both melanistic and albino individuals.

Habitat

• Tenontosaurus thrive pretty much everywhere where they can find shelter in shrubbery or can hide in between rock formations like the Hoodoo Expanse or Broken-Tooth-Canyon.
• Prefers: Dense/Sparse Woodlands and Mesa
• Dislikes: Valleys

Activity

• Cathemeral
  • Tenontosaurus are cathemeral and take naps spread over both day and night.

Diet

• Strict Herbivore
  • Tenos prefer flowers over everything, even risking to be out in the open to get to their favourite foods.
  • When there are no flowers near, they resort to roots, nuts and pinecones.

Growing Behaviours

• Hatchling
  • Tenonto children are called kits. When kits first come into consciousness, they are blind and weak, and have to rely on their parents and the rest of the grove to feed and protect them. They stay in their nests during this early stage.


• Juvenile
  • Growing fast, juveniles finally develop their sight. Within their grove, they start to discover the surroundings of their nest.
    When the parents consider the kits ready, the parents and sometimes the whole grove starts to make little tours with the kits through their homefold, often visiting other groves with kits to let them play together.
    This way the kits start to meet the other members of the business and by playing with other kits, they strengthen their immune system and social skills as much as their muscles.
  • Despite the tenos’ overall peaceful nature, the kits have yet to learn the traditions and conventions of adult Tenontosaurus.
    Therefore the adults are more patient with their kits when games turn rougher - and gently discipline the kits as soon as they notice tensions or hostile behaviour from them.


• Adolescent
  • At adolescence, female kits start to show interest in pretty items. Almost captivated by them, they stray further and further from their grove in order to find new objects they can admire and collect.
    Sisters or closely bonded females often do this in company of each other.
  • At the same time, male kits grow rather attentive, similarly to their sisters they stray further away from their grove, but rather to keep watch and to possibly find other jills and nests.


• Sub/Adult
  • When kits turn into adults, jills tend to leave the business to start their own collection of nest decorations and either start a new business on their own or return to their old business after seeing the world.
  • Some hobs too decide to leave their business in order to find themselves a jill with a worthy decorated nest, if there are no suitable jills in the business.

Orphan Behaviours

• Orphaned Tenontosaurus stay hidden inside bushes until they are juvenile.
• Unfortunately for orphaned kits, they can’t distinguish friend and foe and sometimes walk straight up to anything that breathes.
  Only then they learn the hard way that not everything has friendly intentions towards them and take away a lesson for life - if they survive.
• If they find a dinosaur that means well to them, the orphan will stay by its side until it finds other Tenontosaurus.
• Orphan Tenos that had an encounter with an evil-minded creature during their kit-stage may develop a skittishness that causes them to be more secluded against other species.
• In very rare cases, orphans show signs of unprovoked aggression due to the lack of guidance by any adults during their childhood.
  This can cause issues with other Tenontosaurus later on and may result in them getting shunned.

Social Behaviours

General

• Tenontosaurus live together in a big herd, also known as a business.
• Businesses usually have a small territory they call their home.
  In this area called “Homefold”, they tend to stay in for multiple seasons or until they are driven out by predators.
• In their Homefold, the females pick their favourite place and build their nests in. These places are often slightly spaced out from each other.
  The business is usually spread across the Homefold and separated into smaller groups, with closest family and sometimes friends being together in their own little group called “grove”.
• This is done to prevent drawing too much attention as a big noisy crowd and also helps to keep other nests' whereabouts hidden in case one is discovered by predators.
  That way the business can stay longer in one place and keep nesting.
• Groves often roam around their homefold together, checking out sounds or searching for food. They sometimes meet other groves to examine new hatchlings, let the kits play together or simply socialize, but they always try to not assemble all at once, as this would defeat their biggest safety measure. For sleeping, nesting and resting they return to their claimed space.
• Due to the business’ distinct behaviour of being split in multiple groves and spread over a wider area, they have developed their own tactic in case of an attack:
  Tenos keep their broadcast call to special occasions. Broadcasts are only used to alert the rest of the business if:
  • one of the groves is under attack
  • there is an event or occurrence of interest for the entire business
  • the business starts a migration
  • the business wants to call a meeting
• Tenontosaurus are highly social herbivores that value respect among each other and towards other species and are very peacekeeping, but can turn into fierce beasts if their values are met with hostility or betrayal.
• This behaviour even goes so far that Tenos will attack the aggressive individual, even if the aggression is not directed towards themselves but an individual of any friendly species nearby.
  The grove will only attack the aggressor if it is not in an active fight yet and only has 3-called / mock-attacked so far.
• Tenos within a business that show aggression are often attacked by other Tenos of the business, as they are seen as threat to the business and the kits. In extreme cases this can lead to the Teno being shunned.
• After the harsh frosting season, the business sometimes decides to use the warm days of blooming season to migrate to find a new homefold.
  Jills therefore don’t lay eggs during this season and reserve their energy for the migration.

Gender-specific behaviour

• Females spend a lot of time collecting decorative items for their nests, as a well decorated nest is the main attractor for males.
• Once a jill has found enough items to her liking, she will search for a small territory for herself or join a business.
  She will pick a protected spot in the area, where she builds her nest and places all her collected decorations and trophies.
• From there on she stays in the vicinity, hoping that a male will take a liking in her and her nest.
• Hobs on the other hand are migratory until they find other tenos to join.
• It’s also hobs that roam on the outskirts of the grove, especially when there is kits in the grove or many members of the grove are sleeping. This way they keep an eye on their surroundings and are the first to go and investigate unusual sounds.

Interspecies Behaviours

• Due to their friendly nature, Tenos are welcoming to every creature and sometimes don't know when to not approach another dinosaur - especially when it's a younger, inexperienced Tenontosaurus.
• Sometimes, this maneuvers them - being too naive with carnivorous creatures - into dangerous situations.
• Outside of their homefold, Tenos are curious as always, but witnessing aggressions does not trigger an attack.
• Within their homefold, they try to drive out any aggressor that is in their capabilities of doing so. (more under Territorial Behaviour)
• On the opposite, if they find a victim of another dinos violence visually injured, they show great empathy and bring the injured individual food and try to comfort it.
• Deinonychus are often seen living inside a Tenontosaurus homefold, as some of them have learned that they, if they don’t show any aggression near Tenos, will be tolerated by the Tenontosaurus and can instead take advantage of the Tenontosaurus presence.
• Tenos are very fond of Parasaurolophus because of their shared peace-seeking nature. If they find an injured Parasaurolophus outside of an active fight, they may defend it against follow-up predators.

Territorial Behaviours

• Despite claiming some kind of territory as their home realm, Tenontosaurus don’t defend the territory or its resources, as they are happy to share it with others.
• The only exception is when they find a carnivore or other herbivore showing signs of aggression (aggressive-calling, attacking) within their homefold.
  In that case, the business’ patience can snap quickly, which causes them to loudly assemble by broadcasting.
  This is meant to intimidate the aggressor and warn them off, before the grove that first noticed the aggressor (if the grove is full) actively attacks and tries to drive it away, as they don’t tolerate hostility in their realm.
• These engagements never end in the death of the aggressor, except if it does not back down. If it leaves voluntarily, the Tenos will quickly let go of it.
• If a Teno drops below half health during such an encounter, the entire business retreats and leaves the aggressor alone.
• The business does not interfere in ongoing fights between other parties, as they deem it too dangerous for themselves to be caught in the middle.
  Instead they wait it out. If any of the parties involved in the fight show aggression after the fight has ended, they will then try to chase them out of their homefold.

Hunted Behaviours

In a herd

• Tenos broadcast loudly as soon as they notice a threat.
• In their homefold, the separate groves echo the broadcast when they hear it, amplifying it to reach all corners of their realm and thereby alerting the whole business.
• The groves not actively involved in the engagement (passive groves) will run towards the attacked grove. The passive groves will circle the vicinity of the engagement - often outside of the line of sight of the attacker - and keep broadcasting to show off their numbers, in hopes that the attacker will get frightened and retreat.
• One full grove (5 adults + their kits) can actively defend against attackers. If the grove is not full, Tenos from other groves will fill in.
• When large (2 or more) or higher tier carnivores are about to attack and show signs of aggression, the whole grove first tries to scare them off with their noisy broadcasts.
  If the attacker shows no signs of surrender or starts an attack, the business instead flees in all directions.

Solo

• Solo Tenontosaurus flee if met with multiple medium or larger predators.

Engagement Limits

• One full grove (5 adults) + the groves kits can participate in an engagement.

Courtship

• Jills attract males by maintaining a pretty, decorated nest. The more extraordinary items the nest contains, the more attractive it looks for a hob.
  Well decorated nests testify to the jills experience and knowledge and shows that she has already come around a lot before settling down.
• If a male comes across a jill and her nest and is interested in courting her, he offers her an addition to her nest decoration.
  If the jill accepts the courting advance, she will pick up the offered item and place it in her nest.
• A jill can have multiple hobs, while hobs are dedicated to one jill.
• These pairings only hold for the duration of the nesting. To nest again with the same partner, at least 2 hours must pass.
• A jill lays around 2-3 eggs per male, depending on how save she feels in her homefold, but has a maximum capacity 12 eggs per season.

Notes

• A visualisation of how Tenontosaurus businesses remain in their homefold can be found below.

Terms

• Hob = male Tenontosaurus
• Jill = female Tenontosaurus
• Kit = Tenontosaurus offspring (hatchling to adolescent)
• Business = a herd of Tenontosaurus
• Grove = a sub-group within a business
• Homefold = the home area of a business

Stat Changes

• -

Legend

• Symbolisation of a Tenontosaurus homefold
  • Dark green = business
  • Lighter green = groves
  • Blue dots = males
  • Pink dots = females