Gulpagon

Artwork

Weight:
260lbs (male)
250lbs (female)

The **Gulpagon** (*Aquavaranis luxicommedus*) is an original species created and designed by TheAgent41. The Gulpagon inhabits the real world.

## Appearance and Anatomy

The gulpagon is a large, mostly aquatic reptile closely resembling a hypothetical hybrid of the Komodo dragon (*Varanus komodoensis*) and a pelican eel (*Eurypharynx pelecanoides*), likely a result of coincidental, convergent evolution. Dwelling mostly on the rocky shores lining the planet’s many small islands, the gulpagon is a five-meter-long quadruped with scaly muddy green skin that loosely fits its muscular body, giving its skin a wrinkly, sagging look.

Each of the gulpagon's four muscular limbs ends in a webbed foot. Each foot has three digits with the first digit always being the longest and the third digit always being the shortest. On the hind flippers, the third digit is almost non-existent, a sign that it may be absorbed in future generations. Between these non-opposable digits is a taut, translucent, black skin like that of a frog. This is the same skin that makes up the skin on its fins. Gulpagons have four fins on their bodies: a large one on the back, a pair of smaller ones partway down the length of the tail, and a large vertical tail fin like that of a fish. Whereas the supportive rays of a fish fin are made of bone, the rays of gulpagon fins are derived from highly specialized scales.

The gulpagon's most distinguishing feature is its enormous head and mouth, which is twice the width of its torso. Despite the size of the head, the gulpagon's skull is one of the most lightweight (for its size) parts of its skeletal structure. When viewed from above, its head is shaped somewhat like the head of an arrow, widening near the base of the neck. The top jaw is dominated by two large eyes with small pupils (an adaptation used to avoid blinding itself with its own light) and small nostrils at the tip of the snout. Along with its hundreds of small needle-like teeth, the gulpagon also possesses two enormous tusks like those of a boar. It has been hypothesized that these tusks help with fighting off predators and holding on to exceptionally large prey.

While the inside of most Earth animals' mouths is red, the inside of the gulpagon's mouth, along with its esophagus, is blue. This carries over onto its bright blue tongue, which is tipped with a bulbous light-producing organ. This light is produced by chemical reactions, similar to the rear end of a firefly.

## Ecology

### Behavior and Intelligence

The gulpagon spends the vast majority of its time at sea, rarely venturing up onto beaches except to lay its eggs, similar to Earth sea turtles. Using their large front flippers, which appear to have evolved from the hands of terrestrial ancestors, gulpagons are capable of reaching swimming speeds of ten miles per hour. Although seemingly not very impressive, this speed is quite fast for a creature that spends most of its time lying motionless on the sea floor.

The gulpagon is a nocturnal creature, sleeping on the beaches during the day and hunting at night. The gulpagon is an ambush hunter of sorts, either lying on the sea floor or floating motionless in the water and pretending to be dead. While “playing ‘possum”, the gulpagon holds its enormous, expandable mouth open and sticks out its tongue, which has a bioluminescent tip. This glowing tongue does not come from eating the sun, however; instead, the glowing tongue is possible due to chemical reactions that occur within the transparent-by-default tip of the tongue. This glow acts as a lure, hypnotizing gullible sea creatures and drawing them toward the gulpagon against their will. In addition, the chemical reactions in this glowing lure generate a great deal of heat, allowing the gulpagon to warm up its surroundings (necessary seeing as how it is endothermic).

### Diet

Gulpagons, as stated above, are ambush hunters and are opportunistic feeders, meaning they will consume just about anything that comes their way. Thanks to their enormous mouths and very stretchy stomachs, gulpagons are capable of swallowing things nearly as wide as their heads. Depending on the size of their prey, they may be able to go many months on a single meal thanks to their slow metabolisms.

### Reproduction

Gulpagons are sexually reproducing oviparous creatures. Due to the fact that gulpagons don't live in dense packs, there tends to be very little competition between males over mates. If anything, most fights between gulpagons are between mates themselves. Potential mating pairs generally engage each other in non-lethal bouts of sparring to evaluate the fitness of the other mate. This is generally initiated by the female. If the male can tire out the female in a fight, the latter will likely conclude that the former is a strong male and would father strong offspring. When the eggs are fertilized, the female will drag herself onto a beach and, with the help of the male, locate a suitable spot in which to lay her eggs. Females will lay anywhere from six to ten hard-shelled eggs at one time.

## Trivia

* The gulpagon's scientific name loosely translates to "light-eating water varanid".
* The gulpagon is considered a sacred animal by Shepler's resident sapient species, the krox. In one of their myths, a gulpagon is the reason that the planet has a day and night cycle. Legends tell of the sun god banishing the moon god and making it daytime forever. When the chieftains from all the major islands got together to discuss what to do, a gulpagon climbed the mountain where they were and, noticing the sun above, became hungry. As it tried to stretch far enough to eat the sun, the sun god saw this and, amused, began taunting the lizard by waving the sun just out of its grasp. Eventually, however, the gulpagon in question succeeded in eating the sun, causing the sun god to flee in embarrassment and allowing the night to fall. From then on, the legend goes, when the lizard was ready to sleep, it would spit up the sun and bring about the day. When it was ready to go on one of its nocturnal hunts, it would consume the sun and use its light to attract its catch.

## Gallery

Artwork