TRENOC EXTERNAL MORPHOLOGY

The infants of the Trenoc show no great sexual dimorphism, and share similar form. They are live-born, and at birth they are no greater than half a metre long, the general appearance is that of an iguana, except that the back is adorned with large erectile frills, which serve as photosynthetic surfaces. The infant growth stage consists of isomorphic growth giving a long reptilian form over two metres long. The infant stage crawls prostrate on four short legs, which have the double knee arrangement peculiar to the Trenoc gross limb physiology. The head has the same bilateral symmetry of an iguanas head, but in addition to the two eyes on either side, it also has a pair of similar organs that detect the infrared wavelengths (situated just behind the eyes, these two organs share a same communicating nerve), and also a four pits which serve for the sense of smell which are located in two pairs at the front of the snout. The surface of the infant is not exactly scaly but a sort of rough leather, almost sand paper like in texture, this is regularly shed as the infant grows.

The adult male retains this form but in its transition to breeder becomes heavier and longer, growing to almost two and a half metres, with a mass of over one hundred and fifty kilograms. The transition also sees the loss of the large photosynthetic membranes, which diminish to form the coloured frills unique to the adult male, the sexual organs also develop dorsally, in opposite to the females, and become a prominent of their profile.

The female infants develop quite a different morphology, to a shape that is best described as that of the ancient velociraptors, though its head is adorned with the same eye arrangement of the juvenile, and the complicated pits associated with smell. It grows powerful  hind legs enabling to walk bipedal, and its front limbs grow longer and its digits also lengthen and become more dextrous. The limbs all terminate in six digits, which is common to the infant stage, with the outermost two being opposable to the inner set of four. The forelimbs have the same double jointed system as a legs, which allow it to fold like the letter z, and the at the end an unusual hand develops with a set of three digits in two quite separate groups (containing one opposable digit at the edge and two non-opposable digits centrally) which join together at the wrist. The digits, like the hind leg toes develop a horn like sheath, which is continuously extruded, and although these digits are longer than this found on the feet, they are still shorter than a human's fingers. The skin of the female breeder is also quite different to the infant stage, it has become like supple leather, but bright green in colour (usually, though rarely pale red hides are also seen, considered lucky), this is no longer shed as a whole like the infants but is continuously shed as small scales and replaced, though in bigger lumps than in the humans skin cycle process. The breeder female's sexual organs are situated posterior to the hind limbs and lie on the ventral side of the muscle tail, though these are not prominent as  in the male.

The transition from breeder female to protector is essentially growth, from just over a metre tall of the breeder female to over two metres, the body length also considerably increases as the tail also grows, giving a length of over three metres from the breeder’s one metre seventy (with advantages in speed and balance). The major physiology of the protector is relatively unchanged though the posterior sexual organs become prominent and migrate forward somewhat, the skin too loses its green colour replaced with a paler yellow or tan. Sometimes hide colour is lost altogether giving a pale grey appearance, protector's with this colour were thought to be particularly divine or spiritual, and have given the Trenoc much of their history, but this effect is common with extreme age (200+ yrs) and when a particular dietary pigment (a chlorophyll) is absent.