Burrowing Lizardworm

Splitting from its ancestor, the burrowing lizardworm found both too much competition and predators to continue living like most of its relatives. It evolved a larger covering of armor, and found that living underground provided it protection. Its armor plates served it well when it came to digging through the ground, and while it is not the fastest species underground, it is one of the larger and more predatory ones. Its limbs began to atrophy due to lack of necessity, and are now nothing more than little stubs that serve little use other than in males who use them to help position them while mating. They will tend to devour any smaller organisms they find while digging, but will also come out at night to hunt and slither along the ground, using the stomach plates to aid them at this endeavor. They no longer shed their armor, and it now grows with them, though because of this their growth rate is much slower compared to that of other lizardworms. They have developed stronger jaws to both incapacitate and tear apart their larger prey, and can swallow smaller species whole. They can perform "death rolls" to tear off large chunks of flesh, similarly to the crocodiles of Earth. They mate during the warmer months at night, and after 6-7 months the female lays a clutch of eggs in an underground burrow which she guards against all intrusions. She will also dig a side tunnel to the surface in order to allow fresh air in, and also to possibly attract prey, though she need not eat as she tends to build up fat reserves in order to keep a constant guard of her eggs without abandoning them to hunt. After 2-3 weeks the young hatch and are fully capable of surviving on their own. They move through the soil by using their armored heads to first soften the soil before them, and then push through it by undulating their body plates forward. Their moving bodies act almost like a drill, though they do not spin, they can move through the soil and build vast underground tunnel systems which they then use as they hunt.