Shantak

Splitting from its ancestor, the shantak has gone on to fill the niche of apex predator on Fermi island, growing large thanks to the effects of island gigantism. With a slimmer, more muscular body design, it is fully adapt at hunting down its smaller cousins, most of which have evolved without evolutionary pressures of a predatory nature. While not the fastest creature on the island, for that title goes to the curazzell, they are one of the largest and strongest. A single swipe is often enough to crack the skull of any smaller species of thornback, while its jaws are powerful enough to easily crush bones with a single bite. Equally deadly are their claws, which are razor sharp and capable of rending flesh easily. Hunting on their own, individuals communicate with one another by flashing tiny bioluminescent patches that run along their sides.

Because of how hot the days can get on Fermi island, the shantaks spend their times in shade and such during the majority of the day, resting until night falls and the temperatures fall as well. As for acquiring water, another necessity of the desert, shantaks will often lick the dew off their bodies, though the majority of their fluids come from the prey they eat and their rather efficient way of disposing of bodily waste.

Perhaps the greatest evolutionary advantage the solitary shantaks involves their reproductive strategy. As water is scarce and cryobowls unreliable as long-term nurseries, the inhabitants of Fermi island required a new strategy. The shantak was one the few to solve it. Evolutionary, this process took many, many generations, with countless mutations and dead ends along the way, until some shantaks were able to produce hardier eggs that didn't require water to be raised in. These leathery-shelled eggs, not unlike those of the certain species of signaltail, hatch into miniature versions of the adults and provided a massive advantage for these creatures over others. This has allowed the shantaks to spread deeper into Fermi island, as well as tolerate its more arid regions.

Young shantak are provided no parental care outside of the hiding of their eggs into the sand for both protection and incubation. Instead they must fend for themselves, hunting dartirs and vermees, until they are old enough to hunt larger prey. Those that do survive long enough to do so will become predators without equals and the dominate hunters of Fermi island.