Cruelfang Hafgufa

When the lyngbakrs left the isolated waters of the Jim Polar Shallows for the open ocean, they were followed by their mortal enemy. Growing even bigger than its ancestor, the cruelfang hafgufa is one of the largest predators Sagan IV has seen in a long time. Greater than even the megamouth snark, the greatest of the snarks, this solitary predator relishes its place at the top of the food chain, hunting down its favored prey with a cruel efficiency. With the only other threat being others of their own kind, they have evolved a thick armor-like plating on their backs for protection, as well as one of the most powerful bite forces as well, one that is aided by many great fangs.

Once a cruelfang hafgufa has sensed a pod of lyngbakr, it will trail it for miles, waiting for the moment to strike. The sickly, the old, and the young are its prime targets, for they will not put up as much of a fight as a healthy adult. Once it has picked one out, the cruelfang hafgufa will dive deep, then lurch up out of the darkness in a surprise attack, catching its target unaware. With a powerful bite it will tear through a fin or tail, crippling its prey and staining the surrounding waters a deep crimson. Then it will wait. Once the pod realizes that they can no longer aid the doomed individual and swim off, and said individual's struggles come to an end, this great predator can then feed at its leisure, using powerful death rolls to rip off bloody strips of flesh and 'blubber'. Of course such a vicious feeding strategy can lead to many lost and damaged teeth, but this is of little concern to them as they many rows to replace them.

Being solitary, mating between two individuals of the opposite sex tends to only occur after a lyngbakr kill. As both are usually satiated in terms of hunger, they will forgo their territorial nature in order to ensure the future of the species. Afterwards, they will go their separate ways and the female will give birth to 1 or 2 pups after a relatively long gestation period of two years. The pups will stay with their mother for their first year of life, learning to hunt while growing at rapid pace, after which they set out on their own lest they be included in their mother's diet. From then on they will grow and mature until becoming the dominant predator of the oceans.