Pummel

A robust and flightless browser of the Trilliontree Islands, you could be forgiven for not knowing the big and pugnacious pummel was not long ago a tiny, diving seabird. 

Descended from the giant pygmy pretenguin, a clade of these birds have lost all of their swimming adaptations in response to finding all of their food on dry land. Now living over about ten of the most outlying islands of varying size in this archipelagic region, a new genus has arose with four distinct species known as pinguipugs, all of which eat mostly bushes and the leaves of low tree branches, and which have evolved a unique defensive weapon to protect themselves and to fight rivals. These birds all have solid club-like wrists with which they can brutally punch forward and to the side. In the biggest species of the genus, the pummel, the impact of this can carry enough force to kill a human-sized animal in one blow. While both sexes have this weaponized bone, it is larger in males and accompanied by a bone spur on the outside of the wing that delivers even greater damage when striking, functioning like a mace. Male pummels fight each other over territory and to protect their mates, either forming single pair bonds or small harems of two to three females that they fend viciously from others. Females use their clubs to fend off predators that might harm their chicks, though the species has few enemies as an adult on the islands they occur on.

While the smallest pinguipug is only five feet tall and weighs just 90 lbs, the pummel is a giant. Growing as tall as ten feet, it weighs up to 550 pounds. Its beak is extraordinarily thick and blunt, even among a genus defined by heavy bills suited to crop plant matter, and fighting males don't just punch but bite and bludgeon their enemies with this as a secondary weapon. The pummel is aggressive and mostly fearless, attacking most animals that come too close to them or their feeding grounds - and occasionally eating small animals too, as it still has some omnivorous leanings, even though its size and bulk mean it must eat mostly plants and is not a skilled hunter of anything that can run or fly or swim away at any speed. Isolation on their distant insular habitat has allowed them to lose most sense of fear, as they rarely meet any animals that pose threat to them; no large predators have reached the islands they live on, and the only occasional danger adults may face comes from other, larger herbivores - nomadic sea-crossing skogres, but not because the latter hunts them directly. Pummel numbers are closely correlated with the presence not only of predators but also of competitors; though their ancestor was wider ranging, today their descendants are absent from many islands closer to shore where these large and destructive browsers reach most readily. Skogres may not eat them, but their herds can strip small islands of nearly all vegetation and then move on, leaving the land-bound plant-eaters to starve in their wake. Pummels are not totally vulnerable to the arrival of skogres upon their islands, however. Adult pummels are extraordinarily powerful for their size and very antagonistic. If they meet young skogres, they will do their best to drive them off - or even kill them, with blows to the head strong enough to dislocate jaws and shatter their skulls. As far as the pummel is concerned, it's best to get rid of future problems while they're small.

Female pummels lay two to three eggs in a ground nest in dense vegetation and incubate them, expecting the male to bring her food so she doesn't need to leave them for long. When they hatch, both sexes guard them but the female is more attentive to help find them food when they are young, while the male is a better protector against predators. In harems, multiple females will share incubation duty and collectively care for their chicks. Though pummels live in forests and don't enter the sea with any regularity any longer, they still enjoy freshwater and will bathe in shallow ponds daily if conditions allow, splashing and cleaning their feathers. But with no webbed feet, no useful flippers, and a complete loss of the salt-filtering nostril tube of other pretenguins, the pummel is firmly a land animal; these short baths are the closest it now comes to swimming