Non-Cygnosaur Gantuans

The gantuans are a specious clade of skuorcs descended from the scrunge. Best-known, and most easily seen among them, are the cygnosaurs, descendants of the soggobbler that reach immense heights and often demonstrate frighteningly aggressive tendencies, including opportunistic carnivory. But these are not the entire clade.

Non-cygnosaur gantuans include other descendants of soggobblers, like the snippo of the polar basin, as well as earlier offshoots which diverged between 275 and 280 million years PE. Among this latter group can be seen the greatest diversity of size and niche; while most cygnosaurs are similar to one another, the same cannot be said for these more basal gantuans. Only some of these species have reached large sizes, and those which have have done so independent of the soggobbler lineage. There are more species of these "lesser" gantuans than there are of the larger, but many are quite small, so that they are far harder to notice. This is not true for them all, however - not at all.

Five species of lesser gantuan are depicted below, which form a single clade descended from the scrunge, and as descendants of this species, they fall under the gantuan group cladistically. The ancestor of all these disparate species diverged from the cygnosaur lineage 276 million years PE, and now includes both the biggest and the smallest gantuan species. These are the arcuconlumidae, commonly known as arc-necked gantuans, for their unusually low neck positions, which connect to the torso front of, rather than above the shoulders and often angle down in an arc before rising to a height. This clade is extraordinarily diverse, even among skuorc standards. Many species are neotenous, with stunted growth and early sexual maturity, which has resulted in a number of species which are arboreal, as many young gantuans, even cygnosaurs, are good climbers. Many arc-neck gantuans also utilize the prehensile tails that they share with cygnosaurs in novel ways. Species that lack the benefit of size and strength to defend themselves are often more behaviorally flexible and intelligent than cygnosaurs, and they display a very wide range of diet.

1. Gathergander, the smallest gantuan. These tree-dwelling animals reach a maximum adult size of just 4 feet beak to tail tip and weigh only around 45 pounds. A gregarious omnivore that sticks to the tallest trees of the flood forest, gatherganders skillfully climb with hooked foreleg claws and muscular tails that function as a fifth limb to grasp branches. Named for their goose-like vocalizations, oft-repeated and nasally, they use their tails to collect nesting material in bundles; a sleeping nest is created high in the canopy each night from fresh vegetation, unusual among birds in general, and especially among gantuans. Many such nests may be created closely together, but it is very rare for two adults to share one. Social groups are made up of loosely territorial bands of related females and unrelated males. Females produce small litters of two to six young twice a year, which are protected from predators by the troop - not only are gatherganders not cannibalistic, but they are attentive parents, and allow young to roost in their nests until they are around half grown. Though young find their own food, they are often indirectly assisted, picking up whatever the adults in the group drop. Leaves, shoots, fruit, seeds, insects, eggs, and small animals are all taken readily.

2. The blimp is the largest gantuan, and one of the largest birds ever to live, reaching a length in excess of 100 feet thanks to their extraordinary necks and tails, and a staggering weight of 50 tonnes, far in excess of any other land animal of the time. Blimps begin their lives looking more like gatherganders than their own parents, as small, climbing animals with coats of short, oily plumage that blends in with the dark, musty woodlands of the flood forest. Yet over the next 25 years, they gradually transform into several different niches, eventually coming down to the ground and then spending most of their time feeding in inland swamps and wetlands. By the time they are fully grown, blimps are aptly named; they are smooth and featherless, and become too large to walk on land by fifteen years of age, as their bodies outgrow their legs - after this time, they are fully aquatic animals. After this time they depend on water to support their body weight, and primarily travel through the shallow water of the upperglades by walking on the bottom and kicking off to float leisurely for some distance, then repeating. Though juveniles are omnivores, adults are vegetarian, developing an extremely wide, shovel-like bill to rapidly collect a continuous supply of plants to support their massive bulk. Their diet includes any and all types of vegetation from seaweed to shoreline grasses and the leaves of waterside trees; with a long, curving neck that naturally lies at a mostly horizontal angle, they can feed in all directions and both above and below the surface. Equal parts sauropod and whale, these behemoths are too large at maturity to have many enemies and demonstrate a calm, gentle demeanor that contrasts sharply to their cygnosaur relatives. Yet though immense and placid, they will defend themselves if necessary, and retain some defense in the form of a whip-like tail that can be used to strike attackers with sufficient force to shatter the jaws of even the biggest and scariest predators. Due to their habitat of shallow freshwater, even fewer aquatic enemies threaten them, and those which might try are liable to be crushed beneath their bodies and drowned, rather than succeed. Blimps produce the biggest litters of any skuorc, which can include over 200 young, each around 18 inches long. There exists no parental care; young immediately swim to land, taking shelter in trees. Most are caught by predators at some point before adulthood; rare adults, however, can live in excess of 80 years. With little to fear and nowhere to hide anyway, male blimps are highly colorful, with blue, green, and yellow skin patterns that are visible to more subtly-hued potential partners from a very far distance.

3. Stranglepard, the most carnivorous gantuan. These are small, solitary forest predators native to the Trilliontree Islands and parts of southern mainland Serinarcta. Closest related to gatherganders, they are completely meat-eating, arboreal hunters. Retaining a juvenile shape and size throughout life, as well as a coat of short feathers, the agile stranglepard has evolved binocular vision, aiding it in judging distance as it leaps from branch to branch, and letting it spot and track moving targets. Though it can pursue prey quite actively, it is known for its patient ambush technique in which it finds a secluded branch on which to rest, overlooking a game trail through the forest vegetation. Their tail is among the largest relative to their size of any gantuan, and has become a weapon. Extremely muscular, it can coil and tighten around any animal that it can grab, passing unwary beneath the hunter. The tip of the tail is lined with sharp backward-facing scales, which work like teeth to grab hold of a victim and then wrap it up. Holding on with its large talons on both front and hind feet, the stranglepard tightens its tail into a noose and strangles its prey, pulling it off its feet to suffocate, before pulling it up the rest of the way to feed. There is no parental care, but adults don't often hunt their own species; juveniles are more active predators than the adults, but still may use their tails to catch and restrain their food, which is mostly made up of molodonts and small flying birds at that time. Adults often kill crested thorngrazers, trunkos, and other medium-sized terrestrial animals of sizes up to 300 pounds, more than double its own weight.

4. Flagtail, a single grazing herbivore species in a monotypic genus with no similar relatives. The flagtail represents the end result of a scrunge that wanted to become an ungulate. Adapted to cursoriality more than any other gantuan, they have long, thin legs and hoof-like toenails; the front feet are reduced to two weight-bearing digits. Though not small, they are still much less large than most cygnosaurs, and seem to be both neotenic and significantly derived, as they have lost all arboreal attributes of their common ancestor and specialized toward fast terrestrial movement, most similar to the the carnivorous vultrorcs among other skuorcs. Up to twelve feet high at the head, eight at the withers, flagtails can weigh 2,200 pounds, and fall in between the two specializations of most Serinarctan predators, to hunt either small, fast prey, or big, slow prey. Only one species of vultrorc regularly hunts this species, which can run in excess of 40 miles per hour across the plains of northwest Serinarcta. Yet the flagtail is not a particularly numerous species; it lives in small groups, and is never especially abundant. It seems to survive best at low population densities, so that the few predators well-suited to hunt it too remain widely dispersed and less likely to come across them. If they are threatened, flagtails use their namesake attribute as a fluttering lure, trailing behind them, to draw an attacker's bite away from vital areas. It is adapted to tear away cleanly when pulled, leaving the predator with a mouthful of plumes and a writhing tail that jerks and jumps with nervous jolts for several minutes after detaching, providing a distraction as the owner makes its escape. The tail regenerates to its full splendor in around three months, though after the original is shed, the replacement is stiffer and supported only by cartilage, rather than spinal vertebrate. Young flagtails are uniquely similar to the adult even from birth, with the arboreal life stage not present, likely due to the specialized state of the adult's limbs making it untenable. There is, nonetheless, no care provided to the small litter of 4-6 young born by a mother once a year, and the babies, though only around 15 inches tall, are independent from birth. They begin their lives hiding in tall grass, and like most skuorcs, only a small percentage reach adulthood.

5. Grumblebum, a burrowing gantuan related closest to gatherganders and stranglepards. This species still shows some arboreal ancestry in the form of large claws and a prehensile tail, but has exapted these traits to dig large tunnels into the earth in which it shelters. Native to the upland regions of northeast Serinarcta, grumblebums are shy and nocturnal, emerging from their refuges after dark to graze grass and other vegetation only after peering out for some time at the entrance with high-set eyes to ensure the coast is clear, while spending the days alternately resting and expanding their burrows with their claws. Quite large for a fossorial species, grumblebums can reach 400 pounds, and so these tunnels are sizeable, becoming important secondary habitats for smaller animals, which the tunnel-digger usually tolerates amicably, as it is an herbivore. These skuorcs are named for their habit of retreating down their tunnels if frightened and coiling their tails over their backsides, to block the entrance behind them; the tail is covered in sharp, protective scutes. The animal will produce frightening, noisy grumbles, snorts, and throaty hisses when so agitated that, when echoing through a tunnel, can give the impression of either multiple animals, or one far larger one than is really there. In truth, the grumblebum is solitary, though females allow their young, born in litters as small as a single infant, to share the burrow until several months of age. Because of this protection, their armor, and the safety provided by a life underground, grumblebums are very rare K-strategist gantuans, producing few offspring, but having most of them reach adulthood.