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Native to Tatooine, the urusai was a yellow-and-blue reptavian that feasted upon carrion (often to the point of being too engorged to take flight).
A female urusai clinging to a Tatooine building.
They were essential to the desert ecosystem, as their diet prevented decaying corpses from spreading lethal diseases—their bare skin undermined the collection of bacteria. With their delicate olfactory senses, urusais rode the rising thermals of the blue Tatooine sky, nesting under eaves and on cliff outcroppings.
Females had two wings, while males had four—the larger rear wings were used for flying, while the smaller front ones were strictly for mating displays. Balancing on their strong tails, they wooed prospective mates, who laid two to three eggs per brood. In a harsh microcosm of Tatooine's brutality, the first young to hatch destroyed the remaining eggs—unless two had hatched simultaneously, whereupon the chicks would duel until one fell to the ground.
With a wingspan of two meters, a hefty weight of forty-three kilograms, and a lifespan of up to fifty years, the urusai was an imposing reptavian species.
They formed a symbiotic relationship with Sarlaccs (specifically with the gigantic females) - urusai clean the teeth and tentacles of the female Sarlacc while the female Sarlacc offers up killed food to her flying reptavian custodians, which also may nest near her.
Appearances
An urusai female feeds on carrion.
- Star Wars Episode I: The Gungan Frontier (First appearance)
- Empire 8
- Tatooine Ghost
Sources
- The Art of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
- The Wildlife of Star Wars: A Field Guide
- The Official Star Wars Fact File 35 TAT 27-28: Tatooine – The Great Pit of Carkoon
- The Official Star Wars Fact File 114 TAT 59-60: Tatooine – Animals
- The New Essential Guide to Droids
- Obsessed With Star Wars
- The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia