Piranhaconda

Remember this? Well I redrew it and finally gave it some colors. It's in no way related to the movie of the same title.

Suffaco Impedio "Strangling Hold"

This xenomorph is a cold-blooded, bony fish that has evolved to occupy a very small ecosystem. It measures only a foot long, but it is the most efficient predator on land, due to its endemic nature. The only non-arthropodic species on its planet to partially live on land, this fish is considered an extremophile.

Its long, serpentine body is smooth, with five rows of backwards pointing scutes lining it. It can travel on land by pushing itself along on its fleshy pectoral and pelvic fins - also used for steering while swimming - as well as using its muscular body and tail to perform impressive leaps. It also has a pair of anal fins which it uses for balance while swimming and a very long caudal and soft dorsal fin which it uses to push itself forward and stay upright in the water. Its bottom jaw is longer than its front and filled with short conical teeth. The operculum is covered in short sharp spines and has a frill to protect its gills, and it has two small sensitive flaps of skin behind its nostrils. The scutes along the sides of its body are where the lateral line system is, which it uses to sense vibrations during its time in water. One of its swimming bladders has become a rudimentary lung, which allows it to breathe on land. It can also partially breathe through its skin, though it must stay moist for this, meaning it can not stray far from the shore.

It kills by constriction, using its scutes to grip onto the hard chitin carapaces of arthropods and the slick smooth scaled fish that make up its diet. Once dead, it swallows its food whole, using its backwards facing teeth to push the prey down its throat, which can distend so that it can eat prey twice its size. Due to the extra energy it expends hunting down its prey on land, it has a large appetite, and digests quickly in order to be able to eat more. It also hunts in the small tidal pools which form when the tide goes out, being able to pull its constricted prey from the water to eat it on land without worrying about other water predators.

During spawning season males develop a kype of the upper jaw, or extreme curvature. Females and males will coil around each other, so that while the female lays her ova, the male can release his spermatozoa and have a better chance of fertilization. Ova are laid by the hundreds in the shallows surrounding the land. Once spawning is complete, it is not uncommon for the females to consume their mates. The females will fiercely guard their eggs, but once hatched, they become opportunistic feeders and will devour their tiny larvae by the mouthful. If the larvae are caught during low tide in one of the many tide pools that dot the shore, an entire generation can be wiped out by their mother. The larvae are very small and do not resemble their parents. They are short and lack the characteristic serpentine body, and also have a large yolk sac for nourishment that hangs from their bellies. They feed on their siblings and small, shrimp-like crustaceans. They are not amphibious yet, and will suffocate if they become stranded on land when the tide goes out. As they grow, they will lengthen and one of their swimming bladders will develop into the lung which will allow it to follow in its parents footsteps and hunt primarily on land.

Entire populations of this rare fish have been wiped out due to its specialized life style. If its main source of food should migrate or die off, it is unable to survive the open ocean long enough to find another inhabited spit of land, let alone land that isn't an active volcano. Unless it evolves further, it is unlikely that this extraordinary fish will survive its courageous venture onto land.


Image and species (c) Hilary Francis