Lashlip Carnackle

A terrifying-looking, but critically important predator, the lashlip carnackle's presence on the plains helps maintain the health of the landscape.

On the upland plain small molodonts thrive, for here - unlike the soglands - the ground readily holds tunnels without collapsing. Poppits, which feed above ground, and smols, which feed below, nibble on roots, leaves and seeds and by total quantity of plants consumed are even more significant grazers here than thorngrazers. This also means - unfortunately for them - that they themselves are an important food resource to a wide variety of predators. Skuorcs, kittyhawk gravediggers, and even many sparrowgulls include many "ratters" that seek to catch these small prey within their burrows. Rodent-like small animals are so numerous here though that even some much larger hunters can make a living eating them, one bite-sized morsel at a time. Such is the method of the lashlip carnackle.

A descendant of the larger grisly carnackle, the lashlip is a comparatively dainty animal only 3-4 feet high and weighing 50-60 lbs. It's a good runner with long legs, and is nomadic across the higher ground of Serinarcta, avoiding the soglands as it is not a skilled swimmer. While it still closely resembles its predecessor the lashlip's most distinctive new trait is a far more elongated lower lip, forming a second trunk that is now much larger than the top one. Lined with hooked pseudoteeth, this trunko hunts animals by reaching into their tunnels and pulling them out kicking and screaming with this veritable tentacle of death. And unlike most hunters of such small game, the lashlip hunts in packs. A hunting party separate into scarers and chasers; the former approach a burrow system from one side and ram their lower trunkos down the holes to scare the animals inside to flee out another exit where they are captured and killed by the latter. If tunnels are too long to reach down, or if prey seeks shelter deep inside even when pressed from all entrances, one or two of these adaptable hunters will use the long spade-like claw on their first toe to dig out the center of the complex. As the adult prey animals finally flee out all exists, a pack member stationed at each burrow catches them as they run. Using their keen sense of smell, the pack will then locate any maternity dens within the colony's tunnels, dig them up, and eat the young.

Just one pack of lashlip carnackles can destroy an entire tunnel system and break up a whole extended family group of their poppit prey in a single sitting and only get enough food for themselves to last one or two days. Yet their role here is critically important, for their prey so rapidly bears young that were their colonies not constantly undermined and many of the members culled that they would otherwise overrun the plain and so damage the roots of the grasses that they would die, unable to withstand the concurrent grazing of the thorngrazers, and the whole region would become eroded, bare soil. By tearing up compacted tunnels, these carnackles loosen hard-packed ground and allow new vegetation to take root without its roots being eaten before they can establish.