Gourmand

Common name: Gourmand

Scientific name: *Ganeosaurus tardus*

Name meaning: "Slow gluton lizard"

Clade: *Tyrannosauridae, Tyrannosaurinae, Tyrannosaurini, Tyranecrophagiformes* (Carcasses tyrants), *Ganeosauria* (Southern carcasses tyrants), *Armatyrannoidea* (Armored carcasses tyrants), *Ganeosauridae* (carcasses swallowers)

Ancestor: Tyrannosaurus rex

Native environment: Pampas, grasslands, savannas

Location: All across South America

Size: 4 to 6m tall, 17 to 20m long, weighing from 11 to 15 tons

Info: The tyrannosaur superfamily of coelurosaurs that first developed in Middle Jurassic times evolved into some of the largest of the carnivorous dinosaurs in the Cretaceous. As they became larger their heads became heavier and their forelimbs became increasingly smaller. They spread through Eurasia and North America but they have long been extinct in these regions.

Some of these tyrannosaurs scavenged more and more compared to hunting, as hunting is more costly on energy, even stealing the carcasses hunted by the predatorial tyrannosaurs by scaring them or fighting them in little groups that then share the carcasse.

A group of these scaveniging tyrannosaurs did manage to filter into the South American continent long before the Great American Interchange even began though how and when isn't known, maybe it was due to an hypothetical land bridge was temporarily in place about 55 million years ago, maybe the water level were lowered during an ice age 34 million years ago, maybe some little individuals went to the contiment via natural rafts.

These carcasses tyrants survived there while their Northern relatives died out. The line of their evolution continued and diversified as the carcasses tyrants specialised to the bodies of certain animals that lived in the continent including one lineage that increased in size and with the megaraptorans, outcompeted the majority of abelisaurids there.

The gourmand is a massive creature, adults are 17 meters long minimum and weigh auround 15 tons. The forelimbs have atrophied almost entirely. The typically small forelimbs of the ancestral tyrannosaurs were used to steady the animal as it arose from its belly after resting on the ground. In the gourmand this is unnecessary since the hips have moved forward to balance the body perfectly. The legs are jointed in such a way that they lift the body straight upwards off the ground.

As most South American carcasses tyrants became nearly only scavengers unable to hunt, some became mesothermic to compensate the aleatory amount of food available which helped to be numerous and, in the case of the gourmand, huge with many niches in it’s different growth stages. The adult animal moves slowly across the Pampas and swallows big chunks of carcasses of the dead local big predators and the tails of the big sauropods, crushing the bones with powerful bites and cutting meat with sharp teeth analogs to those the piranhas of our world. The skull is very flexible and the jaws can move wide enough to enable it to engulf the some large carcasses. Once it has eaten, the gourmand usually rests for several days while it digests its meal. It does this while lying motionless in the grass. Its osteodermic armor protects it from attackers during this period.  However this is not always the case with adult gourmands, as they like most scavengers, are generalists due to them living with their megaraptoran pack members can take down a fully grown lumber.  However the younger members of the species as previously mentioned, have very different niches.  Chicks once hatched will only stay with their mother’s pack for only a week, then moving into the tree tops in the forests and form gangs with their siblings, snatching up any animal that goes near them.  Once they become teenagers, the gang gets smaller and splits into 2 or 3 separate gangs. The diet of a teenager consists of hadrosaurs, elasmarians, small titanosaurs, parankylosaurs, carrion, and small theropods.  When they become subadults, the gangs will be no more and they will join a megaraptoran pack to live the rest of their lives in.