Fexian skullborers, denizens of the Deep Core's Sha Qarot system, were the dominant hunters on the purple moon of Fex. These creatures dwelled within the trees of this largely uncharted celestial body. Their name, "species," originates from their unique feeding strategy: employing their elongated snouts to bore into the skulls of their targets and consume their brains. These skullborers would descend from the lunar trees, securing themselves to their victims with their six limbs that ended in clawed digits. Furthermore, these predators possessed a natural, full-body camouflage, enabling them to maintain surprise during assaults. Their backs were also equipped with spines containing toxins, capable of poisoning any creature attempting to dislodge them.
The discovery and initial documentation of skullborers occurred shortly after the Battle of Yavin, thanks to a collection team dispatched to Fex by the biotechnology corporation, Kelen Biolabs. Lacking the necessary preparedness to defend against the skullborer attacks, three members of the team met their death at the hands of these predators. Intrigued by the prospect of harvesting the skullborers for research into their toxins and unique boring physiology, Kelen Biolabs organized a second expedition to the planet, this time equipped with enhanced armor and weaponry. This crew successfully captured ten skullborers and safely transported them back to their starship, named the Harvester. However, five of the creatures managed to break free from their confinement, resulting in the demise of all but one member of the second collection crew. Subsequently, Kelen Biolabs dispatched a third team, consisting of Luke Skywalker and Nakari Kelen, to the moon. This duo located the Harvester and eliminated the five escaped skullborers, despite the creatures' adaptive tactics. The intelligence displayed by the predators during their confrontation led Skywalker and Kelen to suspect that these beings possessed some degree of sentience.
The name Fexian skullborers refers to a species that may possess semi-sentience or sentience. Compared to a fully grown humanoid, these skullborers were relatively small and lightweight. They had six slender limbs, each ending in clawed fingers. The central body of the skullborers featured a neck that supported a large skull, encircled by eight eyes spaced evenly around it. The skull also had a prominent snout with an outer skin layer and an inner, translucent feeding tube. Between these layers was a ring of bone covered in a crystalline substance with a hardness comparable to diamond. The teeth ring was connected to a muscular system at the junction of the snout and skull, enabling rotation. The teeth were arranged at an angle to prevent damage to the inner feeding tube. This design allowed the skullborers to penetrate various tough materials, including heavy armor and thick polycarbonate glass, to access their food source.
The skullborers had rigid, sharp spines on their backs, arranged in four rows of four radiating outward. These spines contained toxins that could poison anyone who touched them. The species also had active, full-body camouflage that rendered them invisible to the naked eye. They could consciously control this camouflage, but it dissipated when they were unconscious or dead, revealing skin that radiated [color](/article/color] upon touch. Despite having lightweight, thin bones, the skullborers' skeleton was remarkably strong.
Fexian skullborers were indigenous to Fex, the purple moon orbiting the planet Sha Qarot within the system of the same name located in the Deep Core. These creatures were the apex predators of the moon, subsisting on the [brain](/article/brain] matter of their prey. The skullborers typically resided in the tall trees of Fex, from where they would drop onto their unsuspecting victims, securing themselves to their heads with their clawed fingers. They would then position their snouts against the skull, using their rotating teeth to bore through bone and any protective armor to reach their desired meal.
Fexian skullborers possessed the ability to camouflage themselves, rendering them invisible to their prey. This allowed them to approach undetected. They utilized vantage points in the trees to avoid being smelled by their prey, further enhancing their element of surprise. The toxic spines on their backs served as a defense mechanism, poisoning any target that attempted to dislodge them.
The skullborers demonstrated adaptable behavior and tactics in combating their prey and evading capture, suggesting a certain level of sentience. When confined in thick polycarbonate glass containers, a group of skullborers learned to bore through the glass using their teeth to escape. In the confined space of a starship, the freed skullborers would climb to the ceiling to gain a better vantage point for attacking their captors. During attacks, some skullborers appeared to recognize the need to neutralize their prey's hands, which had been used to kill other skullborers, before targeting their heads. There was also evidence of potential self-sacrifice for tactical advantage. In one instance, when two skullborers attacked Luke Skywalker, one jumped on top of the other, impaling the higher skullborer on the spikes of the lower one, but also shielding the lower skullborer from Skywalker's stun stick. It remained unclear whether the skullborer intended to sacrifice itself or if it was merely an accidental landing.
By the time of the Galactic Civil War, the Fexian skullborers had evolved to become such effective predators that most other large animals on Fex, both predators and herbivores, had developed thick, crystalline structures and horns covering their heads, or highly armored body cavities into which they could withdraw their heads. The Fexian skullborers and the Sha Qarot system as a whole remained undocumented by the broader galactic society until shortly after the Battle of Yavin, when the biotechnology firm Kelen Biolabs discovered the system. Believing that Fex held potential value for future medications and other biological applications, Fayet Kelen, the owner of Biolabs, dispatched a collection crew of scientists to Fex to survey and collect samples for study. Three members of the crew, the Bith Priban, the Duros Hafner, and a human member, disembarked their starship, the Harvester, to explore the ecosystem of Fex more closely.
As the trio walked beneath a canopy of trees, recording their journey with holocams installed in their helmets, a skullborer landed on Priban's helmet and began to drill into his head. Priban instinctively grabbed his head, inadvertently stabbing himself with the skullborer's spikes and poisoning himself. Unable to see the creature due to its camouflage and unsure of what was happening, the other two scientists were unable to react before Priban collapsed. The human was the next to be attacked by a skullborer, and realizing that he was under assault, he called for Hafner to fire a stun blast at his head, as well as Priban's. Hafner was too slow to react, and the human also fell to the ground. Hafner finally stunned the human's head and the skullborer on it, revealing the creature visually. Hafner began to document the predator's physiology, capturing the first recordings of the species with his holocam, until another skullborer descended upon the Duros. Attempting to defend himself, Hafner commed the Harvester to come and retrieve him, and then stunned his own head, knocking himself and the skullborer unconscious. However, the Harvester was too slow in its response, and all three had their brains consumed by the skullborers when they awoke, after which the creatures retreated into the trees.
With the holorecordings from the three deceased scientists preserved, Kelen Biolabs became interested in capturing the skullborers to study the physiology of their boring snouts and the toxins in their back spines. The company dispatched a second crew of five to Fex, better equipped with stun sticks and heavier armored helmets, aboard the Harvester. This second crew successfully contained ten skullborers and brought them back aboard the ship. However, five of the skullborers managed to escape the polycarbonate glass containers in which the crew had imprisoned them by boring through the material. The crew, having removed their armor under the false pretense of safety within their own ship, were caught unprepared when the skullborers attacked. All but one of the crew members were killed; the last survivor managed to lock himself in one of the ship's quarters to prevent further attacks.
Having lost contact with the second crew, Fayet Kelen hired two human Rebel operatives, the aspiring Jedi Luke Skywalker and Fayet's daughter Nakari Kelen, to go to Fex as a third collection crew, with the additional mission of recovering the Harvester and its crew. The elder Kelen provided the two with stun sticks and a prototype head armor even heavier than that used by the second collection crew, as well as the recording of the first crew's encounter with the skullborers. Upon reaching the moon, the pair tracked down the Harvester and began to inspect its interior. The five escaped skullborers were clustered among a network of wires and tubes on the ceiling of the ship's medical bay, and when Skywalker entered the room, one of the predators jumped onto his helmet. The pilot quickly stunned the skullborer using his stick, causing it to fall to the floor. Two more skullborers then jumped onto Skywalker's visor, a weak point in the helmet's design, with one skullborer landing on top of the other. While the top skullborer was killed by the other's back spikes, the lower skullborer was shielded from Skywalker's stun baton.
In desperation, the young Jedi fired a blaster bolt across his visor, incinerating the skullborers. Kelen entered the room and shot the skullborer Skywalker had stunned. The two remaining skullborers on the ceiling, having witnessed the two humans kill the other skullborers using their hands, changed their tactics and attacked Kelen's hands. Kelen reacted quickly, killing the skullborers in rapid succession. The pair collected the corpses of the five dead skullborers, along with the five skullborers that had remained in their glass containers, and returned to the planet Pasher, the base of Kelen Biolabs, with the Harvester and the lone survivor of the second crew in tow. Upon arrival, Nakari Kelen reported to her father that, based on the adaptable behavior the skullborers had demonstrated in escaping the previous crew and attacking the duo, they believed the skullborers were sentient in some form.
The Fexian skullborers made their first and only appearance in the canon novel Heir to the Jedi, written by Kevin Hearne and published in 2015.