Sandspear

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Periaxum kryptokontos, the hidden spear. A lurking ambush predator with a devastating spring-loaded bite.

1. Axum relative
The sandspear is a close relative of Adulate axum proteosapiens, the intelligent Axum species. They are both crustacean-like strandulates: complex organisms with a hard exoskeleton and without a spinal nerve braid. The sandspear's tail appears smooth and unarmored due to thickening of the intersegmental membrane. Rather than a complex thorax, the sandspear's forward body is almost all jaw.

2. Ambush predator
The sandspear burrows into soft sand and sediment, then waits for prey to pass above its jaws before striking.

3. High tension jaw
Hunting sandspears hold their glass-edged jaws under tension with a biological pulley system anchored beneath the exoskeleton. Closure velocity exceeds 20 meters per second, penetrating plasticized armor and shearing through soft tissue.

Assessment: be alert for sandspears lurking in the seafloor.

Remark A. Go to hell
Nothing needs to bite this hard. You wouldn't know it from the way they go after Tadpoles, but older specimens are actually pulling their bites. Maybe the hard-biting sandspears all break their jaws and die young. [metadata author = Nahema Nakota]

Remark B. Is there a point
Is there a point to adding remarks? When Zip got reset NoA wiped her databank too. [metadata author = Zygimantis "Mantis" Tarvydas]

Remark C. Don't comply in advance
Don't comply in advance, old timer. The more work NoA has to do to reset us, the happier I am. [Nahema]