Circuagodog Gone

Circuagodogs have been in sharp decline the last few million years as the ice age progressed, with the prey species they depend on either growing rare or wise to their tricks. Thorngrazers are now by far the most numerous terrestrial megafauna on land, but with their armored skin are difficult prey for these hunters. Most circuagodogs, such as the sabertooth, evolved to bite softer-bodied avian and circuagodont prey with a downward motion that now puts their teeth at risk of fracture against thorngrazer's osteoderms. The more primitive razortooth circuagodog's biting method of slicing instead of stabbing would be better suited to modern prey species, but its prosocial behavior was less developed. As stabbers evolved from slicers, the former gradually dwindled out over the course of the ice age, less inclined to work together in large groups and hold their own against their more structured relatives. Now sawjaws have evolved, hunting with a similar but more refined jaw structure combined with a strong social group. For to hunt thorngrazers requires not only brains but brawn too, both used in tandem. Merely working together will not save the last of the predatory circuagodonts from changes beyond their control, with bodies no longer suitable to acquire the food they need to survive.

Almost as fast as they appeared and rose to dominance, almost all the circuagodonts are now falling from glory, as new players rise to prosperity in their stead.

The scissorjaw was the last species of circuagodog. A closely related sister species to the sabertooth that died out less than a million years earlier, it was smaller and had less extreme dentition, but shared the asymmetrical jaws. The upper and lower teeth of this species overlapped and did not align at their distal edges so that they sheared together on their left and right edges respectively, giving the scissorjaw a vicious, slicing, pincer-like grip upon its prey that it used to cut into and sever the neck arteries. Only the front of its teeth were angled in this way, with the back of its jaws meeting together and performing a shearing movement to slice flesh for ingestion as in other circuagodogs. Scissorjaws evolved to hunt and kill other circuagodonts and trunkos, the former of which were now nearly extinct themselves while the latter had become now mostly difficult or unsuitable prey, being either very small and fast, very large and intelligent, or even predatory. Though their teeth weren't especially huge, they were still stabbers, and so were not well-built to subdue prey as well-defended as thorngrazers. Big trunkos - descendants of wumps and mammoths - were physically ideal prey, for though the scissorjaw was individually small they could work together in numbers to achieve their goals. And for millions of years, trunkos were the prey of choice that sustained them. Trailing herds, they picked off the stragglers or separated young from their adults, using severe weather to provide cover and confusion and let them strike. Recently though, that prey had enough.

The biggest trunkos, those still numerous and large enough to feed the scissorjaws, became too dangerous to target. They learned to fight back, to wield weapons that distance themselves from their attackers' teeth and disarm them without getting bitten. Not only that, but they began to think with foresight about the future. A predator won't be a threat tomorrow when we're not expecting it, if we remove it now while we control the situation. They started to seek their predators out in their dens, killing their pups and destroying their pack structures. This meant that the last circuagodogs were forced to break up their once large and organized packs and hunt in pairs or even singly, targeting remaining animal prey that was generally too small for their needs. Desperation soon induced abnormal boldness, with emaciated individuals with nothing to lose eventually attacking anything they come across with almost rabid abandon, but often to their own death. By the time such disregard for their own safety appeared, such animals were already nearing death and going into organ failure - they were effectively driven mentally ill with malnutrition as their brains struggled to maintain themselves.

~~~

The scissorjaw is not merely an endangered species, but a dead clade walking on its final three weary legs. A single individual is all that now remains, another endling, one of countless already born and even more yet to exist. Each endling's story is unique. Some died mournful at what was lost, others at peace. A few never knew anything was even wrong, and lived lives that fulfilled them. Others spent their last lonely years calling for others who never once called back. But for the last circuagodog, there is no time to think about whether life was worth living, whether he did good, or whether others are still out there somewhere to find. Life for months now has been torturous, and any semblance of quality to it long gone. Only blind instinct, the drive of every creature to fight tooth and nail to the very last chance to survive and avoid the beckoning end, keeps him alive now, even as his body and mind deteriorate and no more exist to find and forge a bond with. Conscious thought grows weaker by the hour in his final day, as his body begins to shut down. Hunger is his only driver now. There is prey ahead, he smells it, and he has to eat it. He cannot consider what he will do after that. One step at a time. Yet each step is more unsteady than the last - he trips as he runs through the nights' snowfall, and struggles to get back up. He no longer feels the blistering cold wind as it hits sharpy against his skeletal frame, his ribs heaving beneath a scrawny fur coat with no muscles left to speak of. All he thinks of is the food ahead - a hope that will be enough to stave off death. But it trails him constantly and sits close like a shadow now, an enemy none can outrun at the end. His legs no longer support him. His running is done.

For a while he just lies there. The scent of food gets stronger even after the endlings' legs have grown useless with cold and he can no longer stand, let alone follow the trail. He finds he doesn't care that much about the food anymore for some reason now, though. His senses are dulling fast, his mind filling with fog, but his ears still pick up something. The snow crunches behind him, and with some of his final strength he raises his head to look. A huge form stands towering above him in the clearing now, many times his size. It's not with a herd, yet with him the last, what reason does it need to be now? He is surely no threat. Even when times were good, it would take ten like him to stand a chance catching just one like her. The endling doesn't fear death anymore now that he sees it, and he lets his gaze meet the trunko's in his last moments. Watches, unworried, as she raises a large spiked branch above him. He knows what she is going to do, and he doesn't fight it. There is nothing left for him here now. He will soon, at last, find his peace.

It was the easiest kill yet.