The Greater Harpooner

Order: Magnoglossiformes

Family: Prehendoglossidae

Genus: Prehendoglossus

The undersea equatorial carpgrass meadows of Alladoras are teeming with life. Shaped by natural selection, the vast majority of creatures who reside in this environment have evolved in their own way to monopolise their niche. One of these niches are predators. These are mostly composed of pelagys, which are variously different in their hunting tactics and appearance. Species like aeuna and grapshark are streamlined pelagic predators and have claimed these places in the environment themselves. Other species have to take more unique approaches to hunting. One of the strangest hunters in the carpgrass meadow are a clade of small, ambush hunters which utilise camouflage to conceal themselves in the approach to prey. The largest, the greater harpooner (Prehendoglosssus arenicolus), is the species of this clade we will be covering.

Harpooners, as a clade are morphologically defined by their tongue, which is jointed with ossified cartilage with a hyperextended tooth. To display how this hunting system works, we will observe a theoretical hunt between a greater harpooner and a gallantee. Firstly, the harpooner will "prime" its harpoon-tipped tongue. By contracting the muscles and tendons in the jointed tongue, it stores potential energy. This spring-loaded system is analogous to the legs of a frog, and works in a similar way. It will take aim, and slowly lines up its shot with a weakpoint. Its camouflage conceals it expertly in the groves of carpgrass, waiting for the gallantee to approach. Primed and ready, once the gallantee enters strike range, it strikes the hapless herbivore with an explosive shot of energy, launching its harpoon into its prey. Typically, it'll shoot the tail, or if it is lucky, the organs, and it will wait for its prey to bleed to death. Once movement has ceased, the harpooner digs in and consume its prey. However, this isn't the only method it can use to obtain prey. Another species, the cowslinger (Aequophoneus minor), a venomous animal which protects groves of a specialised plant which lives in the groves of carpgrass, has a unique relationship with certain greater harpooner. The cowslinger may be small, but its venomous, and is quite aggressive and ornery, lashing out to even large predators. Cowslingers exhibit a degree of symbiosis with the harpooner, by luring prey to it. The cowslinger, despite being poisonous, can be quite aggressive, and provoke large herbivores. This way, it can lead oblivious herbivores to the trap which it has sprung with the deadly hunting method of the harpooner. The harpooner, in turn, protects the cowslinger's precious garden. Despite this, when prey grows sparse, the harpooner itself will often leave in search of more productive meadows, so they are not wholly dependent on each other. 

The harpooner's method of hunting is not always the best, and they must exercise patience. During periods of prey depletion, the harpooner will often move to different locations, or enter a state of torpor, waiting until the next boom of prey population. Due to this, the population of the greater harpooner is highly dependent on the state of the population of large grazing herbivores. This sheer specialisation benefits the greater harpooner at the moment, however, we cannot be certain on the future state of their species, as specialists in the history of nature, are fragile, like a sheet of glass. Any moment, this glass could break, causing the downfall of this very unique experiment of evolution and species like it.