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Isla Muerta[]

Andrewsarchus

Illustration by FeatherTail of JPLegacy

Length: 15 feet
Height: 6 feet at the shoulder
Weight: 1,800 pounds


Coloration:

Adult and juvenile (both sexes): Overall a tawny or tan colored fur, with black stripes or spots and a white underside.

Diet: Mainly scavenger of carrion, no matter how rotten. Its powerful jaws can also crush bone and shell, so nothing of a corpse is wasted.

Preferred Habitat: Patrols the Graveyard, Swamps, coastal areas and riverbanks in search of dead animals.

Social Structure: Solitary.


Resembling a gigantic wolf, Andrewsarchus is actually in fact an ungulate, related to hoofed mammals. Its head is massive and the jaws are armed with sharp teeth of two types – bone crushing molars and long curved canines. Its feet are flat to support its weight, and there are five small hooves on its toes as opposed to claws.

Andrewsarchus' large size and massive head means it cannot gallop at a very fast pace over long distances, so it sticks mainly to the Graveyard and the Swamps, which are abundant in corpses of washed up animals. Andrewsarchus can be found on other parts of the island too, loping after herds of herbivores and waiting in the shadows for other carnivores to make a kill, before scaring the carnivore away with its large, intimidating size.

Andrewsarchus is Muerta’s answer to waste disposal. It hunts rarely, instead using its excellent sense of smell to seek out dead animals.

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