Alien Flora and Fauna

One of the "world-building" tasks that a writer has to tackle when writing a science fiction story is to populate it with plant and animal species unique to the worlds on which it is set. This is a giant insect that lives exclusively on the desert planet of Ardus - the species builds and lives in giant mounds composed of densely-packed sand that can appear, to the uneducated visitor, to be a settlement for other sentient creatures.