Severe Stoatshrike

One of the lesser seen but no less significant predators of the grass-eating upland molodonts is a group of small, elusive gravediggers that more than compensate for their slight stature with especially strong temperaments. The sister group to kittyhawks, their ancestors resembled them, but now exhibit much shortened legs and elongated, flexible spines - adaptations that make them extremely well-adapted to run down narrow burrows and kill their prey underground in its own element. They are the stoatshrikes, and they are the first group of gravediggers to return to digging as their primary livelihood.  

Stout claws let these hunters of Serinarcta's upland plains unearth the nests of their quarry no matter how deep they hide, while their long and mobile bodies feature spines that flex both sideways and up and down to reach down the tiniest spaces. Their faces are relatively short but the beak serrations are long and razor sharp, letting them quickly kill their victims with a deadly, scissoring series of fast bites to the back of the head with enough force to decapitate them. Though short they are very fast and reactive, able to match their prey's every move even in the cramped and dark spaces of underground tunnels and pursue them into corners, and they are often slightly social, hunting in a pair to increase their success even further. Severe stoatshrikes, a cat-sized hunter of the uplands, work in pairs to tag-team their prey. One goes underground, while its mate waits at another burrow exit to slaughter any which try to make a back door escape. With sausage-shaped bodies composed almost of pure muscle, these hunters have remarkable strength and can subdue animals several times their own size  - including the notoriously standoffish burrowing circuagodonts that have few other enemies. 

Stoatshrikes can dig well, but will take over a den dug by their prey in most cases and expand it as necessary. They are loyal to a territory and pairs will raise up to two litters per year within their warren, with older juveniles of a few species even cooperating in feeding the next brood, though it is more common that they are driven out once fully able to feed themselves, and truly communal living is still rare in this group. If opportunity allows, severe stoatshrikes are versatile hunters and will use their dens or those of other animals they have infiltrated to lie in ambush to catch larger prey above ground, with thorngrazer calves a common meal. As herds of the smaller crested thorngrazers wander over their hiding place, these slight but formidable killers jump up to grab them by the throat and drag them underground to their deaths before their parent can react.