A Pengauani ready for action
The Pengauani functioned as an infantry force for one of the sides involved in the Galactic Civil War. These warriors were members of an avian species, with each individual standing at around a meter in height. The Pengauani carried a sizable rifle and wore goggles. They also wore a harness that held some kind of electronic gadget.
The only place the Pengauani appear is as a collection of animation and model files within Star Wars: Empire at War. The game's XML files lack any functional code that would activate it, so its original role is still unknown. It's possible the developers used it internally as a stand-in for the Bongo Marauder and Simon, either for testing, demonstration purposes, or purely as an inside joke.
Some believe that the Pengauani model was initially meant to be used for the Pyn'gani from EAW, which would resolve some of the questions surrounding them in the game. Specifically, the Pyn'gani utilize the human snow-dweller model, but they don't emerge from the standard snow-dwelling human structure; instead, they come from unique igloo-like structures. They are also the only "humans" within the expansion who are able to be enslaved by the Zann Consortium. The lexical similarity between "Pyn'gani" and "pengauani" is also worth mentioning.
The Pengauani model's filename is "NI_PENGAUANI.ALO". The prefix "NI" indicates that it is categorized as "Neutral Infantry".