The Sabertooth Circuagodog

As Serina cools in the middle Ultimocene, many animals go extinct. But for some an ice age is far from the end; it is an opportunity to exploit.

Increasingly harsh winters across Serinarcta are a grueling ordeal to endure for herbivores as ice and snow cover their food supply a little longer every year. Cold and hungry, formidable creatures grow weak and weary before spring. And the circuagodogs are there to capitalize on this resource. Many herbivores have evolved larger and hairier in response to the cold, but this does not leave them invulnerable. One circuagodog in particular has evolved in tandem to counter these adaptations; a descendant of the razortooth, the saber-toothed circuagodog has evolved a remarkable set of jaws specialized for an especially deadly killing bite. It has done so with asymmetrical teeth.

Sabertooth circuagodogs are cursorial pack hunting predators, as was their immediate ancestor. They now specialize in hunting a few species of large, thickly-feathered tentacle birds descended from the neckbeard - highly intelligent and herd-dwelling birds as much as ten times as large as ostriches which have also adapted well to the harsh winters by incubating their eggs securely in a feathered pouch under their necks so that they never touch the ground. With a super-generalist diet of almost any plant and small animal they come across, all of which they break down in a huge fermenting stomach, these giant terries can eke out a comfortably living over a variety of habitats from bleak tundra to the far north down to the milder, remnant temperate forests along the southern coast. The neckbeards are difficult prey wherever they dwell, with keen eye sight, tight social bonds and thick coats of feathers that protect against the bites of most smaller predators. The sabertooth is not, however, most predators. Equally widespread over the continent wherever its prey can survive, this predatory circuagodont has the most efficient saber teeth ever evolved by any animal, easily puncturing through thick hair and muscle to debilitate its prey. The structure of its jaws allows it a wider range of motion than any Earth saber tooth, as its lower jaw can be held closed and out of the way as it swings down its single stabbing tooth. This also allows the sabertooth to retain a very powerful lower jaw, which is used to shear against the lowered saber tooth to scrape meat from bone and feed efficiently from the carcass.

To hunt its prey the sabertooth relies on cooperation. Groups chase herds and single out the sick, old or young, isolate them from their fellows, and surround them. With just okay eyesight but excellent hearing and sense of smell, they take advantage of any situation that will put their vision-based prey at a disadvantage such as darkness and stormy weather, and are most successful during midwinter - when most animals are at their weakest - as a result of a higher percentage of weakened and easily subdued prey animals which can be followed through their own tracks in deep snow and taken down with a minimum of effort.

Like their prey, the sabertooth depends on close social bonds to survive. These groups are peaceful and stable, primarily formed from litters of siblings which group up with unrelated peers at adolescence and then stay together for life, cooperatively rearing the young. Juveniles are given first feeding rights at kills, and the species is highly empathetic to the point that even individuals with crippling injuries, such as entirely broken off saber teeth, are sometimes kept alive for years entirely upon the goodwill of their companions, long after they have lost the means to kill their own prey.

above: two sabertooth circuagodogs chase a mammoth trunko and her chick, both of whom they have isolated from their herd in a fierce winter storm. Their pack is small, and the mother still fit enough to kick either one to death with one well-placed blow; their goal is to separate the chick, which will suffice to feed the pair for several days, but even managing this is not guaranteed.