Species name: The Naked Laughing Octomole, AKA the Smug Runner.
Food source: Roots and burrowing insects. Other rodents, lizards, or snakes occasionally.
Size: About the size and weight of a good sized otter.
Natural abilities: The Smug Runner and both a lightning fast runner and digger, able to burrow through the earth as though it were swimming through the water thanks to its tusks and eight rapidly working claws. Its teeth are amount the hardest of the rodent family, able to take a chunk out of most any predator. It is blind, but it compensates for this with excellent hearing, smell, and the ability to feel vibrations in the earth.
Magical abilities: None.
Usual Temperaments: Smug Runners are communal creatures and tend to travel in family groups of 6 to 9 individuals headed by a single matriarch. A supremely confident creature, they get their colloquial name from how close they are willing to let an enemy get before darting off or diving under the ground in the blink of an eye, letting out a distinct, bass, "huhuhuhuhuh" sound that can be easily mistaken for laughter. It actuality it is a warning cry to the rest of its family, and the Smug Runner will turn its impressive jaws on you in their defence. They are also gluttonous eaters, needing many calories to fuel their incredible bursts of speed, and so are often in conflict with human farmers.
Locations Found: All of Gaia, parts of Northern Tearia and Western Vrondi.
Weaknesses: Sound and seismic attacks. Spectral or ethereal foes that it can't sense.