Giant Beachdragger

Artwork

Weight:
70lbs

The **Giant Beachdragger** (*Pallensambulus immanus*) is an original species created and designed by TheAgent41. The Giant Beachdragger inhabits the *The Hole* universe, an original universe created by TheAgent41.

## Appearance and Anatomy

The giant beachdragger is, true to its name, the largest known species of beachdragger, measuring over five feet in length. This isn't extraordinarily large compared to many other Achlysian organisms, but it is massive in size compared to most other beachdragger species. The beachdragger's thin, translucent skin is a pale peach color like many troglodytic organisms, although no history of troglodytism seems to exist in the beachdragger's evolutionary history.

Like all antepesaforms, the giant beachdragger's main body is long and slug-like. Most of its body is contained inside its rocky shell, the only externally visible parts being its four fleshly legs and its mouth. Two legs are situated on each side of its mouth and situated above the mouth are two heat pits. Its legs are mostly featureless, lacking any claws or toenails and essentially being fleshy pillars. These legs, along with the rest of the body, are supported by a hydrostatic skeleton. The entire body of the beachdragger secretes a sticky transparent mucus.

Members of the family Lapidotestadae have evolved the ability to produce rocky shells around their fragile, squishy bodies. These shells are made out of the beachdragger's waste products. While newborn beachdraggers lack the shells of their adult counterparts, they begin producing one within minutes after birth.

## Ecology

### Behavior and Intelligence

The giant beachdragger is a slow-moving animal that lives on tropical sandy beaches, usually on the outskirts of azure rainforests. Most of its time is spent eating and consuming sand to build more of its shell. If a shell is damaged, the beachdragger will enter its fight-or-flight mode and will attempt to flee from its attacker with surprising speed. While beachdraggers normally move at speed no faster than one or two miles per hour, they can detach from their shells when threatened and run at speeds of up to six or seven miles per hour. If a beachdragger finds that it is unable to flee from its attacker, it will attempt to burrow into the sand. Due to its lack of any real digging claws, this is a fairly ineffectual tactic. Fortunately for the giant beachdragger, it has no real natural predators, a fact that is probably responsible for its ability to reach such a large size.

As giant beachdraggers are constantly adding onto their shells, a shell is liable to eventually get so large that it renders the creature immobile. When this happens, the beachdragger detaches from the shell and produces to start constructing a new one. Abandoned beachdragger shells that have been found were discovered to be home to numerous small organisms.

### Diet

The giant beachdragger is a bottom feeder, eating microscopic organisms living in the sand of the beaches on which it dwells. Field observations have determined that the giant beachdragger is able to absorb a small number of nutrients from the sand itself, an adaptation that may have been necessary to ensure that it gets enough nutrients.

### Reproduction

The giant beachdragger is a solitary creature. Small groups of them have been reported, but these are actually just groups of individuals that happen to be in the same place rather than an actual family group. Thanks to their long lifespans of 100 or so Earth years, giant beachdraggers aren't required to mate very often. Most will only mate once or so in their lifetime.

If two beachdraggers encounter each other and are ready to mate, they will deposit eggs on the insides of their shells through a cloaca located at the tip of the tail. Next, each beachdragger will exit its shell and they will swap and adopt the other's shell, fertilizing the eggs left there in the process. Mating will only take place if both individuals determine that the other has a suitably large shell, as they will have to use said shell after mating.

Beachdragger eggs lack hard shells and are more similar to those of amphibians. While the fetus inside develops, they are kept glued to the inside wall of the shell and are kept moist by the mucus produced by the individual that fertilized the eggs. When the eggs hatch, the shellless infants wriggle free and crawl out the mouth of their parent's shell.

## Trivia

* The scientific name *Pallensambulus immanus* loosely translates from Latin as "tremendous pale walker".

## Gallery

Artwork