HOME | DD

Description

Tarantasio

Italian lake zylant

Zilantis Italico

    ·         Habitat: lakes

    ·         Range: Lake Gerundo

    ·         Diet: piscivore

    ·         Clade: diloptera

    ·         Family: Amphipteroidea

    ·         Subfamily: Zilantidea

Description

Tarantasio are medium-sized zylants being 2.5 meters tall and 6.2 meters long. They have bumpy skin similar to crocodiles and broad skulls. They are piscivores, preferring to eat fish and occasionally smaller animals. They are endemic to the Italian Lake Gerund and spend their entire lives there. They are brown in colouration with males having beige stripes and a strange wing pattern that they use to attract mates while females have dark brown stripes, has a less impressive wing pattern, and are larger.

Life cycle

When mating season arrives, Tarantasio will gather in huge colonies in the western part of the lake. As the females bask around, the males will spread their wings displaying their eye-like pattern while emitting low-frequency growls, the female will inspect the male and will either lose interest or also emit a low-frequency growl indicating that she accepts the male as her mate. Both parents will take care of their young, with one protecting the nest while the other goes out to hunt and will switch from one to the other. Tarantasio use mounds of sand as their nest, usually laying two to three eggs, they will incubate them by covering them in debris. Young Tarantasio are very vulnerable and due to this, the parents are way more aggressive than usual, attacking anything that gets too close. This has resulted in the animal killing children that stray too close to the nest. The pair will rear their young for around 13 months until they are capable of hunting on their own. After this, the parents will go their separate ways but there is a chance that they will nest with each other next season.

Behaviour

Since they primarily feed on fish, Tarantasio are usually very friendly and easy to train. They can be seen giving rides to the natives and helping them fish, however, one shouldn’t approach one when it is nesting as this is when Tarantasio are most aggressive. Because of their small legs, they are slow and clumsy on land only capable of quick bursts of speed and spend most of their lives underwater, swimming at relatively high speeds with their wings like a penguin or cruising on the surface with their paddle-like tails similar to a crocodile. Since their legs are so tiny it is impossible to take off from the ground, due to this they will breach the surface at high speeds and start flapping their wings to produce lift allowing them to travel to different parts of the lake faster than if they were to swim, they will also land in the water since their legs will snap if they tried to land on the ground. Even though they are the top predator of Lake Gerundo, the threat of nomadic species of dragon still lingers. To deal with this problem the Tarantasio developed a sulphuric acid spray, utilising the high amounts of sulphur from its piscivorous diet to generate it, to distract the attacker long enough for the Tarantasio to flee to the water’s safety.

This was made using Autodesk sketchbook, way better than pen and paper don’t you agree? Also where it says order on the drawing is supposed to say clade, I’m just too lazy to change it.

Enjoy!

Description

Tarantasio

Italian lake zylant

Zilantis Italico

    ·         Habitat: lakes

    ·         Range: Lake Gerundo

    ·         Diet: piscivore

    ·         Clade: diloptera

    ·         Family: Amphipteroidea

    ·         Subfamily: Zilantidea

Description

Tarantasio are medium-sized zylants being 2.5 meters tall and 6.2 meters long. They have bumpy skin similar to crocodiles and broad skulls. They are piscivores, preferring to eat fish and occasionally smaller animals. They are endemic to the Italian Lake Gerund and spend their entire lives there. They are brown in colouration with males having beige stripes and a strange wing pattern that they use to attract mates while females have dark brown stripes, has a less impressive wing pattern, and are larger.

Life cycle

When mating season arrives, Tarantasio will gather in huge colonies in the western part of the lake. As the females bask around, the males will spread their wings displaying their eye-like pattern while emitting low-frequency growls, the female will inspect the male and will either lose interest or also emit a low-frequency growl indicating that she accepts the male as her mate. Both parents will take care of their young, with one protecting the nest while the other goes out to hunt and will switch from one to the other. Tarantasio use mounds of sand as their nest, usually laying two to three eggs, they will incubate them by covering them in debris. Young Tarantasio are very vulnerable and due to this, the parents are way more aggressive than usual, attacking anything that gets too close. This has resulted in the animal killing children that stray too close to the nest. The pair will rear their young for around 13 months until they are capable of hunting on their own. After this, the parents will go their separate ways but there is a chance that they will nest with each other next season.

Behaviour

Since they primarily feed on fish, Tarantasio are usually very friendly and easy to train. They can be seen giving rides to the natives and helping them fish, however, one shouldn’t approach one when it is nesting as this is when Tarantasio are most aggressive. Because of their small legs, they are slow and clumsy on land only capable of quick bursts of speed and spend most of their lives underwater, swimming at relatively high speeds with their wings like a penguin or cruising on the surface with their paddle-like tails similar to a crocodile. Since their legs are so tiny it is impossible to take off from the ground, due to this they will breach the surface at high speeds and start flapping their wings to produce lift allowing them to travel to different parts of the lake faster than if they were to swim, they will also land in the water since their legs will snap if they tried to land on the ground. Even though they are the top predator of Lake Gerundo, the threat of nomadic species of dragon still lingers. To deal with this problem the Tarantasio developed a sulphuric acid spray, utilising the high amounts of sulphur from its piscivorous diet to generate it, to distract the attacker long enough for the Tarantasio to flee to the water’s safety.

This was made using Autodesk sketchbook, way better than pen and paper don’t you agree? Also where it says order on the drawing is supposed to say clade, I’m just too lazy to change it.

Enjoy!