Giraffapiscator

Giraffapiscator longidigitus

Giraffapiscator (fisher giraffe) is a genus of giraffapiscatorid, gomphiobian, dispeculate that is extremely adapted to a marine lifestyle and a "piscivorous" diet. Two species are known; G. longiditus and G. thomasii being the first one the type species.

## Description

The Giraffapiscator longidigitus species is able to reach large sizes of 2.5 meters height and more than 5 five meters long in its adult stage, however the thomasii especies only reaches sizes of 1.25 meter height and 3 meters length. This is due to this species only inhabits the numerous islands Micha archipelago while the longiditus species is distributed along the occidental coast of Media Insula. This means that Giraffapiscator thomasii has evolved under more restrictive conditions than Giraffapiscator longiditus, so it has undergone a process of insular dwarfism.

The main features of the genus are:

-A mineralized and robust bony internal skeleton.

-A very elongated neck, somtimes as long as the rest of the body.

-The conservation of bony armor plates over neck and back.

-A head also formed by bony plates, with a long, curved, dental plate. This last plate is a bit straighter in the thomasii species.

-Two long extendable tentacles that start from the botton of the head and end in a bony serrated tip.

-A central, short and circular mouth, with teeth in its internal walls.

-A vertically flattened tail, a bit shorter than the torso.

-Eigth pairs of webbed legs with a variable number of extremely elongated fingers.

-A pair of respiration orifices located on the sides of the base of the neck.

-Genitals that allow internal fertilization.

-The males also possess a long dorsal cartilage sail that goes from the head to the beginning of the tail and has flashy colours. This sail is much shorter in the thomasii especies and only raises a few centimeters over the back.

-A series of receptors in the head that allow then to detect vibrations in the water.

## Lifestyle

Giraffapiscators are carnivorous as their gomphiobian ancestors, and they have evolve to hunt the "fish-like" descendants of the Celernantida and Panoplovita groups, animals such as Phalangesdontidae. They spent the most of their time sleeping and frolicking on the beach, however the males are very territorial among then and they usually are found patrolling their territory and looking for pontential rivals. Despite of this behaviour, they are not agressive against other peaceful inhabitants of the beach like Gunnaluk, even if these species can be dangerous for young individuals. On ground, they move on the tips of their fingers which remain attached to each other to achieve a greater resistance and to not damege their foot's membranes. The eighth pair of legs is only functional in water and they remain raised in the air when the animal is walking. In sea they use the membranes present between the fingers of their six first legs to form a kind of raft that allows them to take advantage of the surface tension of the water and the lower gravity of Wallace II to float over the sea water, boosting themselves with the paddle-like eightht pair of legs while the tail acts as a rudder.

These animals hunt using their excellent vision and their vibration receptors to locate their prey and capture it with a fast movement of their serrated pointed tentacles that stab the prey and don't allow their scape. Once trapped the prey is torn into pieces by the dental plate and then eaten.

The mating between these animals occurs only once a year when the males court the females using the long cartilage sails present on their backs. During this time each male mates with all the females that finds in its territory and three months after the fecundation, the females dig a small hole in the sand of the beach, deposit between five and ten eggs and then abondon them. Six months later, the offsprings are born, emerge from the earth and run into the nearest vegetation zone where they will grow hiding from predatos and feeding on small Ambulospeculis. Of every six pups only one reaches the sexual maturity.

Once reached adulthood the species longidigitus is big enough to have no predators. Thomasii species however does not have the advantage of size and are vurnerable to predators of the area such as Conturitizaur or Aervenator, from which they flee entering the ocean and swiming in a conventional way since they are not so fast on land.