Ancardia's Unusual Animals--The Livayatan
Classification: Beast (cetacean)
Habitat: Open ocean, rarely coming within a half mile of coasts, in cooler waters.
The Livayatan (often poorly Commonized as “leviathan” from the proper Sostunian of its name) is the undisputed king of oceanic predators, with even whale-hunters of the southern waters being reluctant or unable to attempt taking even the calves of these huge beasts. Quite possibly the world’s largest carnivore, the livayatan lives in small pods throughout the suitable ranges of the oceans and seas of Ancardia and hunts other large ocean dwellers. Its preferred prey are other whale species, especially baleen whales, which it attacks in groups like 20-meter wolves. In the absence of other whale species, individual livayatan will hunt a variety of large aquatic creatures, including orcas, dolphins and porpoises, large tuna species, large sharks, kraken, walrus, and sometimes polar bears. Humanoids are generally ignored by these creatures, except when provoked by them, or in cases where boaters refuse to heed the warnings of locals of the heightened protective instinct of livayatan cows in the calving season. They have been known to attack and sink ships by biting out huge holes in their hulls during this time.
An adult livayatan will average about 22 meters in length, and will weigh in at roughly 35 tons. The calves are born at about 3.1 meters in length and already weigh over 1,200 pounds, with their only viable predators at this time being the Black Devil Shark—a speedy and stealthy relative of the white sharks—but this is a very rare occurrence as other pod members will take up the slack of protecting the newborn while the mother livayatan recovers. The calf grows slowly, nursing for about the first year or until it grows to be more than 6 meters in length, and after which is tutored in hunting marine mammals and large fishes by its older podmates. Most livayatan pods will have only one calf born each year, consolidating all of its members’ attention on raising and protecting each year’s calf. Female livayatan as a result breed in a rotation, with only one pregnancy per pod each year; livayatan population is largely managed by this practice, and otherwise by limitations in food supply.
Like other cetaceans, livayatan are very social and communicate through very wide-reaching and piercing sounds; each livayatan can call to and hear the response of a fellow livayatan over a distance of more than 10 miles. They also use the calls and responses of other cetacean species to coordinate hunts. While capable of diving into the deep ocean similar to sperm whales, livayatan are somewhat less adapted for this and generally only dive to depths of about 400 meters at most. Sperm whales generally use this limitation to avoid hunting pods of livayatan by diving far deeper than their predators are capable. Goose-beaked whales and elephant seals are also known to dive deeply to escape livayatan as well.