/ScrookiPedia/Chimus_

The chimus is a small and lowly scrook that, despite being absolutely pathetic, plays a special little part in the foundation of scrook ecosystems across the globe.

Chimuses are part of the idiot family. They look like a slimy rubber bell or something like that, they're small enough to fit on your head, and they have a set of stubby feet for walking around. If you flick one with your finger, it sounds like shooting a water gun at a bell, but the water gun is full of syrup.

They can't do much else, which leads to them being one of the most hunted scrooks on the planet. Their continued existence is thanks to the extremely gummy nature of their skin, which can tough it out until the predator gets tired of chewing and hocks it back up.

Perhaps the most unique feature of the chimus is its mucus production. Most of its organs are dedicated gloop-producing organs that secrete mucus through the mouth and skin.

This ooze hardens from oxygen exposure, which leads to a tougher skin on the scrook itself and crystalline remnants on the ground where it walks.

The Condos

Scroologists have observed large towering structures in the prairies just outside Lickford. These giant glistening apartment complexes had entrances too small for any scrooman, but no scrooks made their homes there.

Only recently has it come to light that the chimuses built these structures, giving scientists more insight into just how intelligently stupid these creatures can be.

Chimuses could often be found around (but never in) these towers, slipping and sliding in their own goo. Several of them would gather in one zone and start splurting from their mouths, hinting to scientists that these idiots worked together on things bigger than themselves.

But why make these "condos"? Once they were complete, they see no further use. No chimus makes its home inside, no stockpile of food or nest of offspring.

The answer came on the day a kaiser scrook came to Lickford. Residents complained of the creature's roaring and ultraviolet laser beams keeping them awake at night, but there was no property damage whatsoever. When scientists analyzed the creature's movements, they were bloopsmacked. The scrook had attacked the chimus neighborhood thinking it was a scrooman settlement!

Thus settled the debate. Chimus played a vital role in keeping Scremp's kaiser scrooks satisfied, lowering the odds of them attacking more vulnerable ecosystems. But some say that's a pretty stupid answer. After all, kaiser scrooks are a very recent phenomenon. These things have been around for scrillions of years...

The Plag Problem

It's clear that chimuses play an important role in Scremp's global ecology. However, there seems to be a problem cropping up near more industrialized scrooman settlements.

The chimus condos near Bonbil have signs of tampering that don't match known scrook signatures. Parts of the crust towers have artifacts made of a shimmering material, like giant spurs, webs or bubbles that shine with all the colors of the rainbow.

Plag, as it's come to be called, is a kind of naturally forming plastic that has doubled the qualities of bendy-no-breakness associated with the chimus condos. Its qualities are highly sought-after in construction of new scrooman settlements, so a race to discover the secret to creating synthetic plag has begun.

Even so, it ain't all rainbows and sugar cookies. The towers, however strong, were brittle enough to allow them to break down over time and feed back into the ecosystem of fungi and scrooks that feed on the crystalized slop slurry.

These new condos are so strong, even blunt-force attacks from kaiser scrooks make them wobble but not fall down, and heat from laser beams just melts them onto the wildlife below, creating a wasteland of super-tough never-breaking trash.

Scientists fear that the chimuses will continue to build these plagged condos faster than they can be destroyed, and despite the frantic harvesting of plag, scroomen companies seem more interested in developing synthetic "proppa plag" mixes.

Research is being conducted in the heart of these "plag cities" to discover why these chimuses are developing plag in the first place. Some theories suggest it is the dumping of waste matter from the derbite refinery in Bonbil, others say that it is the awakening of a kaiser chimus. Both have big implications for the role the chimus will play in the future of the planet.