Lobo

Lobo Conservation status: Least Concern
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Order: Carnivora Family: Canidae Subfamily: Caninae Tribe: Canini Genus: Canis Species: C. lupus Subspecies: C. l. sapiens
Binomial name
Canis lupus sapiens
Linnaeus, 1758

Lobos (known taxonomically as Canis lupus sapiens, Latin for "wise wolf" or "knowing wolf") are the only bipedal species in the Canis genus. Anatomically modern lobos originated in Laiatan about 200,000 years ago, reaching full behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago.

Lobos have a highly developed brain and are capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and problem solving. This mental capability, combined with an erect body carriage that frees the hands for manipulating objects, has allowed lobos to make far greater use of tools than their canine relatives. Other higher-level thought processes of lobos, such as self-awareness, rationality, and sapience, are considered to be defining features of what constitutes a "person".

Lobos are uniquely adept at utilizing systems of communication for self-expression, the exchange of ideas, and organization. Lobos create complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families and kinship networks, to nations. Social interactions between lobos have established an extremely wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals, which together form the basis of lobo society. With individuals widespread and the potential to live anywhere on the planet, lobos are considered to be a cosmopolitan species. As of November 2011, the lobo population was estimated by the federal government of Laiatan to be about 330 million. The lobo population is mostly in Laiatan and its neighboring country of Vulshain. Laiatan has the largest lobo population in the world, and is considered to be the lobo homeland.

Lobos are noted for their desire to understand and influence their environment, seeking to explain and manipulate phenomena through science, philosophy, mythology, and religion. This natural curiosity has led to the development of advanced tools and skills, which are passed down culturally; lobos are one of the only extant species known to build fires and cook their food, as well as the only known species to clothe themselves and create and use numerous other technologies and arts. The study of lobos is the scientific discipline of likosology.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Evolution 1.2 Paleolithic 1.3 Transition to civilization 2 Habitat and population 3 Biology 3.1 Anatomy 3.2 Physiology 3.3 Genetics 3.4 Life cycle 3.5 Diet 3.6 Sleep 4 Psychology 4.1 Consciousness and thought 4.2 Motivation and emotion 5 Society and culture 5.1 Sexuality and love 5.2 Gender roles 5.3 Society, government, and politics 5.4 Trade and economics 5.5 War 5.6 Material culture and technology 5.7 Clothing, adornments, hair trimming, and body modifications 5.8 Language 5.9 Religion and spirituality 5.10 Philosophy and self-reflection 5.11 Science and mathematics 5.12 Art, music, and literature

History

Evolution

Paleolithic

Transition to civilization

Habitat and population

Early lobo settlements were dependent on proximity to water and, depending on the lifestyle, other natural resources used for subsistence, such as populations of animal prey for hunting and arable land for growing crops and grazing livestock. But lobos have a great capacity for altering their habitats by means of technology, through irrigation, urban planning, construction, transport, manufacturing goods, deforestation and desertification. Deliberate habitat alteration is often done with the goals of increasing material wealth, increasing thermal comfort, improving the amount of food available, improving aesthetics, or improving ease of access to resources or other lobo settlements. With the advent of large-scale trade and transport infrastructure, proximity to these resources has become unnecessary, and in many places, these factors are no longer a driving force behind the growth and decline of a population. Nonetheless, the manner in which a habitat is altered is often a major determinant in population change.

Lobo habitation within closed ecological systems in hostile environments, such as the arctic and outer space, is expensive, typically limited in duration, and restricted to scientific, military, or industrial expeditions. Life in space has been very sporadic, with no more than thirteen lobos in space at any given time. Between 1969 and 1972, two lobos at a time spent brief intervals on the Moon. As of June 2012, no other celestial body has been visited by lobos, although there has been a continuous lobo presence in space since the launch of the initial crew to inhabit the Gauss Space Station on October 30, 1989. However, other celestial bodies have been visited by lobo-made objects.

Since 1800, the lobo population has increased from fifty million to over 300 million. In 2004, some 131 million out of 330 million people (39.7%) lived in urban areas, and this percentage is expected to continue to rise throughout the 21st century. In February 2008, the federal government of Laiatan estimated that half the nation's population will live in urban areas by the end of the year. Problems for lobos living in cities include various forms of pollution and crime, especially in inner city and suburban slums.

Lobos have had a dramatic effect on the environment. As lobos are rarely preyed upon, they have been described as superpredators. Currently, through land development, combustion of fossil fuels, and pollution, lobos are thought to be one of the main contributor to global climate change.

Biology

Anatomy

A lobo typically has a fair amount of human-like and wolf-like characteristics. Although lobo body types are dependant on genes, diet and exercise, typically, a lobo is an average 5'4 to 6'1, and normally weighs 160-190 pounds for a male. A female lobo typically weighs 150-170. Weight can vary, as the largest living lobo recorded was 241 pounds on July 2, 1948. Because of a subcutaneous layer of fat, the lobo can adapt to climate change quicker than species lacking a subcutaneous fat layer. The lobo is sexually dimorphic. The female lobo, like their wolf counterpart, typically weighs less than the male, are shorter than the male, and narrower muzzles.

The lobo has a higher mental and brain capacity compared to a human and its wolf counterpart. Because of this, the lobo has a faster proccessing and execution speed. Because of this small difference, the lobo enjoys technologies that some species do not. The lobo's eyes, slightly larger than a human eye, allows for seeing in low to no visibility. Although the lobo does not have the ability to see in the dark instantly, the eye takes about ten minutes to adjust and give the lobo the ability to see in darkness. Their wolf-like ears allows them to hear three to four times better than a human. Like a wolf, the lobo's ears have the ability to "twist and move" when responding to sounds. The lobo's sense of smell is about three times stronger than a humans, allowing them to distinguish different smells. A lobo has a total of 42 teeth. The maxilla has six incisors, two canines, eight premolars, and four molars. The mandible has six incisors, two canines, eight premolars, and six molars. Like humans, hair grows from the head which varies in length, texture, and density.

The lobo's fur is usually short. Usually ranging from one millimeter to an inch, the average fur length is usually four or five millimeters, and only rarely more than one-fourth of an inch. Fur length heavily depends on location, as lobos living in northern Laiatan typically have longer fur than lobos living in central and southern Laiatan. Legs and arms typically have longer fur than the rest of the body, while the fingers and eyelids have the shortest. Fur color, pattern, and length is heavily dependent on genetics, and can vary greatly. Usually, one parent and the offspring share color and pattern, but there are times when families have different fur color and pattern from each other. Usually, a lobo's fur color is grey and white minor, all white, all black, grey with red minor, black and red minor, black and white minor, white and black minor, or black and golden minor.

The lobo's hand largely resembles a human hand. They are equipped with four fingers and one thumb. Because of a subcutaneous fat layer, the lobo hand looks like a human hand. Because of this, lobos can perform most activities that humans can perform with their hands. The foot is larger than a wolf's paw. The foot is about the size of a human foot, supporting the rest of the body.

The tail of a lobo is typically one to two feet. Usually, the tail is one and a half feet long. Fur grows longer here, about three inches in length. The major color usually is placed on the top of the tail, while the minor is present on the bottom. However, tails with only the major color present have been known to occur.

Physiology

Lobo physiology is the science of the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions of lobos in good health, their organs, and the cells of which they are composed. The principal level of focus of physiology is at the level of organs and systems. Most aspects of lobo physiology are closely homologous to corresponding aspects of animal physiology, and animal experimentation has provided much of the foundation of physiological knowledge. Anatomy and physiology are closely related fields of study: anatomy, the study of form, and physiology, the study of function, are intrinsically tied and are studied in tandem as part of a medical curriculum.

Genetics

Lobos are a eukaryotic species. Each diploid cell has two sets of 23 chromosomes, each set received from one parent. There are 22 pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. By present estimates, lobos have approximately 22,000 genes. Like other mammals, lobos have an XY sex-determination system, so that females have the sex chromosomes XX and males have XY. The X chromosome carries many genes not on the Y chromosome, which means that recessive diseases associated with X-linked genes, such as hemophilia, affect men more often than women.

Life cycle

As with other mammals, lobo reproduction takes place as internal fertilization by sexual intercourse. During this process, the erect penis of the male is inserted into the female's vagina until the male ejaculates semen, which contains sperm. The sperm travels through the vagina and cervix into the uterus or Fallopian tubes for fertilization of the ovum. Upon fertilization and implantation, gestation then occurs within the female's uterus.

The zygote divides inside the female's uterus to become an embryo, which over a period of thirty-eight weeks (9 months) of gestation becomes a fetus. After this span of time, the fully grown fetus is birthed from the woman's body and breathes independently as an infant for the first time.

Compared with other species, lobo childbirth is dangerous. Painful labors lasting twenty-four hours or more are not uncommon and sometimes lead to the death of the mother, or the child. This is because of both the relatively large fetal head circumference (for housing the brain) and the mother's relatively narrow pelvis (a trait required for successful bipedalism, by way of natural selection). The chances of a successful labor increased significantly during the 20th century in Laiatan with the advent of new medical technologies.

Lobo infants are typically 6–9 lbs (3–4 kg) in weight and 20–24 in (50–60 cm) in height at birth. Helpless at birth, lobos continue to grow for some years, typically reaching sexual maturity at 12 to 15 years of age. Females continue to develop physically until around the age of 18, whereas male development continues until around age 21. The lobo life span can be split into a number of stages: infancy, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, adulthood and old age. The lengths of these stages, however, have varied across cultures and time periods. Compared to other canines, lobos experience an unusually rapid growth spurt during adolescence, where the body grows 25% in size. The presence of the growth spurt is probably necessary to keep children physically small until they are psychologically mature. Lobos are one of the few species in which females undergo menopause. It has been proposed that menopause increases a woman's overall reproductive success by allowing her to invest more time and resources in her existing offspring and/or their children (the grandmother hypothesis), rather than by continuing to bear children into old age.

Lobo life expectancy is very high compared to other sentient species. The lobo population is generally aging, with the median age around 40 years. Life expectancy at birth in Laiatan is 83.3 years for a female and 80.1 for a male. The number of centenarians (lobos of age 100 years or older) in the world was estimated by the federal government of Laiatan at 210,000 in 2002. Nationwide, there are 81 men aged 60 or older for every 100 women of that age group, and among the oldest, there are 53 men for every 100 women.

Diet

Lobos are omnivorous, unlike their canine relatives, and are capable of consuming a wide variety of plant and animal material. Varying with available food sources in regions of habitation, and also varying with cultural and religious norms, lobo groups have adopted a range of diets, from purely vegetarian to primarily carnivorous. In some cases, dietary restrictions in lobos can lead to deficiency diseases; however, stable lobo groups have adapted to many dietary patterns through both genetic specialization and cultural conventions to use nutritionally balanced food sources. The lobo diet is prominently reflected in lobo culture, and has led to the development of food science.

Until the development of agriculture approximately 10,000 years ago, Canis lupus sapiens employed a hunter-gatherer method as their sole means of food collection. This involved combining stationary food sources (such as fruits, grains, tubers, and mushrooms, insect larvae and aquatic mollusks) with wild game, which must be hunted and killed in order to be consumed. It has been proposed that members of C. l. sapiens have used fire to prepare and cook food since the time of their divergence from Canis lupus rhodesiensis (which itself had previously speciated from Canis lupus erectus). Around ten thousand years ago, lobos developed agriculture, which substantially altered their diet. This change in diet may also have altered lobo biology; with the spread of dairy farming providing a new and rich source of food, leading to the evolution of the ability to digest lactose in some adults. Agriculture led to increased populations, the development of cities, and because of increased population density, the wider spread of infectious diseases. The types of food consumed, and the way in which they are prepared, has varied widely by time, location, and culture.

In general, lobos can survive for two to eight weeks without food, depending on stored body fat. Survival without water is usually limited to three or four days. Obesity is low in lobos, with only about 2% of the population suffering from it.

Sleep

Lobos are generally diurnal. The average sleep requirement is between seven and nine hours per day for an adult and nine to ten hours per day for a child; elderly people usually sleep for six to seven hours. Experiencing less sleep than this is common in modern society; this sleep deprivation can have negative effects. A sustained restriction of adult sleep to four hours per day has been shown to correlate with changes in physiology and mental state, including fatigue, aggression, and bodily discomfort.

Psychology

The lobo brain, the focal point of the central nervous system in lobos, controls the peripheral nervous system. In addition to controlling "lower", involuntary, or primarily autonomic activities such as respiration and digestion, it is also the locus of "higher" order functioning such as thought, reasoning, and abstraction. These cognitive processes constitute the mind, and, along with their behavioral consequences, are studied in the field of psychology.

Generally regarded as more capable of these higher order activities, the lobo brain is believed to be more "intelligent" in general than that of any other known species. While some non-lobo species are capable of creating structures and using simple tools—mostly through instinct and mimicry—lobo technology is vastly more complex, and is constantly evolving and improving through time.

Although lobos are vastly more advanced than many species in cognitive abilities, most of these abilities are known in primitive form among other species.

Consciousness and thought

Lobos are one of only several species known to pass the mirror test. Most lobo children will pass the mirror test at 18 months old. However, the usefulness of this test as a true test of consciousness has been disputed, and this may be a matter of degree rather than a sharp divide. Monkeys have been trained to apply abstract rules in tasks.

The lobo brain perceives the external world through the senses, and each individual lobo is influenced greatly by his or her experiences, leading to subjective views of existence and the passage of time. Lobos are variously said to possess consciousness, self-awareness, and a mind, which correspond roughly to the mental processes of thought. These are said to possess qualities such as self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one's environment. The extent to which the mind constructs or experiences the outer world is a matter of debate, as are the definitions and validity of many of the terms used above. The philosopher of cognitive science Daniel Dennett, for example, argues that there is no such thing as a narrative center called the "mind", but that instead there is simply a collection of sensory inputs and outputs: different kinds of "software" running in parallel. Psychologist B.F. Skinner argued that the mind is an explanatory fiction that diverts attention from environmental causes of behavior, and that what are commonly seen as mental processes may be better conceived of as forms of covert verbal behavior.

Lobos study the more physical aspects of the mind and brain, and by extension of the nervous system, in the field of neurology, the more behavioral in the field of psychology, and a sometimes loosely defined area between in the field of psychiatry, which treats mental illness and behavioral disorders. Psychology does not necessarily refer to the brain or nervous system, and can be framed purely in terms of phenomenological or information processing theories of the mind. Increasingly, however, an understanding of brain functions is being included in psychological theory and practice, particularly in areas such as artificial intelligence, neuropsychology, and cognitive neuroscience.

The nature of thought is central to psychology and related fields. Cognitive psychology studies cognition, the mental processes' underlying behavior. It uses information processing as a framework for understanding the mind. Perception, learning, problem solving, memory, attention, language and emotion are all well researched areas as well. Cognitive psychology is associated with a school of thought known as cognitivism, whose adherents argue for an information processing model of mental function, informed by positivism and experimental psychology. Techniques and models from cognitive psychology are widely applied and form the mainstay of psychological theories in many areas of both research and applied psychology. Largely focusing on the development of the lobo mind through the life span, developmental psychology seeks to understand how people come to perceive, understand, and act within the world and how these processes change as they age. This may focus on intellectual, cognitive, neural, social, or moral development.

Some philosophers divide consciousness into phenomenal consciousness, which is experience itself, and access consciousness, which is the processing of the things in experience. Phenomenal consciousness is the state of being conscious, such as when they say "I am conscious." Access consciousness is being conscious of something in relation to abstract concepts, such as when one says "I am conscious of these words." Various forms of access consciousness include awareness, self-awareness, conscience, stream of consciousness, Husserl's phenomenology, and intentionality. The concept of phenomenal consciousness, in modern history, according to some, is closely related to the concept of qualia. Social psychology links sociology with psychology in their shared study of the nature and causes of lobo social interaction, with an emphasis on how people think towards each other and how they relate to each other. The behavior and mental processes, both lobo and non-lobo, can be described through animal cognition, ethology, evolutionary psychology, and comparative psychology as well. Lobo ecology is an academic discipline that investigates how lobos and lobo societies interact with both their natural environment and the lobo social environment.

Motivation and emotion

Motivation is the driving force of desire behind all deliberate actions of lobos. Motivation is based on emotion—specifically, on the search for satisfaction (positive emotional experiences), and the avoidance of conflict. Positive and negative is defined by the individual brain state, which may be influenced by social norms: a person may be driven to self-injury or violence because his brain is conditioned to create a positive response to these actions. Motivation is important because it is involved in the performance of all learned responses. Within psychology, conflict avoidance and the libido are seen to be primary motivators. Within economics, motivation is often seen to be based on incentives; these may be financial, moral, or coercive. Religions generally posit divine or demonic influences.

Happiness, or the state of being happy, is a lobo emotional condition. The definition of happiness is a common philosophical topic. Some people might define it as the best condition that a lobo can have—a condition of mental and physical health. Others define it as freedom from want and distress; consciousness of the good order of things; assurance of one's place in the universe or society.

Emotion has a significant influence on, or can even be said to control, lobo behavior, though historically many cultures and philosophers have for various reasons discouraged allowing this influence to go unchecked. Emotional experiences perceived as pleasant, such as love, admiration, or joy, contrast with those perceived as unpleasant, like hate, envy, or sorrow. There is often a distinction made between refined emotions that are socially learned and survival oriented emotions, which are thought to be innate. Lobo exploration of emotions as separate from other neurological phenomena is worthy of note, particularly in cultures where emotion is considered separate from physiological state. In some cultural medical theories emotion is considered so synonymous with certain forms of physical health that no difference is thought to exist.

In modern scientific thought, certain refined emotions are considered a complex neural trait innate in a variety of domesticated and non-domesticated mammals. These were commonly developed in reaction to superior survival mechanisms and intelligent interaction with each other and the environment; as such, refined emotion is not in all cases as discrete and separate from natural neural function as was once assumed. However, when lobos function in civilized tandem, it has been noted that uninhibited acting on extreme emotion can lead to social disorder and crime.

Society and culture

Lobos are social beings. In comparisons with animalia, lobos are regarded like the primates for their social qualities. But beyond any other creature, lobos are adept at utilizing systems of communication for self-expression, the exchange of ideas, and organization, and as such have created complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups. Lobo groups range from families to nations. Social interactions between lobos have established an extremely wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals, which together form the basis of lobo society.

Culture is defined here as patterns of complex symbolic behavior, i.e. all behavior that is not innate but which has to be learned through social interaction with others; such as the use of distinctive material and symbolic systems, including language, ritual, social organization, traditions, beliefs and technology.

Sexuality and love

Lobo sexuality, besides ensuring biological reproduction, has important social functions: it creates physical intimacy, bonds, and hierarchies among individuals; and in a hedonistic sense to the enjoyment of activity involving sexual gratification. Sexual desire, or libido, is experienced as a bodily urge, often accompanied by strong emotions such as love, ecstasy, and jealousy. The extreme importance of sexuality in the lobo species can be seen in a number of physical features, among them hidden ovulation, the evolution of external scrotum and penis suggesting sperm competition, the absence of an os penis, permanent secondary sexual characteristics, the forming of pair bonds based on sexual attraction as a common social structure and sexual ability in females outside of ovulation–lobo females do not have a distinct or visible estrus.

Lobo choices in acting on sexuality are commonly influenced by cultural norms, which vary widely. Restrictions are often determined by religious beliefs or social customs. The pioneering researcher Sigmund Freud believed that lobos are born polymorphously perverse, which means that any number of objects could be a source of pleasure. According to Freud, lobos then pass through five stages of psychosexual development (and can fixate on any stage because of various traumas during the process). For Alfred Kinsey, another influential sex researcher, people can fall anywhere along a continuous scale of sexual orientation (with only small minorities fully heterosexual or homosexual). Recent studies of neurology and genetics suggest people may be born predisposed to various sexual tendencies.

Gender roles

The sexual division of lobos into male and female has been marked culturally by a corresponding division of roles, norms, practices, dress, behavior, rights, duties, privileges, status, and power. Cultural differences by gender have often been believed to have arisen naturally out of a division of reproductive labor; the biological fact that women give birth led to their further cultural responsibility for nurturing and caring for children. Gender roles have varied historically, and challenges to predominant gender norms have recurred in many societies.

Society, government, and politics

Society is the system of organizations and institutions arising from interaction between lobos. A state is an organized political community occupying a definite territory, having an organized government, and possessing internal and external sovereignty. Recognition of the state's claim to independence by other states, enabling it to enter into international agreements, is often important to the establishment of its statehood. The "state" can also be defined in terms of domestic conditions, specifically, as conceptualized by Max Weber, "a state is a lobo community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the 'legitimate' use of physical force within a given territory."

Government can be defined as the political means of creating and enforcing laws; typically via a bureaucratic hierarchy. Politics is the process by which decisions are made within groups; this process often involves conflict as well as compromise. Although the term is generally applied to behavior within governments, politics is also observed in all lobo group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions. Many different political systems exist, as do many different ways of understanding them, and many definitions overlap. Examples of governments include monarchy, Communist state, military dictatorship, theocracy, and liberal democracy, the last of which is considered dominant today. All of these issues have a direct relationship with economics.

Trade and economics

Trade is the voluntary exchange of goods and services, and is a form of economics. A mechanism that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and services. Modern traders instead generally negotiate through a medium of exchange, such as money. As a result, buying can be separated from selling, or earning. The invention of money (and later credit, paper money and non-physical money) greatly simplified and promoted trade. Because of specialization and division of labor, most people concentrate on a small aspect of manufacturing or service, trading their labor for products. Trade exists between regions because different regions have an absolute or comparative advantage in the production of some tradable commodity, or because different regions' size allows for the benefits of mass production.

Economics is a social science which studies the production, distribution, trade, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on measurable variables, and is broadly divided into two main branches: microeconomics, which deals with individual agents, such as households and businesses, and macroeconomics, which considers the economy as a whole, in which case it considers aggregate supply and demand for money, capital and commodities. Aspects receiving particular attention in economics are resource allocation, production, distribution, trade, and competition. Economic logic is increasingly applied to any problem that involves choice under scarcity or determining economic value.

War

War is a state of widespread conflict between states or other large groups of lobos, which is characterized by the use of lethal violence between combatants and/or upon civilians. (Lobos also engage in lesser conflicts, such as brawls, riots, revolts, and melees. A revolution may or may not involve warfare.) It is estimated that during Laiatan's history, nearly 84 million lobos died as a result of war. A common perception of war is a series of military campaigns between at least two opposing sides involving a dispute over sovereignty, territory, resources, religion, or other issues. A war between internal elements of a state is a civil war.

There have been a wide variety of rapidly advancing tactics throughout the history of war, ranging from conventional war to asymmetric warfare to total war and unconventional warfare. Techniques include hand to hand combat, the use of ranged weapons, Naval warfare, and, more recently, air support. Military intelligence has often played a key role in determining victory and defeat. Propaganda, which often includes information, slanted opinion and disinformation, plays a key role in maintaining unity within a warring group, and/or sowing discord among opponents. In modern warfare, soldiers and combat vehicles are used to control the land, warships the sea, and aircraft the sky. These fields have also overlapped in the forms of marines, paratroopers, naval aircraft carriers, and surface-to-air missiles, among others. Satellites in low Earth orbit have made outer space a factor in warfare as well as it is used for detailed intelligence gathering, however no known aggressive actions have been taken from space.

Material culture and technology

Stone tools were used by proto-lobos at least 2.5 million years ago. The controlled use of fire began around 1.5 million years ago. Since then, lobos have made major advances, developing complex technology to create tools to aid their lives and allowing for other advancements in culture. Major leaps in technology include the discovery of agriculture – what is known as the Neolithic Revolution, and the invention of automated machines in the Industrial Revolution.

Archaeology attempts to tell the story of past or lost cultures in part by close examination of the artifacts they produced. Early lobos left stone tools, pottery, and jewelry that are particular to various regions and times.

Clothing, adornments, hair trimming, and body modifications

Throughout their history lobos have altered their appearance by wearing clothing and adornments, by trimming or shaving hair and fur or by means of body modifications.

Body modification is the deliberate altering of the lobo body for any non-medical reason, such as aesthetics, sexual enhancement, a rite of passage, religious reasons, to display group membership or affiliation, to create body art, shock value, or self expression. In its most broad definition it includes plastic surgery, socially acceptable decoration (e.g., common ear piercing in many societies), and religious rites of passage.

Language

The capacity lobos have to transfer concepts, ideas and notions through speech (and recently, writing) is unrivaled in known species. Unlike the closed call systems of other primates and canines in which sounds are unique and mutually exclusive, lobo language is open—an infinite number of meanings can be produced by combining a limited number of sounds and words. Lobo language has the quality of displacement, using words to represent things and happenings that are not presently or locally occurring, but elsewhere or at a different time. Basic displacement may occur in other species, but is relatively elaborated in lobos, allowing symbols and language to refer to abstract or even purely imaginary states, and underpinning the complex symbolic culture of the species. The faculty of speech is a defining feature of loboity, possibly predating phylogenetic separation of the modern population. Language is central to the communication between lobos, and to the sense of identity that unites nations, cultures and ethnic groups. The invention of writing systems at least five thousand years ago allowed the preservation of language on material objects, and was a major step in cultural evolution. The science of linguistics describes the structure of language and the relationship between languages. Early lobos created Lobonese, the primary language of all lobos. It is currently the official language of two countries: Laiatan and Vulshain, the former being the birthplace of lobos and having almost the entire planet's lobo population.

Religion and spirituality

Religion is generally defined as a belief system concerning the supernatural, sacred or divine, and practices, values, institutions and rituals associated with such belief. Most lobos follow the religion of Den Materism. Some of the chief questions and issues the religion is concerned with include life after death (commonly involving belief in an afterlife), the origin of life, the nature of the universe (religious cosmology) and its ultimate fate (eschatology), and what is moral or immoral. A common source for answers to these questions are beliefs in a deity, called the Den Mother. Spirituality, belief or involvement in matters of the soul or spirit, is one of the many different approaches lobos take in trying to answer fundamental questions about lobokind's place in the universe, the meaning of life, and the ideal way to live one's life. Though these topics have also been addressed by philosophy, and to some extent by science, spirituality is unique in that it focuses on mystical or supernatural concepts such as karma and the Den Mother.

Although the exact level of religiosity can be hard to measure, a majority of lobos professes some variety of religious or spiritual belief, although some are irreligious. Other lobos have no religious beliefs or are atheists, scientific skeptics, agnostics or simply non-religious. Loboism is a philosophy which seeks to include all of loboity and all issues common to lobos; it is usually non-religious. Additionally, although most religions and spiritual beliefs are clearly distinct from science on both a philosophical and methodological level, the two are not generally considered mutually exclusive; a majority of lobos hold a mix of both scientific and religious views. The distinction between philosophy and religion, on the other hand, is at times less clear, and the two are linked in such fields as the philosophy of religion and theology.

Philosophy and self-reflection

Philosophy is a discipline or field of study involving the investigation, analysis, and development of ideas at a general, abstract, or fundamental level. It is the discipline searching for a general understanding of reality, reasoning and values. Major fields of philosophy include logic, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and axiology (which includes ethics and aesthetics). Philosophy covers a very wide range of approaches, and is used to refer to a worldview, to a perspective on an issue, or to the positions argued for by a particular philosopher or school of philosophy.

Science and mathematics

Scientific approach and mathematics have been unique to lobos and humans.

Mathematics is connected to language, and it is argued that this special genetic trait of lobos, linked to language and abstract thought is responsible for the mathematical ability.

Closely related is lobos' ability to model the world and use science. Although scientific revolution is relatively recent, lobos have attempted to explain their environment since the ancient times.

Art, music, and literature

Art is one of the most unusual aspects of lobo behavior and a cultural universal, and lobos have been producing artistic works at least since the days of Kiril Fedrov. As a form of cultural expression by lobos, art may be defined by the pursuit of diversity and the usage of narratives of liberation and exploration (i.e. art history, art criticism, and art theory) to mediate its boundaries. This distinction may be applied to objects or performances, current or historical, and its prestige extends to those who made, found, exhibit, or own them. In the modern use of the word, art is commonly understood to be the process or result of making material works that, from concept to creation, adhere to the "creative impulse" of lobo beings. Art is distinguished from other works by being in large part unprompted by necessity, by biological drive, or by any undisciplined pursuit of recreation.

Music is a natural intuitive phenomenon based on the three distinct and interrelated organization structures of rhythm, harmony, and melody. Listening to music is perhaps the most common and universal form of entertainment for lobos, while learning and understanding it are popular disciplines. There are a wide variety of music genres and ethnic musics. Literature, the body of written—and possibly oral—works, especially creative ones, includes prose, poetry and drama, both fiction and non-fiction. Literature includes such genres as epic, legend, myth, ballad, and folklore.

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