This fellow started out as a bartender in my never more than plotted high school graphic novel Shiptrap. Every frontier needs a bar and every bar needs a bartender. Originally he was just a big intelligent reptile. When I sat down to draw out the Sentient 39 aliens I wanted something more exotic so I reinvented him as a planet/animal symbiote. Most of the creatures of his world are symbiotically linked plant and animal combinations.