Mud Devils



Appearance

Mud Devils are enormous flat fish of a dull brown coloration. They can reach up to 20 feet in length and 8 feet in width. Their mouths are nearly as wide as their entire bodies and their physical form is flat enough to allow for rapid burial beneath rived sediment, which they use to hide. This is both for protection and to ambush prey. They are physically capable of devouring creatures larger than themselves but must stay immobile for days in order to digest them. In order to capture prey they will wait until a creature of sufficient size passes over head and then spring to action. Immediately upon opening their mouths a nearly inescapable suction draws in the prey item which is then skewered by the rows of long dagger-like teeth. The Mud Devil then draws it into the stomach, which expands greatly depending on the size. After this they will retreat beneath the sediment to digest, not requiring food for weeks at a time.


Habitat

Mud Devils live exclusively in cold water, they range reasonably far north and south but never far enough to encounter ice. They completely avoid the higher temperature zones in the middle of A'el unless they are migrating between the two cool zones. They spend most of their lives in the water but do have short leg-like appendages which they use to pull themselves along should they ever need to leave the water.


Life, Hierarchy and Breeding

Mud Devils are born inside their mothers in groups of three, after hatching from their eggs they will crawl into the stomach to survive. They feed off of the prey that she devours hiding within protective hollows until the creature dies and then emerging to feed. They remain there, regardless of their gender, for eight months, during which period their mothers do not breed at all. After this period they will have reached nearly a foot in length. All three will proceed to emerge from pores in their mothers back. For the next several years they grow at a steady rate but rather then resorting to the hunting methods of adults they will swim freely and actively hunt smaller fish. They grow at a rate of three to four feet per year until reaching about 12 feet in length, at which point they will resort to hiding beneath the sediment and using suction.
At this point males of the species will attempt to breed with a nearby female, they accomplish this by "calling them in" with the noise created by whirlpools. All they need to do to create theses whirlpools is open their mouths, the larger a whirlpool is the deeper the sound it makes. Mud Devils do not have any kind of territory or hierarchy, they eat so seldom that it is never needed. Especially since very few Mud Devils ever reach a decent size. They are often eaten while still juveniles, and even if they do survive they usually have a life-span of less than ten years.


Diet

Mud Devils will eat virtually anything from Salamanders to Rock Fish, River Eels and even juvenile Leviathan Toads. Anything that keeps them alive is a valid prey item.

Cool! The life cycle is very unique.... Did you use any particular animal for inspiration? It reminds me a little bit of the pipa toads.

They eat anything that they can eat...but I was wondering: are they at all susceptible to poison?

To some degree, I think they'd have a semi-effective immunity to poison but some poisons might harm them.

These sound neat!
Does anything hunt them when they are full sized?

No, I believe they're the apex Aquatic Predator.

Cool.