Tyrant Crested Limbless

In the cold tundras of Drake, the crested king limbless was not able to handle the cold winters very well, although being underground the majority of the time provided some help. To better adapt to living in the tundra, the ancestors of the tyrant crested limbless would rapidly grow in size as a larger mass means more heat is retained. This led to them also making a change in lifestyle, filling an ecological role unlike anything else in the tundra. By filling a completely distinct role of an ambush predator, the populations of large crested king limbless were able to grow even bigger. Eventually, all of these changes culminated in the populations of large crested king limbless splitting off into a unique species.

Adult tyrant crested limbless spend large amounts of time entirely underground, with only the top portion of its face exposed. If things prove uneventful for about a week, the individual will move to another location by burrowing underground. Unlike their ancestor, the plates of the tyrant crested limbless have become unfused and taken more of a spade shape, additionally having muscles attached to the base of each plate that can be tensed up to lift the individual plates or relaxed to lower them. The species moves underground by using their snouts to push dirt aside, while violent muscle contractions cause their plates to move them forward with decent speed, with the plates covering the whole body aside from the head to make it more efficient. This method of movement is useful for launching themselves out of the substrate to lunge at whatever fauna of decent size is nearby. Once it catches something, the tyrant crested limblesses' powerful jaws and robust teeth can easily crush bone and kill prey quickly.

As an adult, the tyrant crested limbless has very few natural predators as everything around it either is small enough to be considered prey or are specialized towards hunting specific kinds of fauna in the region. Adult tyrant crested limbless will try to tackle anything around 30 centimeters long and longer, even being known to attack subadult polar barons on occasion though these attempts are usually unsuccessful. Young tyrant crested limblesses, on the other hand, are much more vulnerable to both predators and the elements. Unlike the adults, whose gigantothermy means they can tolerate the cold temperatures of the Drake Tundra pretty well, juvenile tyrant crested limblesses are highly susceptible to the cold temperatures especially during the winter. To avoid freezing to death, these young limblesses will spend almost all of their time underground, living in a similar fashion to their ancestor where they burrow after small game such as uksips and skuniks. The only time juvenile tyrant crested limblesses come to the surface at all for the first 4 years of their lives is simply to breathe. By the time they are around 4 years old, they are big enough to spend more time close to or at the surface, which is around the time they transition into their adult lifestyle. Tyrant crested limblesses can live for as long as 60 years, since the biggest risk for the adults is lack of food or the elements rather than predators.

Since the lifestyle of the tyrant crested limbless does not suit cooperation, the species is completely solitary as an adult with the only social interaction between individuals occurring when a male and female mate. Males no longer bite the female’s neck, since their powerful jaws would likely crush the plates and surely kill her and thus end the male’s chances of producing offspring. Young tyrant crested limblesses, however, will still cooperate with one another with hunting and avoiding predators. When it comes to hunting, young tyrant crested limbless individuals will try to herd prey towards other limblesses as it will be likely caught by at least one of them.