Writing a book- animal as main charector- can anyone tell me what animal fits these requierments?

Question

Anyways I'm about to start writing a story and I need to make my main character- I have most the plot, just no main chareccharacter

Anyways the main charechtor is going to be an animal, so what im rI'mlly looking for is an animal that matches these requierments

Must be a social animal that lives ion a group of atleast 100 of its species.

Preferably eats insects and is fuzzy/cute ( i want to make a charcharacterple will like people like furry things and dont like insects, therefpr a furry thinbg that eats insects is ideal)

Must be prey to something (like hawks and wolves)

Preferably not domesticated

Must generraly live in either rural areas or in a forest

Must have some sort of special atribute that makes it unique (i.e an elephant and it's trunk or a giraffe and its neck)

Btw this book is targetted for young teens

Answer 1

A monkey

Answer 2

a spider monkey!? they are adorable and to me it fits nicely!

Answer 3

The Army Ant

The name army ant (or legionary ant or "Marabunta") is applied to over 200 ant species, in different lineages, due to their aggressive predatory foraging groups, known as "raids", in which huge numbers of ants all forage simultaneously over a certain area, attacking prey en masse.

Another shared feature is that unlike most ant species, army ants do not construct permanent nests, and an army ant colony moves almost incessantly over the time it exists. All species are members of the true ant family Formicidae, but there are several groups that have independently evolved the same basic behavioral and ecological syndrome. This syndrome is often referred to as "legionary behavior", and is an example of convergent evolution.

Contents [hide]

1 Usage, circumscription

2 Ecitoninae

3 In fiction

4 Notes

5 External links

6 References and further reading



[edit] Usage, circumscription

Historically, "army ant" referred, in the broad sense, to various members of 5 different ant subfamilies: in two of these cases, the Ponerinae and Myrmicinae, it is only a few species and genera that exhibit legionary behavior; in the other three lineages, Ecitoninae, Dorylinae, and Leptanillinae, all of the constituent species are legionary. More recently, ant classifications now recognize an additional New World subfamily, Leptanilloidinae, which also consists of obligate legionary species, and thus is another group now included among the army ants.

A 2003 study of thirty species (by Sean Brady of Cornell University) indicates that the ecitonine and doryline army ants together formed a monophyletic group: all shared identical genetic markers that suggest a common ancestor. Brady concluded that these two groups are therefore a single lineage that evolved in the mid-Cretaceous period in Gondwana[1], and so the two subfamilies are now generally united into a single subfamily Ecitoninae, though this is still not universally recognized (e.g. [2]).

Accordingly, the army ants as presently recognized consist of the following genera:

Subfamily Ponerinae:

Leptogenys (some species)

Onychomyrmex

Simopelta

Subfamily Myrmicinae:

Pheidolegeton

Subfamily Leptanilloidinae:

Asphinctanilloides

Leptanilloides

Subfamily Leptanillinae:

Anomalomyrma

Leptanilla

Phaulomyrma

Protanilla

Yavnella

Subfamily Ecitoninae:

Aenictus

Cheliomyrmex

Dorylus

Eciton

Labidus

Neivamyrmex

Nomamyrmex

[edit] Ecitoninae

Main article: Ecitoninae



A soldier of the New World army ant Eciton burchelliMost New World army ants belong to the subfamily Ecitoninae, and this is the most commonly-known lineage, therefore bears special mention. This subfamily is further broken into two groups, the tribes Cheliomyrmecini and Ecitonini. The former contains only the genus Cheliomyrmex, and the tribe Ecitonini contains four genera, Neivamyrmex, Nomamyrmex, Labidus, and Eciton, the genus after which the group is named (Brady, 2003, Tree of Life). The genus Neivamyrmex is the largest of all army ant genera, containing some 120 species, all in the United States. The most predominant species of Eciton is Eciton burchellii, whose common name is "army ant" and which is considered to be the archetypal species.

The Old World army ants are divided between the two tribes Aenictini and Dorylini.

The tribe Aenictini is made up of a single genus, Aenictus, that contains over 50 species of army ant.

The tribe Dorylini contains the aggressive driver ants in the genus Dorylus. There are some 60 species known.

Army ant taxonomy remains ever-changing, and genetic analysis will continue to provide more information about the relatedness of the various species.

[edit] In fiction

Carl Stephenson's 1938 short story "Leiningen Versus the Ants" concerns a massive column of army ants that threatens a Brazilian plantation. The story was adapted for an episode of the radio series Escape in 1948 and as the motion picture The Naked Jungle in 1954.

In the MacGyver episode Trumbo's World (Season 1 Episode 6), MacGyver assists a reclusive landowner in Brazil to defend his home from army ants (referred to in the show as soldier ants). The size of the ant swarm is described as being several miles long and wide. The ants kill several humans in the episode within minutes of being swarmed. They are eventually defeated by flooding the fields on Trumbo's land.

In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a legion of siafu eat several Soviet soldiers alive, despite this behaviour not being present in reality. Additionally, Siafu are native to Africa and Asia, and are absent from the film's South American setting (although similar species exist there).

In The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, a huge swarm of ants attacks the village where the main characters live. The villagers and missionaries all run to the river and escape the ants by boat; they later return to find food and livestock completel

Answer 4

You're looking mostly at small animals. I can only really speak for British wildlife, but I suspect that if you live in the US, most of the animals will be transferable.

Rabbits are the first thing I think of - they live in large social groups, however they do not eat insects. They are preyed upon by foxes, dogs, cats and sometimes large birds of prey, inhabit pretty much any environment, from semi-desert to forest, and of course have lovely long ears and fluffy tails.

If rabbits don't cut it, how about hedgehogs? They don't traditionally live in large groups, but large numbers of hedgehogs will inhabit the territory they live on. They eat insects, are prey to larger animals, live in rural areas or woodland, and have those characteristic spines. Or squirrels, which live in similar social situations to hedgehogs. They are very vocal and communicate with one another. They don't eat insects, but fill your other requirements.

Answer 5

squirrel. =]

they're small, and not easily seen.

can make for a good story of sneaking around, haha.

Answer 6

A zebra  

Answer 7

a deer, but they dont eat insects.

a antelope?

and anteater?

aadrvark =]

or maybe like a hedgehod, or pourcupine =]

Answer 8

anteater?

Answer 9

Koala bear, they are adorable!

Answer 10

How about meerkats? They live in large groups (though not usually as many as 100, but there's artistic licence), and feed on invertebrates like scorpions, millipedes and insects, as well as small lizards and so on. They are furry and considered cute by many people, and have numerous predators, including birds of prey, jackals, etc. They are not domestic, and live in southern Africa. There are other species of mongoose you could use instead of meerkats, if you wanted, for example banded mongooses or dwarf mongooses, or one of the Asian species if you wished to set the story somewhere other than Africa.

In response to Monkeh-Vi's answer, there is no such thing as the 'rodent family' - rodents are an order, not a family. Neither rabbits nor hedgehogs are rodents - rabbits are lagomorphs, and hedgehogs are insectivores.

Answer 11

Anyways, when you type generraly in Google, you get 2,040 hits.

Answer 12

What about Bats?

They are social animals that live in big colonies together.

They are furry and cute.

Most of them (about 70% - including all species in North America) eat insects.

They live in the wild (i.e. are not domesticated). They also live in rural areas and forest - actually, pretty much anywhere, except polar regions.

As the only flying mammal, they're pretty unique/special.

The only criteria you've stumped me on is that bats are not really prey to anything - people are bats' biggest enemies - we destroy their habitats, and kill them out of superstition, fear and misunderstanding of their nature (come to think of it, that might make them more sympathetic to teens..).  

Answer 13

a mouse.

Answer 14

Lemmings Their diet is variable and usually they only live in families but every 4-5 years they have mass migrations which could be thousands.  They are cute and cuddly even if they are rat like.