NOTE: This is a work of fiction. The animals and locations described within this document do not exist, as far as the author is aware. Any resemblance to real extraterrestrial species, living or dead, is mere coincidence.

S. auritus Description

An artistic rendition of Specusaurus auritus.
An artistic rendition of Specusaurus auritus.

Specusaurus auritus is a sapient species that inhabits the largest continent of Earth-Like Extradimensional Planet #9 (ELEP9). They primarily inhabit the cavern, wetlands, and coastal ecosystems of ELEP9; however, evidence of S. auritus settlements have been discovered in other biomes.

A few members of the research team have assigned them the common name “kobolds”, due to their resemblance to the kobold species of Dungeons And Dragons. Outside of the Dungeons And Dragons franchise, a “kobold” is defined as the following:

1: a gnome that in German folklore inhabits underground places

2: an often mischievous domestic spirit of German folklore

S. auritus appear to be cathemeral and omnivorous. They have been observed consuming fungi, insects, vertebrates, and various plants. Many of their chosen prey items display aposematic coloration, venom-administering structures (fangs, barbs, stingers, etc.), or are theorized to be poisonous.

Genomic analysis has shown identical DNA structures to Earth fauna and a close match to Earth-native birds (Class Aves). The following taxonomy is currently used for this creature:

Size Sexual Dimorphism of S. auritus

According to anecdotal observations, adult individuals of S. auritus in multiple populations have large size discrepancies regardless of estimated age. (Age is currently estimated by size, shape, and firmness of integuments; juveniles appear to have downy feathers, while sexually mature individuals have stiff, mobile integuments that appear similar to feathers and scales.) We hypothesize that the size discrepancy is a form of sexual dimorphism.

In accordance with IACUC Xenofauna Protocol #227, we humanely captured, sedated, and determined the sex of twenty-five adult S. auritus, then approximated each individual’s height in centimeters. All subjects were captured and released within one mile of the “Dismal Swamps” region of ELEP9.

Height Dataset

heights=read.csv("S_auritusHeights.csv")
head(heights)
heights$sex=as.factor(heights$sex)
heights$subject=as.factor(heights$subject)
summary(heights)
##     subject       sex     heightAtHeadCm 
##  1      : 1   female:14   Min.   :37.00  
##  2      : 1   male  :11   1st Qu.:55.00  
##  3      : 1               Median :63.00  
##  4      : 1               Mean   :66.24  
##  5      : 1               3rd Qu.:77.00  
##  6      : 1               Max.   :91.00  
##  (Other):19
###and now, load a table...

knitr::kable(heights, caption="Subject height data.")
Subject height data.
subject sex heightAtHeadCm
1 male 55
2 male 57
3 male 60
4 male 53
5 male 61
6 male 59
7 male 52
8 male 54
9 male 49
10 male 37
11 male 54
12 female 70
13 female 86
14 female 71
15 female 75
16 female 82
17 female 90
18 female 65
19 female 77
20 female 83
21 female 63
22 female 72
23 female 91
24 female 62
25 female 78

Dataset Analysis

### I'm installing Rmisc because I want to use summarySE for this data, but I don't know how to do the stuff that it does with base R. Sorry if that's against any rules!
library(Rmisc)
## Loading required package: lattice
## Loading required package: plyr
sseHeights = summarySE(data=heights, measurevar="heightAtHeadCm", groupvars="sex", na.rm=T)
head(sseHeights)
knitr::kable(sseHeights, caption="Mean, standard deviation, standard error, and confidence interval of S. auritus heights by sex.")
Mean, standard deviation, standard error, and confidence interval of S. auritus heights by sex.
sex N heightAtHeadCm sd se ci
female 14 76.07143 9.506793 2.540797 5.489059
male 11 53.72727 6.619530 1.995864 4.447061 
### This table looks terrible- the line and number spacing is all off- but I'm not sure how to fix it! Sorry.

The mean height of male and female S. auritus is not equal. This may indicate sexual dimorphism; however, in order to gather a sufficient dataset to test this hypothesis, we will need to measure the heights of more individuals.

Works Cited

The simulated height data was generated by CalculatorSoup’s Random Number Generator.

Random Number Generator

The two given definitions of “kobold” are quoted from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary.

Kobold - Merriam-Webster

The kobold illustration was created by me and has been previously published, in part, on my artist Instagram (veradraco.art) and Youtube (VERADRACO ART) accounts.

“Kobold Concept Art Speed-Draw”

Instagram Post

The Rmisc package was used for some calculations.

Hope RM (2022). Rmisc: Ryan Miscellaneous. R package version 1.5.1.