2 Million Years Henceforth
West Catland Plains:
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West of the landing site on the flatter hot plains of West Catland, the sun is still rising in the sky and the heat of the day hasn't fully taken over.
A megor who has just reached elderhood has been driven from his family by the current elder megor, his own mother. Elder megors don't tolerate each other and will fight for dominance. In this case, the younger elder got away with a notch bitten out of his ear and a few scratches. The contest was more of a psychological fight of sizing up, screeching and teeth baring. With still a small amount of growing to do he was outsized and unnerved into exile. He has never been alone before and is still naive to what life is like without the protection and many watchful eyes of the family group.
Unlucky for him, his first and last encounter as a solitary megor is with Catland's largest feline predator, a megakitty. The surprise of ambush is vital for a successful hunt against a megor, as megors are more than capable of fighting back.
The megakitty's long teeth are able to pierce through the megor's fatty protective dewlap and dislocate the neck vertebrae by wedging between them. This causes disruption of signals from the brain to body via the delicate spinal chord, now being stretched and pinched between misaligned and damaged neck vertebrae. Immediately the megor's muscles go into spasm from the neck down, followed by paralysis. There is no way he can fight back now.
The megakitty drags his prey under a nearby thorny elder shrub to eat, and for good reason. The smell and sight of a dead animal will quickly attract scavengers or the dreaded communal burying beetle, and he wants some time to feed uninterrupted before inevitably having to fend off scavengers bold enough to chance their luck against the savannah's top predator.
A weaving cat stops prowling in the thorny elder and freezes in place, unsure of the potential threat presented by the nearby predator dragging his prey closer. Weaving cats are descendants of forest cats that moved North and continued to live in heavily foliated habitat in spite of the low amount of leafy foliage in the savannahs, by shrinking down their size and developing a long, weaving, springy body shape. They survive off very tiny prey, a mixture of tinier vertebrates and the larger invertebrate species, the bulk of it consisting of the worms and larvae of the descandants of the seeding mealworm beetle species. They are so light and small that they can move silently through the branches without rustling them excessively. They are also too tiny for the megakitty to bother with trying to hunt through such restrictive foliage as the thorny elder's branches. Not even on his radar he hasn't noticed the tiny long cat and continues to focus on consuming his prey.
It never takes long for scavengers to start showing up. Unlucky for the megakitty, his efforts were immeditaely sighted from the air and soaring sparrows have started to perch on a nearby dead tree, biding their time, waiting for an opportunity to pick at some scraps. These birds are usually no threat to the megakitty, but their circling presence in the air above serve as an indicator to other animals that there is something nearby to eat.
A band of pallis has noticed the birds. As a secondary confirmation, the gentle breeze is blowing the scent of freshly spilled blood towards them. It stimulates their appetites. However they can also smell the megakitty. They know they can't rush in heedlessly.
The megakitty gorges on his meal, wolfing down as much as he can in as short a space of time as he can. He starts with the organs, in particular the liver. He needs to make sure he is first to get to the richest part of the carcass because he doesn't know if he will soon need to contend with another megakitty, or something else that might want to steal pieces of his kill. Meanwhile the tree is filled with shrubland pigerros making a feast of the thorny elder's berries.
At first the pallis watch from behind the grass, but all at once they emerge from their concealment and make themselves known to the megakitty. The megakitty could easily kill two or even three palli at a time. But more than four start to spook him. They circle him with a confidence brought about by experience, making deep yowling, growling and hissing sounds from all directions around the megakitty. They also flare their capes, making themselves appear larger (and thus more difficult to fight) than they really are. This pack of pallis have done this before and have learned when they can get away with chancing their luck. Palli packs disband, drop members or gain new members often, but some same-sex packs can become tight-knit until there is a potential mate to compete with. The megakitty becomes overwhelmed, unable to decide which enemy palli to pay attention to and unsettled by the noise, he starts to show fear. He is still hungry and not ready to surrender his kill.
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It isn't worth losing pieces of his tail over. Besides, he's already eaten the best bits of his prey. He begrudgingly leaves the rest of the carcass for the pallis to fight over.
Domestic cats in their feral state formed "cat colonies" who groomed each other, had social interactions and even sometimes shared kitten-rearing responsibilities with non-related cats. They did not however hunt together, preferring not to share prey. Pallis have made a step towards greater sociality by coordinating, communicating and combining strength to take out prey that they couldn't hunt alone. In addition, they routinely steal prey from larger, more solitary carnivores through intimidation from numbers and the raised display of their cape-like manes. The hunting packs of pallis are easy to form and easy to break apart, and are often mixed sex. Common to hunting packs are young siblings who grew up together. Hunting packs don't include females with kittens. Females with kittens become solitary and much more wary of being seen or heard, unless they find a nursery colony of females with kittens, which are similar to the traditional colonies of the domestic cats with the exclusion of adult males. There is safety and comfort in numbers but the mothers venture out alone to hunt, leaving the kittens in the care of other females.
Pppth-pbht-ptui!
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