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Description

This is an imaginative walrus like tribbethere, which is distantly related to molodonts. Just like a walrus, it can drag itself ashore with the help of its tusks, by stabbing the beach with them. Unlike a walrus it has a very flexible multi part jaw (inherited form its teleost ancestors) allowing for a unique locomotion. It can walk with its teeth too, the mechanism being: it opens its jaw, rams its tusks into the ground, drags itself forward with its three legs, releases its tusks from the ground, opens its jaw again and stabs the tusks into the ground again and so on...

Blubbery and obese, these beasts can swim at a decent pace, but on land they can only crawl around very slowly.

They preferentially feed on hard shelled, slow moving food (molluscs/clams), and use their tusks to dig out food from the seafloor. They opprotunistically prey on fish, but usually are too slow to catch any. They are still omnivorous, and will occasionally feed on seaweeds too, but these are less nutritious than animal prey.

In the early pangeacene, not long after an extremely devastating mass extinction, there are very few predators that can threaten this large beast.

Mucks and Bumblets have evolved marine forms, and other tibbetheres have ventured into the water too, but only the young of the tribruses are preyed upon, they are still small and vulnerable and lack the large tusks of the adults. Also, parental care is minimal in these unintelligent animals. Females give birth to large, precocial litters to compesate fot the high infant mortality rates. The pups follow the female for the first few days of their life, but then they leave and hide in vegetated shallows until they are large enough to be safe from predation. The instinct to swim to the surface to gasp for air is strong and reliable, they do not have to learn it, like most of their behavioural patterns.

I imagine them existing in the early Pangeacene, and they get outcompeted by faster swimming tribwhales and then by actual molodonts (that are much better suited to crack hard shelled prey, because they have properly fused front teeth to grind hard foods) later on.

The are usually quiet creatures, but during mating season, males will fight for the best spots on the beaches, where they get to mate with the most females. Those tusk fights are usually harmless, because they are protected by their blubbery hides. During mating season, the males will also make loud booming calls, obnoxious bellows and roars, advertising their strentgh and fitness.

Despiute being extremely slow and ungainly on land, they can turnd themselves around at an unexpected speed, and impale any woul-be attacker with their long, sharp tusks (Like how walruses can kill polar bears!).

TLDR: Fanart of a slow moving walrus-like Tribbethere offshoot that gets outcompeted by faster and more efficient durophagous Tribbetheres later on.

This is a rework if this old piece:www.deviantart.com/mrantlear/a…

-- This Fanart is based on Serina, a speculative evolution/worldbuilding project, which is the sole intellectual property of .
You can view his work on sites.google.com/site/worldofs… . --

Description

This is an imaginative walrus like tribbethere, which is distantly related to molodonts. Just like a walrus, it can drag itself ashore with the help of its tusks, by stabbing the beach with them. Unlike a walrus it has a very flexible multi part jaw (inherited form its teleost ancestors) allowing for a unique locomotion. It can walk with its teeth too, the mechanism being: it opens its jaw, rams its tusks into the ground, drags itself forward with its three legs, releases its tusks from the ground, opens its jaw again and stabs the tusks into the ground again and so on...

Blubbery and obese, these beasts can swim at a decent pace, but on land they can only crawl around very slowly.

They preferentially feed on hard shelled, slow moving food (molluscs/clams), and use their tusks to dig out food from the seafloor. They opprotunistically prey on fish, but usually are too slow to catch any. They are still omnivorous, and will occasionally feed on seaweeds too, but these are less nutritious than animal prey.

In the early pangeacene, not long after an extremely devastating mass extinction, there are very few predators that can threaten this large beast.

Mucks and Bumblets have evolved marine forms, and other tibbetheres have ventured into the water too, but only the young of the tribruses are preyed upon, they are still small and vulnerable and lack the large tusks of the adults. Also, parental care is minimal in these unintelligent animals. Females give birth to large, precocial litters to compesate fot the high infant mortality rates. The pups follow the female for the first few days of their life, but then they leave and hide in vegetated shallows until they are large enough to be safe from predation. The instinct to swim to the surface to gasp for air is strong and reliable, they do not have to learn it, like most of their behavioural patterns.

I imagine them existing in the early Pangeacene, and they get outcompeted by faster swimming tribwhales and then by actual molodonts (that are much better suited to crack hard shelled prey, because they have properly fused front teeth to grind hard foods) later on.

The are usually quiet creatures, but during mating season, males will fight for the best spots on the beaches, where they get to mate with the most females. Those tusk fights are usually harmless, because they are protected by their blubbery hides. During mating season, the males will also make loud booming calls, obnoxious bellows and roars, advertising their strentgh and fitness.

Despiute being extremely slow and ungainly on land, they can turnd themselves around at an unexpected speed, and impale any woul-be attacker with their long, sharp tusks (Like how walruses can kill polar bears!).

TLDR: Fanart of a slow moving walrus-like Tribbethere offshoot that gets outcompeted by faster and more efficient durophagous Tribbetheres later on.

This is a rework if this old piece:www.deviantart.com/mrantlear/a…

-- This Fanart is based on Serina, a speculative evolution/worldbuilding project, which is the sole intellectual property of .
You can view his work on sites.google.com/site/worldofs… . --