Wookieepedia:Featured article queue/August 26, 2010

Ranats, known as Con Queecon in their own language, were a species of meter-tall rodents with long, tusk-like incisors jutting from their lower jaws. Though originally from Rydar II, the Ranats there were nearly wiped out by Human colonists in 200 BBY. Three Ranats stowed away on a spice freighter and crash landed on Aralia, where they re-established their species.

Ranat tribes lived in large, maze-like tunnel networks, where they raised their young communally and lured intruders into dead ends to be killed. Ranats had simple personalities, showing little evidence of emotion beyond the desire for food. Though almost always hostile toward one another, tribes did cooperate to kill pest-control teams after entrepreneurs arrived on Aralia to turn it into a planetary amusement park. The government of the Antemeridian sector declared the Ranats semi-sentient, permitting sentient beings to kill the rodents in self-defense and forbidding them to arm members of the species. The governor restricted the movement of well-armed groups to Aralia to cover up the species' existence and its questionable level of sentience.

Few Ranats were seen away from Aralia, and those that left the world occupied the lowest levels of society. Ranats established themselves on Tatooine, where they lived in the more populated areas as scroungers and traders. One group overran crime lord Jabba Desilijic Tiure's Palace after his death, and the Vriichon brothers once owned the Mos Eisley Cantina. During the Galactic Civil War, the Imperial military tested Ranat mercenary bands for possible use against Rebel Alliance forces. Ranats were also found in the employ of the mage Orloc, who attempted to start his own Jedi Order. The Ranat Rik-tak was a member of the Justice Action Network who operated in the Tapani sector.

Ranats were omnivores and strongly preferred meat, especially that of Aralia's native robas. Their sharp incisors and claws were useful as both weapons and tunneling tools. Burrowing wore down their teeth but also released hormones that stimulated tooth growth; unchecked, the incisors could reach prodigious lengths, so most Ranats gnawed constantly to keep them filed back.