The Duneshark

Order: Elaiogaleiformes

Family: Atrocigaleidae

Genus: Atrocigaleus

Never judge a book by its cover.

A suitable description for the duneshark, an ancient, frightening beast with its small yet piercing eyes, massive, 7 inch-long dagger-like teeth and a streamlined, shark-like body, a powerful swimmer with a muscular frame, whom you might think is aggressive.

Its behaviour would be the polar opposite to that.

Despite having an intimidating row of teeth, a large size (up to 4 metres but typically 3.5 metres) and generally monstrous appearance, it is a placid, slow swimming predator which is unlikely to attack unless seriously threatened, spending most of its time drifting over the sea floor lazily, hunting rarely and often during night. A peaceful creature, the duneshark is truly a deceptively fearsome creature.

Being one of a few dozen species of the Atrocigaleidae family, their closest relatives are the common tigacurra and picardines, small-to-medium-sized barracuda-like predators with streamlined builds. The Atrocigaleidae has a unique and long family history, remaining mostly unchanged for the last 60 million years. Until the arrival of the grapsharks, with their massive, raptorial mandibles capable of incapacitating prey much larger than them, they were mostly large, shark-like macropredators. Today, they are still successful, albeit to a lesser degree, with their lower metabolisms allowing them to survive in deeper habitats and allowing them to effectively niche partition with the more common grapsharks. Atrocigaleids are larger and more bulkier than tigacurras and typically possess bigger and more stout jaws, with the duneshark being an example of a relatively common, mostly coastal species. Most atrocigaleids are relegated to deeper depths and freshwater environments in swampy islands, with the duneshark being a select few that live in carpgrass prairies.

Among its relatives, the duneshark easily outcompetes them in size, with the only atrocigaleids that are larger being the deep sea sleeperjaws. A nocturnal, mostly benthic predator, its menu mainly consists of large, benthic pelagys, with hoodfish and eelpikes, which its massive sabre-like teeth are perfectly suited for. The lack of general serrations on its front teeth mean that it is unsuited to take big chunks out of large prey such as gallantees, but mean it is perfect to grab slippery pelagys in its jaws. Whilst it captures prey in its front teeth, its posterior teeth are smaller and serrated, allowing it to shear into the flesh of its prey, cutting it into manageable pieces to swallow.

One of its most common prey items is the large, eel-like snaggletooth dog eel of the early-diverging eucinetophiformes, which is also a nocturnal predator. Common in the eastern islands, its populations frequently overlap with that of the duneshark, which frequently takes this species as its main target.

During the night, the duneshark lurks silently in the water column, swimming near motionlessly.

Most of its prey have keen senses, especially that of hoodfish (which have barbels), which means it uses its stealthy approach to hunting to avoid triggering their potent senses. When close to its prey, it captures it swiftly with a quick lunge or sideways swipe. There is no chase. Especially for a dog eel occupied in capturing prey, which is among its favourite targets. Dunesharks will swim over to a writhing dog eel, capture them in their jaws, and eat them quickly; a fast, swift motion with little struggle. An effective strategy of hunting.

When not hunting during the day, the duneshark is lazy and unproductive, sticking close to the sea floor or reefs, swimming solitarily or in pairs. Sometimes seen taking shelter under rocky overhangs or in deeper regions, they are not very active predators, seeking to conserve energy through this lazy lifestyle; a polar opposite to that of the aggressive and fast-paced grapsharks. Mostly peaceful, they seek to avoid predators such as grapsharks, which are often territorial. Despite their timid and placid demeanours, they can lash out in aggression, and when they do, it often does not end well. Their jaws have strong bite forces compared to that of grapsharks, which have relatively weak jaws and rely on laceration and their pharyngeal jaws to kill prey. Dunesharks are much more straightforward, with territorial interactions between grapsharks and them often concluding in nasty wounds for the grapshark.

Unlike the grapsharks, dunesharks are tolerant of their own kind and can be seen aggregating in large numbers (in the peak of the breeding season, they can reach up to 100 strong in shoals) and often swim slowly rather close to the sea floor. However, during the breeding season, they tend to group up in shoals, travelling at deeper depths together to their breeding grounds. And while mostly unknown, they do so in great numbers, often breeding and laying eggs in deeper regions. dispersing afterwards and traveling back to their feeding grounds, leaving their young in leathery eggs hidden among trivalve stalks in the deeper regions, that once hatch and return to shallower areas, especially reefs. Their life history is a long process, only reaching sexual maturity at 8 years, in which they breed infrequently and brood little young, yet well-developed young which hunt immediately after birth.

A peaceful predator, the dunesharks are an efficient 'living fossil', keeping the things that kept it alive for millions of years and still using them to great success, even in the new, changing situations of Alladoras's seas. Even as the focus shifts from them to the larger grapsharks, they are still important players in the seas of Alladoras.