Lancebeak Pumpgill

The lancebeak pumpgill has split from its ancestor, after diamond pumpgill shoals began to take advantage of the Tropical Shallow’s many creatures and turned solely to being carnivores. They developed new hunting methods and began to split up, eventually becoming much larger and hunting alone, using their superior speed to ambush prey from above.

Though they tend to eat scuttlers, swarmers, carcasses and krillpedes, they have been known, when desperate to attack shoals of diamond pumpgills and even eat their own babies. The lancebeak pumpgills use their long sharp beaks to crush shelled prey and even impale and split larger prey in half. They have also developed bony armor on their heads to defend against sharp objects like other lancebeaks. They can make sharp turns using their paddle-fin and are prone to short bursts of speed, a common facade used by the lancebeak is to build up speed when fleeing a predator then make a sharp turn and impale the said predator.

After mating at any time during the year (Lancebeaks have no specific mating time) lancebeaks lay their eggs on flora across a wide radius, laying around 10-20 eggs. The young that hatch out join diamond pumpgill shoals, feeding on smaller fauna, for up to 6 months at which point they begin to hunt alone, they tend to mature within a year and can live for over 20 years. Occasionally, a lancebeak pumpgill will breed with a diamond pumpgill, creating hybrids; however hybrids do not usually live longer than a couple of weeks due to clashing parental behaviours. Lancebeaks live within the depth of about 10–50 metres and rarely travel beyond the 40 metre stretch that they occupy in either direction.