Shellboar



While most triheels that migrated southward became smaller and more agile, some of them took a very different approach. The shellboar is an example of a species that has adapted to a much different lifestyle. This species has adapted to consuming others of their kind, something that this lineage hasn’t done ever since they crawled out of the sea.

Shellboars are fairly well-adapted from their original form to hunt other siluros, though saying that they have ruthless efficiency would be a bit of an overstatement. These beasts usually prey on locrints, but will hunt and kill almost any other type of neosiluro, provided the shellboar is bigger than it. It may seem odd that this ungainly-looking creature can hunt the small and agile locrint, but they have a few tricks up their sleeve. Their large muscles make them faster than they appear, with them being able to move in a strange tripedal gallop not dissimilar to a bear. It must also be noted that what the locrint has in speed, the shellboar has in endurance. A locrint may be able to escape temporarily, but if a shellboar pursues one for long enough the locrint will tire out and collapse.

In order to hunt and catch their prey, they have some adaptations in the face that seem to mirror the locrint’s, as they share an ancestry from before many of the major changes in their bodies took place. Their double ‘noses’ jut out over the tentacles, and their eyes have moved around such that they can see in front of them. This allows them to detect their prey from further away, a necessary skill for any predator on the plains.

This species also has other adaptations to suit their environment. They clean their eyes by ‘blinking’ their singular, drawstring-esque sphincter eyelid. This allows them to keep an eye on prey even while they blink. Their tentacles have prominent teeth, with the upper pair having two large slashing claws each, and the lower pair acting as mandibles to grind up meat. Their front feet are now strange hoof-like appendages that can be used to tackle and crush a fleeing meal, as well as allowing them to more easily run across packed soil. While they lack the osteoderms on the legs that the locrint has, they instead have keratin plating on their upper tentacles for defense. The knee joints are instead defended by extensions of the plates above them.

Shellboars are also solitary and usually somewhat territorial, but can mate at any time with a shellboar of the opposite sex. Similarly to the locrint, they must mate in the water due to the difficulties of mating on land. The female’s cloaca is much bigger, allowing them to lay larger and more well-developed eggs. Only a few days after being laid, the eggs will hatch. The babies look very similar to the adults, and have fully formed legs, lungs, and exoskeletons. As soon as they hatch, they make a mad dash for land. For a while the back leg will simply trail behind, but eventually the juvenile will learn how to walk with it. Juvenile shellboars will usually scavenge on dead fauna, but once they are big enough to do so, they will start hunting and killing their own prey.