Little Tyrant - Creature Concept

A new creature! Kinda. It's actually an older one I touched up, expanded the lore, did additional art - etc. This one directly leads into the next creature, so I wanted to put it out first! Here's the text from the image:

Researcher id/0478 - Lyn Benson

Greetings! Hello! LB here to talk about the Little Tyrant! This cute little ball of fur with a gigantic bite is beloved by all! Well, at least by some. At least by me!

Little Tyrants are smallish rodents with proportionately large heads. They have a massive bite pressure of almost 1000 pounds per square inch! They have brownish to white fur with different types of soft patterning. They also have a thick, club-like tail which is used to help balance its head. Their large incisors never stop growing, so they have to wear them down so they don’t grow through their skull. They can grind their incisors against each other, which strips away some of the dentine, leaving the teeth sharp and manageable. Their fore limbs have 4 digits, including an opposable thumb, and their hind legs have three. They’re plantigrade animals walking on both the palms and soles of their feet, and have claw-like nails.

They have well-developed senses of smell, vision and hearing. The use scent marking for social contexts, for both their species and for others. A lot of information can be found in such markings. It tells about the species, including the sex and individual identity, as well as reproductive status and health. They have long, sensitive whiskers for touch or “whisking”. Little Tyrants have very efficient digestive systems. They can absorb nearly 80% of their ingested energy. They practice coprophagy – the practice of eating ones own fecal pellets so the nutrients can be absorbed by the gut. Fun fact, I went to university with someone who tried this themselves. It didn’t go well.

They live in temperate areas and some urban cities in Ego. They’re found throughout the world due to people moving them around, but they prefer slightly warmer temperatures so are not found at the extremes of Lyngaea’s North or South. They feed on smaller animals – insects, reptiles, other mammals, etc but will also eat seeds if food isn’t readily available.

Little Tyrants live in large social units and breed frequently. They tend to practice promiscuity, frequently visiting with different partners. The gestation is a bit longer for creatures of their size, so although they mate frequently, once pregnant, it takes some time before they give birth. As such, their young is born precocial (well developed) at birth. Little Tyrants utilize a bit of a caste system for their social order. They have individuals that take care of the brood (including offspring from others), overlapping generations, and divisions of labor sorted between reproductive and non-reproductive duties.

They have been kept as pets, but it’s illegal in most countries. They’re actually quite docile with people, enjoying the company and being fed and pampered. There’s been less than 20 reported injuries due to bites from adult Little Tyrants reported in the last 300 years. However, they do not get along with other domestic pets, and many, many animals have come up with crushed skulls and necks because they met with a little tyrant owned by someone else.