Lollibracken

A Lollibracken is a bipedal winged scavenger with a large skull balanced by a long, heavy tail. Its legs are extremely powerful allowing it to run fast as well as propel it into the air for flight. Its two arms are equally powerful featuring four clawed digits strong enough to tear through metal and stone. Two wings sit behind the shoulder blades, with a wingspan equal to the length of the creature from nose to tip of tail (though there are examples featuring wingspans longer than this). Lollibrackens are almost completely covered in dense, over lapping scales that are able to withstand extreme heat and cold. They are able to excrete a glue-like substance from between the scales on their back allowing them to carry food and other supplies without it falling off during flight or travel. Lollibrackens are scavengers who eat both animal and plant matter. Their unique ability to hold their breath for up to four hours, combined with their temperature resistant bodies allow them to hunt in space. Both male and female lollibrackens are born with purple scales. At age twelve, their scales begin to change color as they go through puberty. At the end of this transformation, the females will be red in color, and the males blue. The depth of color is determined by genetic factors.

The lollibracken home planet is Glore, and they live mainly in the northern hemisphere near the north pole. They live in small colonies.

Authors Note:

When I wrote Brandon Sparks and the Hidden Sun I didn’t have an outline or a plan, I just knew that Brandon would become captain and the enemy would be the Ptevos. When I got deeper into the story, I quickly realized that some sort of swerve was necessary. Yes the Ptevos are a great enemy but I wanted a secondary enemy and a way to tease readers about what was to come in future books, so I came up with the idea of the lollibrackens, or their original name, “a dinosaur/dragon in space.” They can hold their breath for long periods of time and withstand both the cold of space and the heat of passing through a planet’s atmosphere. I named them specifically for the lollipop joke.