Long-longs

Long-longs(Liunan: Lonlon) are bipedal vertebral intellectual beings of The 8th world, where there are no native human beings(human being at last appeared in The 8th world some 20-15 thousand years ago.), they are the only surviving intellectual beings of the genus Lonnum.

Physiology
Long-longs are structurally similar to most vertebral beings, a grown-up long-long is normally about 140-cm-tall.

The life cycle of a long-long has five stages, the "sankeye"(IPA: [sankeje] or [zankeje]) stage is the mature stage.





however, a long-long only "sulap"s("sulap" means "to perform ecdysis to grow into the next stage(for a long-long)") when e(as most long-longs are ungendered at most of time in their lifes, I here borrow the spivak pronoun to be the english singular pronoun for a long-long) grows from the "talkam" stage to the "sakam" stage or grows from the "sakam" stage to the "sankel" stage, e dosen't "sulap" when e grows from the "taka" stage to the "talkam" stage, or grows from the "sankel" stage to the "sankeye" stage.

Long-longs don't have legs until they reach the "sankel" stage, before they grow legs to walk, they "lonklon" when they are in the "sakam" stage, and they "kuwaku" when they are in the "taka" and "talkam" stage.

the whole body of a long-long is covered by white hair, there are two kinds of hairs: "yaka" and "numa", "yaka" is the hair used in summer, and "numa" is used in winter, "numa" is a very good material to keep the temperature, and the trigger for changing from "yaka" to "numa", or "numa" to "yaka", is the environmental temperature, not the biological clock.

for most of the long-longs, there's a small, black, flat, horn-like thing on the top of their head, called "talaip".

Long-longs are Oviparous animals, and they can perform sexual reproduction as well as some forms of asexual reproductions, in fact, most long-longs are reproduced asexual reproduction processes.

Long-longs don't have sexual dimorphism, they are ungendered when they are born. and many of them are still ungendered as soon as they reach the stage of "Sankeye", even a long-long is gendered, e can still change eir gender or turn back into the ungendered state unless e is copuled with another long-long(however, most long-longs never coupled in their lifetimes, and Lonmai Luna/Liunan don't have a native term for "marry" or "become coupled"), moreover, female long-longs can perform parthenogenesis, most long-longs are reproduced via parthenogenesis, and all earliest four generations of long-longs were reproduced via parthenogenesis. Sexual intersourse or other sexual behaviors are rare among the long-longs, and before contacting with the "people" of the outside world, sexual behaviors were even unheared that Lonmai Luna/Liunan, their language, don't even have a native word to describe such behaviors.

long-longs can live up to 400-500 years.

Unlike human beings, gout and scurvy are uncommon among long-longs, as long-longs have necessary and functional genes to produce Vitamin C(lack of Vitamin C can lead to scurvy) and Urate oxidase(lack of Urate oxidase can lead to gout).

Long-longs have 25 pairs of chromosomes, and they don't have any sex chromosomes.

A long-long has for fingers on each hand, so a long-long has eight fingers in total, however, strangely enough, Lonmai-luna use an vigesimal system as the main system, the vigesimal system might be arisen from an earlier extended body-part system, although all the numeral words have lost their original meaning for body parts.

the ability to regenerate lost body parts of a Long-long is much stronger than that of a human being, unless they are killed, or the lost parts are hindered, they can always regenerate lost body parts at last.

When long-longs are in the "taka" stage, they like to gather in eights, sixteens, twenty-fours, etc.(and not in numbers like sevens, nines, twelves, etc), and a group containing eight "taka"s is called a "yadak", that means, each "yadak" contains eight "taka"s, and I also drew eight "taka"s in the picture given above.

Food
Long-longs are omnivore animals, they can eat meat and plants.

Long-longs do hunt animals for food, and it is said that they invented guns for hunting seabirds, however, there's no word for "hunt" in the native words of Lonmai Luna/Liunan.

Although generally harmless, Long-longs don't need to eat much fruits, their bodies can produce vitamin C; but long-longs are much less tolerate to theobromine, so they can't eat much chocolates and they don't eat chocolates.

Clothing
Long-longs don't normally wear clothes, they only wear clothes in some specific circumstances, nevertheless, woven materials are still widely used in their society.

Politics
Nominally, all long-longs live in a single "Long-long country", and nominally the "long-long country" is ruled by twelve Elderies and the "tubu-tubu-tik", however, the society of long-longs is highly decentralized, most of the villages are de facto autonomic, however, since long-longs are highly non-aggressive by nature, it's normally not a big deal to have a hignly decentralized society, and long-longs don't even have their own government before the Great Famine of Sahpo even they had seen some governments before the Great Famine of Sahpo outbroke. The Great Famine of Sahpo is a major event that cuased long-longs to build up their own government.

Economy
It seems that most of the long-longs are farmers, they plant several plants to make a living.

Major crops of the long-longs include "ica"(pronunciation:[iʃa], a kind of potato-like tuber, there are two subtypes of "ica": "paca"(diploid "ica", pronunciation:[paʃa]) and "elpa"(tetraploid "ica", pronunciation:[elpa])), "batak"(a kind of grain, long-longs frequently use "batak" grains to make porridges, pronunciation:[batak]), "tewosi"(a kind of lettuce-like vegetable, pronunciation:[tewoʃi]) and "senai"(a kind of fruit, pronunciation:[senai])

Education
Almost all long-longs have received at least some education in school, so basically every long-long can read and write to some degree.

Family
since most long-longs give birth to their children through asexual reproduction, most long-longs take care of their childrem by themselves, or let the whole village to help. It is said the the kinship term system of Lonmai Luna/Liunan, the language of Long-longs, belongs to the Hawaiian kinship system, such a phenomenon may have some connection to their child-rearing behavior/custom.

kinship terms of Lonmai Luna/Liunan:

- kolcel(pronunciation:[kolʃel]) / celo(pronunciation:[ʃelo]) - a parent or any relative beloning to the same generation of the parent(s) of the speaker. - alcel(pronunciation:[alʃel]) / yalcel(pronunciation:[jalʃel]) - a sibling or any relative belonging to the same generation of the speaker emself - ilacel(pronunciation:[ilaʃel]) - an offspring or any relative belonging to the same generation of the the offspring(s) of the speaker.

moreover, long-longs don't have any concept of gender roles, since most of them are ungendered, and genders are vague(since they can change their gender if they are not coupled with anyone) among those who have genders, and they don't have any kind of labour division according to gender, either.

Language
Lonmai Luna, also called Liunan, is the language(s) of long-longs.

some claim that Lonmai Luna/Liunan is a single language, but this is in fact not the case, there are many dialects that are usually not mutually intelligible.

Religion
Long-longs rarely talk about religion, and rarely talk about issues related to deities, however, it is known that long-longs believe that there are souls, and they believe that the souls of their ancestors live in a painless and sorrowless land called "Dodori"((pronunciation:[dodori])), in front of the entry of "Dodori", there's a bridge, every soul goes through the bridge to enter "Dodori", and it's also known that long-longs do venerate and make offerings to their ancestors in "Dodori".

before contacting with the "people" of the outside world, long-longs don't think if someone would be punished after death, however, after contacting with the "people" of the outside world, they imported the Nevotak belief that the soul of an evil one will be bitten by a group of man-eating fish under the bridge in front of the entry of Dodori after e is dead.

Death ritual
Long-longs don't have graves, they are not normally cremated, either. If a long-long dies, eir family members will let eir relatives to see em, sometimes they even take eir body to the house of eir relatives. After all of eir relatives have mourned to em, eir body will be packaged, being put in a corner of eir house, and will be buried under the ground of eir house three years later.

History
Long-longs emerged some 35 million years ago, they first appeared on an temperate island. The emergence of long-longs is not completely clear, and some claims that the long-longs were actually resulted form the hybrid of two Lonnum species.

At the time when they emerged, the long-longs were the only group of "people"(at here, "people" means any kind of intellectual being, not only humans, and at the time when long-longs ) who knew how to produce firearms and how to produce steels in industrial scale despite the long-longs are non-aggresive and peace-loving beings(it is said that long-longs invented gun for hunting), as soon as they made contact the outside world, "people" of the outside world(mainly nevotacums) took a liking to their firearm-making and inventing abilities. After finding out that some "people" from the outside are aggresive to other members of their own kind, the Long-longs decided to stop teaching them how to make firearms.

Nonethless, it was not the firearms that brought the extinction of the "people" of the outside world, it was the Bacterial culture, which was invented by one of the long-longs to help the outside world stop Infectious disease, led to the extinction of the "people" of the outside world, after learning how to culture bacteria, some "people" of the outside world started to produce biological weapons to fight against other "people" of the outside world, and the use of biological weapons eventually led to the extinction of the "people" of the outside world, since all "people" of the outside world were other intellectual species of the genus Lonnum, the long-longs became the only surviving intellectual species of the genus Lonnum.

Out of fiction
Long-long is derived from a kind of virtual pet called "Rakuraku Dinokun/Dinkie Dino", one can find a brief introduction of "Rakuraku Dinokun/Dinkie Dino" at http://www.tamenagerie.com/ddinoinst.html and http://www.reocities.com/enchantedforest/dell/8881/instructions.htm