Lacris

'Important note: This species was created with vore in mind so there will be references to it throughout this (both fatal and non-fatal). If you don’t like vore this species doesn’t have to be used for it but please keep this in mind when reading, thank you!'Lacris are a small and very timid cockroach-like species that live their lives hiding away from the other species of Faria to avoid being any trouble but unfortunately are still viewed by most as disgusting, dirty vermin.

Lacris are found throughout the continents of Malina, Nowe, southern Reistein and Sphraga. Lacris are possibly found in Andor but this isn't confirmed. Lacris live entirely underground in a network of tunnels, sewer drains and very rarely under floorboards of towns if they’re daring enough.

Biology
Lacris are a short insect species, the third shortest sapient species in Faria, with only anurans and murin being smaller. Lacris height ranges between the three varieties of them found in colonies: workers, princesses and queens.

Workers are the most common form of lacris. Workers have a broad, flattened body and stand between 3'3”-4’ tall, females being slightly bigger. The only other means of easily recognizing different sexes is that females have more curled antennae and much larger abdomens than males. Workers have six limbs, they can walk on their hind limbs and use their remaining limbs like arms, though they can only run on all limbs. Due to how compact and narrow their tunnels are, it's necessary for worker lacris to walk on all limbs. Workers have wings but can only fly for short distances, more often they use their wings to achieve a long leap over full flight. Princesses are uncommon to meet in a colony as they are usually busy tending to the queen, but they can be spotted patrolling tunnels to aid workers in need of aid or looking after nymphs. Princesses are taller and much less broad in build than workers, heights averaging between 5-5'5". Built for swift moments and for fighting, their mouths contain powerful mandibles for delivering painful bites, their hindmost legs are lined with spikes to deliver strong and sharp kicks. Unlike workers, princesses can only be female, have fully developed wings allowing them to fly, and are the only form of lacris that may metamorphize into a queen.

Confusingly to outsiders, there are multiple princesses. There are royal guard princesses born from workers, and a true princess directly descended from the queen. The real princess is often called next-in-line to differentiate her. Queens are the fewest of their kind but also the oldest and most tremendously large. Queens sit at 8-9' but stand at an estimated 20' tall or more. They always sit in place because they sport abdomens so massive they are rendered immobile and need the strength of their royal guard princesses to move them if needed. Queens are able to produce an entire generations worth of workers alone, but every clutch will produce at least one princess. Queens retain their wings, which gain a bright display of colours like stained glass used to intimidate as they no longer can carry the queens in flight. A display of wings paired with booming anger can be quite a frightening sight.

Like many insects, lacris have compounded eyes which allow them to have a very wide field of vision of nearly 360°, this lets them know what’s going on in their environment easily. They also can see better and worse in particular lights, they can’t see in red light but they can see especially well in green light, so green lighting is sought after by lacris for lighting the way in their dark tunnels, but standard warm and cold white lighting works for them too.

While functionally they are all the same species, this strong distinction in colours sometimes divides them up between being referred to as northern and southern lacris. Lacris found in Nowe and Reistein tend to be more drab colours like reddish-brown, brown, white and black with some faint patterns, much like insects of northern regions. Lacris found in Sphraga and Malina can be a wider rainbow of colours with lots of patterning much like the brightly coloured insects so common in these regions. The term "southern lacris" is erroneous as Sphraga is situated further east than other lacris ranges.

Like cockroaches, lacris are nocturnal and prefer to have their active hours under the cover of dark when they emerge to the surface. This is because their vision is better adapted to night time hours and it's easier for them to avoid most of their predators and threats at night than during the day, as well as easier to keep hidden in general. Of course this means they spend the daylight hours asleep, they will usually sleep from about 8am-5pm on average, though some may wake up an hour earlier to get a head-start on work.

Behaviour
Preferring to live in large colonies of their own kind, lacris live underground with vast tunnel networks connecting them from the southern jungles of Malina all the way up to just before the cold tundra of Reistein. Lacris use small dug out burrows for homes, preferring to live in small, confined spaces. These are usually very modestly furnished with only bare essentials and close possessions as it’s generally frowned upon to own more than is needed.

Lacris culture is built on the principle of ‘waste not, want not’. They take whatever other races have no need or want for and will use it for themselves and make sure it goes as far and lasts as long as possible. Lacris are not an aggressive species by any means, but within their culture wastefulness and dirtiness is extremely frowned on, but they’re too timid to do much other than stutter out cautionary words, though princesses and queens will be much firmer about affirming this stance. Lacris hold a very strict stance on theft, they believe it's wrong to steal anything clearly being used or beloved possessions from other species.

Space is used only as much as needed in their network too, the tunnels are designed for lacris to run through on all six legs and to accommodate their overall size range, making travel for anyone bigger than they are difficult unless they are smaller than the lacris themselves. To protect themselves from predators, lacris fill in old entrances and make new ones along with many fake entrances that lead nowhere, except to a note of apology for the deception.

Despite their simple living, lacris have actually learned to generate electricity well before humans arrived with their advanced tech, a feat even lyres never achieved. Electricity is generated by creating intricate but efficient little machines running off of underground spring water in order to keep them in motion, though lacris have also invented machines that rely on them to exercise themselves to generate power. Lacris use electricity for lighting tunnels and testing the occasional tech they fix to return to the surface, though some hold onto it since they may find uses for it themselves or feel it may make a nice present for their queen.

The most common thing electricity powers inside lacris tunnels is ootheca lightbulbs. The clear coloured capsules from breeding seasons can be fashioned into a lightbulb by lacris, a technique only they know which has helped to light up their underground homes. These ootheca lightbulbs can be seen lodged into the ceilings, walls and homesteads of the lacris' tunnels. The queens chamber is intricately decorated with ootheca lightbulbs in well thought out and vivid displays in order to best bring out her beauty and her colourful wings.

Lacris play a very important role in Faria, they are one of the most efficient cleaners in the whole world. They spend their entire lives taking rubbish and waste material left behind by other species in order to reuse and recycle it. Lacris only emerge at night to take rubbish from settlements no one is using, they don’t like to be seen by other species so they take advantage of the lull in activity and cover of darkness to work on the surface in peace and relative safety.

Lacris try to not take everything for themselves, and give back by making compost and sneaking it into piles of compost in other settlements to help out secretly. If they’re daring they’ll place this compost on crops and produce very healthy crops for others, they generally go without thanks, but they are happy to help nonetheless. Some lacris even go as far as to repair old junk to make it usable again for others if they have the knowledge to do so. Unfortunately, their association of being dirty and disgusting scavengers doesn’t help much since they aren’t afraid to use even the most unpleasant forms of “waste” for their own use, though they do wash near-constantly.

Lacris as Predators
Lacris are on the lower rungs of the food chain of sentient species, they have little to no chance of eating anything bigger than they are. Even a single anuran would be a challenge for them to attempt to eat due to their aggressive nature. Lacris may eat smaller species of wild animals for protein but would almost never dare to eat sapient species.

Lacris predators are unlikely but not unheard of. Murin are the only sapient species lacris are known to prey on since they’re small enough to eat comfortably, but according to stories of the few lacris predators that murin tell stories of, lacris don't like to be forceful about the whole affair and will still ask nicely if you’ll be food for them. Even this is rare, as murin are the only species the lacris get along well with, since they're on even rungs of the social ladder and the food chain, but most likely such predation is well intended as lacris enjoy helping murin travel through their tunnels, and they may just want them to be extra safe.

It’s not impossible for a lacris to enjoy a larger meal, but the soft-hearted nature of workers would mean they’d likely want to let prey go afterwards rather than keep them as food, but exceptions can always occur. The only true lacris predators are their queens, who are all large enough to consume prey more easily. Princesses can also stomach larger live meals but seem to only do this on the occasions when they venture to the surface when they have very brief time for themselves as a bit of pleasure. The more common occurrence is for sapient species to be captured by princesses and dragged into the queens chamber to become her meal.

Lacris as Prey
Lacris are certainly much more likely to wind up as food for predators, usually to burrowing predators who can break into their tunnels and most nocturnal predators. Avian predators especially tend to favour lacris as prey so many lacris are terrified of birds as a result, but reptilian and mammalian species are known to prey on lacris as well.

The majority of sentient species see lacris as too disgusting to even consider eating, lyres especially would turn their nose up at the mere notion since they see them as too dirty to risk eating. Predator species known for being unfussy eaters like nagas, chimeras, deceivers and anurans are exceptions as they'll happily eat lacris regardless of their reputation since it means they get a meal all the same.

Diet
Lacris are scavengers who will eat anything, but they prefer to eat leftover/thrown away food as they strongly dislike wastefulness. Lacris are much too shy to buy fresher food from other species and especially refuse to steal food. Lacris have incredibly tough stomachs that can gain nutrients from even the most vile and rotten of foods. As a result of their hardy stomachs and bodies they never get sick and are incredibly disease resistant, their cleanliness means they rarely spread diseases either. Lacris do have foods they're fond of, they love foods that are high in starch, sugar or grease, but most surprisingly are very fond of cheese. Lacris love cheese so much that they make it themselves as a special treat on rare occasions when they come by suitable ingredients they can use. Lacris cheese is rare to find being sold by merchants on the surface due to the extremely pungent smell few can stand, and fewer still can stomach actually eating it without being violently ill. Those who actually like the cheese love it so much, they're willing to pay a fortune in reigels for it. This has coined the term ‘cheesemonger’ to refer to merchants who are very serious about taking advantage of any opportunity to make money, even if their goods are limited to clientele with specific niches. This term has it's roots in it being very apparent when a merchant is carrying so much as a single wheel of lacris cheese in their stock.

Weaknesses
Lacris are a surprisingly hardy species, unable to contract diseases or be poisoned easily due to their stomachs being able to handle anything and their lifestyle revolving around cleaning up after the world above, but they still have their weaknesses to exploit.

Specialized poisons such as insecticides are as effective on them as their smaller cousins. Some people go as far as to keep large amounts of insecticides in crop fields to keep them out, even if all the lacris visit the fields for is to help grow the crops with fertilizers they make themselves.

Being such a timid species, lacris are incredibly easy to scare away from a town. Anywhere with resident nagas, bird beastkin, anurans and particularly aggressive pets will see next to no lacris visits. Sudden, loud noises will definitely frighten away a lacris, anything above that isn’t even necessary but will work if needed.

Spirituality
Lacris are far too cut off from the world above to have likely heard of any sort of religion like The Family but would likely accept the knowledge of such things at face value without really questioning it much for themselves. Lacris would be pretty easy to convince to believe in such faiths, using the bare minimum threatening tone of voice would likely get them to go along with it, if it meant you wouldn't hurt them.

Outside of these, lacris are devoted to one thing only, which is their queens below ground.

Overall
When it comes to relations with other sapient species, lacris keep out of the way and try not interfere with them directly when possible. If they do run into other species they try to be friendly, these encounters often don’t go well since many species dislike lacris on the grounds that they are seemingly "disgusting, dirty scroungers who don’t do anything to contribute", such views are due to a lack of knowledge on lacris. The few who know otherwise are aware these views on the lacris aren't true at all, and merchants who are aware of the lacris’ real reputation have come to depend on them as reliable sources of working tech, lacris cheese and secure trade routes, their tunnels being a perfect place to transport small goods or post without worry of theft. Not many people have had opportunities to learn about lacris personally, but a few limited texts exist or are being worked on by researchers to help spread awareness and understanding of the lacris, which some hope will improve relations in the future.

Over the past few decades, lacris have started to very tentatively move into mixed settlements among other species with some success, but they are still rare outside of their underground network. They do their best to fit in and be kind and helpful, but their shyness is often a hurdle for them in improving their perception of them by other species, so many lacris in mixed settlements either become very socially withdrawn and depressed or may simply return to their colony to not feel lonely.

Of course, in spite of the overall views of lacris, they do get along better with some species, and struggle much more with others.

Humans
Humans often especially dislike lacris since they see them like giant cockroaches, so they see them as nothing more than vermin, the term ‘rat’ is often used to subtly hint at their activity, which has lead to it being sometimes used as an insult towards them. Some people go to extreme lengths to keep them away from their property and possessions. Insecticides and traps are common methods, even though all you need to scare them off is to shout ‘boo’ near them and you’d never see them again.

Anurans
A lacris would never say that they hate anurans, but they're most certainly scared of anurans. Much like themselves, anurans favour a nocturnal lifestyle so the two species often cross paths when venturing into settlements. This by itself wouldn't be so bad, but while anurans are smaller than lacris, they're very much predators and do enjoy eating bugs like many amphibians, so lacris make a great and filling meal for an anuran. Anurans are smart enough to know that there's always more lacris nearby if they've found one, so they will readily seize the opportunity to get to all eat a nice, wriggly meal all for themselves.

Anurans are almost entirely the reason that lacris will be very very quiet when looking around settlements for food and supplies, they know in turn that anurans have extremely keen senses of hearing and smell, and making too much noise would readily draw a whole swarm right to the source. Lacris can only just about outrun an anuran running on the ground if they can get a good head-start on them, and will lead the swarm into dead end tunnels to trick them into being drawn away from the rest of their fellows and to protect their colony, a very scary thing for a lacris to do but they know it must be done for the sake of keeping the colony safe. One or two swarms of anurans are rumored to have a more tense but beneficial relationship with lacris colonies near their homes but this is not confirmed.

Murin
Murin are known to get along well with lacris due to their similar lifestyles of living in the shadow of other races, but they have disagreements. Lacris dislike stealing anything being used so they feel guilty helping murin with theft (mainly because murin bite back much harder with words than lacris ever could), but the lacris are happy to accommodate murin by letting them share their tunnels and ride on their backs to travel in safety. Lacris enjoy having murin stay in their homes for company, though murin tend to prefer homes with more comforts and less dirt.

Treating Each Other
Amongst each other, lacris are still timid but more capable of being sociable amongst each other. Both sexes may see each other as equals socially, but overall the species is very matriarchal and females are in charge of the most important jobs, making them more important overall. Social hierarchy in lacris culture is fairly straightforward:


 * 1) The Queen
 * 2) Next-in-line
 * 3) Nymphs
 * 4) Princesses
 * 5) Female workers
 * 6) Male workers

All lacris leaders are princesses, they help lead and manage workers to keep food and power sources consistently available. Despite the term "princess" being used, this is an erroneous term as royal guard princesses are actually born from workers but raised by the queen personally to be trained as royal guards, so next to none of them are related to each other. Royal guard princesses act more like big sisters to their timid siblings and work their hardest to keep everyone safe from danger. A princesses intended roles may be positions such as caretakers, foremen, guards, merchants and any other sort of work requiring some extent of backbone to be able to do effectively as workers are so timid. Most important of all, and expected of every princess, is to function as royal guards to protect their queens, the next-in-line and nymphs. While the next-in-line is the true princess, royal guard princesses could potentially become a queen if it were necessary.

All lacris devote themselves to their queen, everything a lacris does is her will. A common misconception, even amongst the workers who are usually too terrified to meet with their queens personally, is that the queens are ill-tempered and have no time or patience for anyone, but in truth queens are actually quite gentle and motherly towards their people, showing only the utmost of kindness and tenderness to them. Queens more than recognize the timid natures of their kind and speak very soothingly to their skittish workers, doing their utmost to reserve their tempers for when it's most necessary. Queens usually are much more strict towards the princesses, but this is simply because princesses have a much hardier temperament on average so they can handle it. The queens do have their vengeful side, they are said to be unforgiving of anyone who harms their people. On the surface, the queens existences are deemed as legendary to everyone above, and those from the surface who have met them usually don’t return to tell about it due to intruding within her royal chamber, an act that is punished by being eaten if you're an outsider.

Workers are only expected to follow the orders of their queen relayed by princesses, but their love for their queen is so genuine that they often have to pluck up the courage to come and meet the queen in person in order to gift them particularly nice things they've scavenged. Princesses are expected to guard the queens and nymphs lives with their own if they're in danger.

Death is a matter tackled in a manner that would seem cold to those on the outside, but to the lacris it's a necessity with the way they live. When a lacris dies, their bodies will output an odor to alert other colony members that they're dead but not yet starting to decompose, this is actually a crucial function so lacris can move their dead as soon as possible. With of the sheer numbers living in a colony, it would be impractical to give loved ones burials close by as the process of decomposition would invite diseases the lacris are vulnerable to, and this would be a disaster for the health of the whole colony. For this reason, lacris keep burial sites that are located very far away from their own colonies, effectively meaning all lacris are left in a mass grave of past dead. Lacris don't leave anything with their dead as this would be seen as a wasteful thing to do, so the appropriate thing to do with loved ones few belongings (if they had any) is to make new use of them, which is seen as honoring the dead still. Even queens will be buried in these mass graves as the lacris can't afford to make exceptions, but it is permittable to leave flowers for the queen since these will decompose overtime.

This decomposition is an important part of the role lacris play in the health of the world above them. Researchers who study lacris have found that lacris burial sites happen to line up almost perfectly with the forests of Faria. The flora that grow in forests on top of burial sites noticeably benefit from the burial sites underneath them as a source of nutrients for the soil, with major boosts in growth tied to these additional nutrients. Lacris are actually built for this purpose, their bodies decompose at an abnormally fast rate after they die and stop producing their death odor, likely a trait evolved to free up space in the burial sites as soon as possible, which in turn benefits the flora above them, and maintains the health of Farias ecosystems.

Colonies
There are multiple colonies spread across Faria, but in spite of how vast the system of tunnels is overall, there are different territories maintained by each colony. These colonies run like clockwork, a near-constant system of workers fulfilling their jobs assigned to them by royal guards which in turn are relayed by their queen across each sections of their territory.

Lacris colonies are made up of many tunnels, these all connect to a massive central chamber called the hub, a network of bridges and entryways leading to different tunnels. The queens chamber is found in the centre of the the hub, surrounding the hub is many places of business like shops, barracks for the princesses, food stores, plants to generate electricity and up closest to the surface are hatcheries so nymphs can get the oxygen they need when they hatch. The tunnels then stretch well below ground and lead to residential tunnels where hundreds of lacris live in small amounts of space as to not take up too much room so as many workers as possible can live within available space, only extending when space runs out.

The lacris as a whole are too timid for war, but tensions can arise between colonies over matters like stealing food resources, trying to invade and take over rival tunnels, attempts on a queens life among many others. Should such occurrences happen, princesses battle rival princesses and try to kill the other colonies queen, workers will carry on life as normal but as far away from the conflict as possible or they would get too scared to even move. If a rival queen is killed, the remaining colony will cut their losses and disperse into evacuation tunnels, which are soon sealed off while they dig new tunnels further below ground.

From here, one of two things could happen. Either the new tunnels will become an extension of the victors territory and lacris will move into these new tunnels without further incident, or a princess may decide she wishes to become a queen herself and start her own colony. If the latter occurs, the other princesses may decide to support the effort and help the princess metamorphize into a new queen, or continue to side with their queen and try to stop the rogue guard. A royal guard gone rogue cannot go back on her initial decision to betray her queen, so she has no other choice but to battle her comrades.

If the lone guard can hold her own, instinct will make her eat her comrades to get ideal metamorphizing fuel for her body which will need as many nutrients as it can get. Eating them all successfully and undergoing metamorphosis will make her vulnerable, so hormones sending out signals to nearby workers and susceptible guards that their new queen is hungry and in need of aid will draw members of her old colony to her. Workers of course will be too intimidated by the new queens mere presence to question turning on their old queen for a new one, so they get right to work on populating the tunnels and gathering food for her, bringing new generations with them and jumpstarting a whole new colony. The queen of the old colony will not interfere further if her rogue guard has succeeded in starting a new colony by calling workers and guards away from her. While the losses can be troubling, lacris have little difficulty in carrying on and rebuilding themselves as long as their queen sees them through, so life will soon return to normal unless the new queen becomes an active threat to the colony, in which case the same cycle can happen all over again.

It is possible for colonies to band together as allies, so they can become super-colonies lead by more than one queen who will send guards between each other to communicate. This can resolve the woes of colonies suffering from hard times, help new colonies who are struggling to build numbers and relieve tensions between rival colonies by choosing to work together rather than against one another.

If a queen dies, the next-in-line will inherit the title of queen. Once she takes up the “throne room”, which is just a chamber of the tunnel network large enough to accommodate a queen, the next-in-line will be fed food brought to her by the royal guard princesses and workers. This is done in tandem with a next-in-line's body instinctively jumpstarting the growth via a massive release of hormones, gradually metamorphizing into a queen right before the eyes of her subjects. In order to sufficiently grow to full size, royal guard princesses have to go through entire stores worth of reserved food or venture to the surface and scavenge more food, even resorting to hunting if necessary. On some occasions, it's possible for queens to reach even more tremendous sizes than average depending on how much food was stockpiled over the years and how successful their subjects were at bringing more for them. Stories even tell of queens that grew as large as over 50ft tall, with abdomens so large that their chambers had to be made bigger just to accommodate them.

Reproduction
Lacris come into season for mating once a year in spring. Worker lacris partners mate for life but the notion of seeking a mate is frightening to them, so courtship of lacris is seen rarely among workers. The main challenge in courting is either side being the first to work up the courage to ask the other on a date. It can take weeks, months and even years before lacris workers overcome their nerves and invite a potential partner on a date. Worker lacris are easy to please, they simply invite a date they've been crushing on for a long time to a meal, usually a home prepared meal made out of refuse, leftover treat foods and lacris cheese. If they have a nice enough time together and get to know each other more over the course of the meal, they're like to become mates there and then.

Queens do things differently. They are only able to reproduce once in their whole life, which happens 5 years after metamorphosis, so they have to make it count when their time comes. To have the best chance at producing lots of offspring, queens choose the most desirable worker males of that year, regardless of whether he has a partner or not, spend a night with him mating, then thank him and send him home with a small gift (usually lacris cheese). Having multiple partners serves to keep up genetic variety, so it can be considered special to be chosen as a mate for the queen, especially as many males die before they ever get the chance.

Royal guard princesses and the next-in-line are genetically hardwired to be unable to reproduce without metamorphizing into a queen. This is likely in place not to undermine the queens rule, but can drive instinctive urges found in some royal guard princesses to find or even create opportunities in life to become a queen themselves so they may have children of their own.

After "mating" properly, female workers and the queen will develop an egg capsule, called an ootheca, within their abdomen, this ootheca takes 3 months to hatch. Oothecas are laid a month after initial conception and are carried around in the abdomens of female workers while they work. Shortly before the eggs are ready to hatch, females will store their oothecas in a warm and secure location closer to the surface where they can get the oxygen they need when they hatch, mothers will provide bedding and gifts for their nymphs in these hatching chambers. The ootheca of a worker is only able to store only 2 nymphs, but queens are able to hold up to over 100 nymphs in their oothecas thanks to the larger abdomen able to accommodate them. A rare but possible occurrence is for female workers to have princess children, though these daughters will be delivered to the queen in order to be raised as royal guards by the adult guards.

Life Cycle
Once the worker nymphs hatch, they will spend the first few hours of their life in the hatchery with their mothers soaking up the oxygen they need for their initial white colour to darken into what will become their adult colour. Once the nymphs have developed their colour fully, their mothers will carry their young on their back all the way back down to the hub. From the moment they rejoin the colony, nymphs are members of their colony like the adults. Unlike the adults, some time is spent in leisure playing together, which aids them learning how to socialize with each other, their elders and learning what sort of work they will need to do when they're older. Unlike workers, nymphs only need to take orders from their parents, but because workers are so timid they're rather poor at actually parenting their children, so princesses have to step in and give orders so nymphs learn the chain of command and get into the routine. All the oothecas from the new generation don't go to waste, and are made into new lightbulbs by lacris.

Nymphs will molt their skins several times until they reach adulthood at 15 years old, at this point they reach their full height and stop molting. Female nymphs born from the queens will have least one egg per capsule be a princess. The queen will only personally raise her own princess, though the royal guard princesses most experienced at child rearing may be called upon by the queen to assist in raising the nymphs and the next-in-line. Princess nymphs develop much the same way with molting many times as they grow up, but are raised separately from their worker siblings, given rather intensive combat training until they turn 15 and can leave the protection of the queen, from here they will perform the duties they were raised from hatching to fulfill.

The childhood of the next-in-line is spent directly in the queens shadow. The queen will hardly let the next-in-line leave her chamber as motherly instinct makes her especially protective of her only heir. The next-in-line is taught many crucial lessons about life through the queen with the assistance of royal guard princesses. The next-in-line will be taught lighter combat training is by the strongest fighters, educated by the most knowledgeable scholars, and of course taught all the duties of a future queen by her own mother. There is nary a moment for a next-in-line to rest other than sleep, which is almost as strictly regimented to a square 8 hours of sleep starting from 4am-12pm. In the rare event that a queen has more than one next-in-line, they will all be raised to potentially be queens, but only one will start metamorphizing when her time comes. The other sibling will most likely become a royal guard with some help from other royal guard princesses, or if her sister has died before she can become queen, she'll take her sister's place as next-in-line. If the next-in-line dies and has no other siblings to take her place, the queen will choose the best royal guard in her fold to take the place of her daughter.

Worker lacris males live to be about 25 years old while females can live to be 30. Princesses are known to reach 40 years old and queens can live to be 50 years old or more.