New commission finished, my first challenge one as I was commissioned to create a speculative large predatory analogue to a Tyrannosaurus from the planet 40 Eridani A b of the Project Hail Mary universe, quite happy of what I could work out of this fan made extinct wildlife.
The deep natural history on 40 Eridani A b has shown a quite strong biodiversity time before the Eridians and the calamity of the astrophage, itself thanks to the much longer existence of 40 Eri A compared to the Sol by 2 extra billion years, enough time that went into the evolution of the same lineage that the Eridians belongs to. Studies on the fossil record of 40 Eridani Ab strata greatly encourage due to our strong alliance between humans and Eridians over the last hundreds of years that have yield the rest of the elusive evolutionary history of the wildlife of the planet, having much more marked waves of diversification and extinction due to the constant volcanic activity of the planet that settled out the best or worse conditions, particularly of specialized predators that succumbed for the changing environment of the planet, but from all of the possible forms that we could have found, there was nothing as marvelous and formidable as it was the behemoth cancrine that is the Empress Shellcraker.
This Faunal Eridian is among the largest macropredators ever found in the planet with an estimated length of about 4 meters tall and almost 5 meters in width, its weight is sort of assumptions as its body density vary depending of the body section, but in total is speculated in average they could have grown as heavy as 20 tons, but some fragmentary individual imply a maximum weight of approximately 40 tons.
Living around 200 to 100 million years ago in a period of tectonic lifting that allowed the surface of Eridani to have much more rich elements and so the lifeforms of the planet had vast resources available to grow, allowing a large food chain to form with different detritivores, chemitrophages, petrophages and so “carnivores” in the sense of the word where the Empress Shellcracker reigned as the apex predator.
The most remarkable feature were its 3 sets of limbs that projected from the longer part of its body, a pair of normal arms with gigantic claws curving inside that probably forced it to knuckle walk, and the biggest limb which was 1/5th of its total mass, this peculiar limb represent a specialized appendage as it possess at the end a large specialized phalange that faces inside into the arm, both parts have a peculiar arrangement of protuberances that actually are important for durophagy, along the main phalange, two comb curved ones project side view which probably denote the function of scrapping and gathering the prey crushed in their “hand”.
It is considered that it was a flexible predator since it could attack small prey or similar sized based on remains found in the same places where these lived, with varied organisms that show signs of traumatic deaths. The main method of hunting was likely ambush due to the build of giant Eridians is too heavy for agile movements even with their powerful limbs, probably standing still or hiding between rock formations and “flora” to catch unsuspecting prey.
Smaller organisms were always grabbed and quickly crushed with one movement, but similar or bigger size prey were trapped in what could be considered a deadly embrace, and true to its name, slowly and gradually cracked the mineral carapace of its victims, causing them to die from sudden exposure to the Eridian environment. It remains unknown how they ingested their prey, though scientists speculate they may have developed a very basal form of "mouth" that could separate from the body without risking an atmospheric leak, allowing them to absorb more nutrients in a single meal. This hypothesis is based on a specimen featuring a peculiar double chamber in its oral region that lacks signs of active, regenerating cells.
An unique feature that couldn’t have been found by Eridians due to the lack of vision is the impressive opal covered shell surrounding the Empress's body, Initially believed to be a byproduct of fossil preservation it was concluded eventually that the mineraloid coating formed while the Empress Shellcracker was alive, giving it the most magnificent coloration of any large organism found, but of course this didn’t have an effect on its lifestyle as Eridian pentapedals only perceive their world by acoustics.
Its body remains although apparent symmetry is actually only superficial, since internally its organic structure was divided with part of the organs and the colony located on the right side of its body, and a complex system of lungs and chambers dedicated to housing air sacs and a dozen of larger hearts for each leg to keep its limbs functioning on the left side which has been the few organs that have been found within the best preserved shells of small youngling individuals; It remains a mystery exactly how these Eridian megafauna would have functioned, since the same functions that occur in modern, smaller ones do not translate well to larger sizes, such as heat exchange using HCS without overheating due to their size, or their weight due to the dense mass from their metallic based structures, but is speculated that like a copy of Earth’s dinosaur pneumatic skeletons and air sacs, these large Eridians managed to develop complex pneumatic systems that allowed a secondary way to control the temperature of their bodies, probably even exuding the residual heat instead of accumulating it, more evident for the large chimneys like vents protruding in the highest part of its right section of their bodies.
This organism main name receives a long almost angelical as well intimidating tune for part of the Eridians researchers when it was first mentioned between our human researches, but the main name title “Empress” came to be due to some of the first specimens were found with dozens of undeveloped offspring inside their chamber relative to probably a quite effective reproductive rathe to replenish their population.
Is difficult to establish the time that the Shellcracker die out due to the volatile nature of the geology on Eridani, but thanks to recent studies is assumed that around 90 million years ago a great amount of the volcanic activity receded for a while, which caused the collapse of the food chain and so the extinction of that megafauna episode happened, although Eridians ancestors wouldn’t appear on the picture until dozens of millions of years later, this event likely drove the extinction of important lineages characterized by peculiar asymmetrical forms that dominated the planet for a long time, letting the space for more radial shaped forms to take over eventually, the shellcracker though still remains as an important part of Eridani history, as their remains, specially their limbs have been found across the planet in quantities, a reminder for the Eridians of the many predators that vanished so long ago.
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Thanks for MonsterArchivist for the commission https://www.deviantart.com/monsterarchivist
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