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Description

On Earth, many reptilian groups emerged as whole swallowers of preys : animals able to catch and digest a whole prey for weeks, sometimes months, shutting themselves down in a relative state of lethargy during such phase. The same happened with tortoises on this planet : it was after all an easy ecological route, where one could survive up to a year without eating, simply taking a large enough prey and retiring back in a safe den or hole until hunger - or the will to reproduce - disturbed their comfortably numb lifestyle. But swallowing a whole turtle brought its load of problems.

Even more than the horizontal plane of a tortoise ; forcing their predators toward a particularly large and flexible mouth, the shell itself poses the main logistical problem. It could be broken down, yes ; many of these animals quickly evolved plaque like structures in the back of their mouth, similar to molars and deriving from their beak, in order to efficiently divide the shell into smaller digestible pieces. But digesting the shell was something else altogether. Gastric juices would take months to efficiently attack its hardened structure, and small pieces could pierce vital digestive organs and kill the predator.

This was solved through several means. First, immediately after taking the prey, the togre would continuously vomit large quantities of gastric juices to soften the shell before digesting it, housing the prey in their overextended mouth, effectively working as a second stomach, while nutriments were continuously sucked-in. Next, specially designed ring muscles would efficiently pull down the soft parts of the prey while holding its structure down, in order to stop the largest shell pieces from coming down, while the smaller pieces were digested away. For this task, their throat and higher esophagus is lined up with extremely deep and wrinkled structures which capture and retain the smaller pieces, preventing them from going down the lower esophagus and stomach. These pieces, if they couldn’t be broken down, would be rendered harmless when trapped in this folded nightmare, and even if they pierced it would in any case not harm any vital organ. Slowly, the hardest pieces would calcify, progressively covered by a smooth calcium lining that turned them into pebbles, which would in time be regurgitated down by the togre. The entry of their den would often be lined up with such smooth, well recognizable white, smooth oblong “pebbles”. As such, the togre would hold on the prey externally for up to a month, as all the soft parts were digested and sucked down ; the largest pieces that couldn't be processed were left down at the den entry.

This led later on in particular toward species specific behavior where females would select males depending on the kind of calcified pebbles they had on their den entry, which in turn pushed these species to encourage the formation of these pebbles rather than selecting traits that would get rid of such a cumbersome, accidental occurrence. In turn though, this made many prey species selectively wary of pebble-like formation, often triggering a strong avoidance or flight response at the sight of a mere clutch of eggs. This meant essentially that pebble like structures were only placed and shown at the entry during the reproductive stage, when most togres wouldn’t hunt.

Description

On Earth, many reptilian groups emerged as whole swallowers of preys : animals able to catch and digest a whole prey for weeks, sometimes months, shutting themselves down in a relative state of lethargy during such phase. The same happened with tortoises on this planet : it was after all an easy ecological route, where one could survive up to a year without eating, simply taking a large enough prey and retiring back in a safe den or hole until hunger - or the will to reproduce - disturbed their comfortably numb lifestyle. But swallowing a whole turtle brought its load of problems.

Even more than the horizontal plane of a tortoise ; forcing their predators toward a particularly large and flexible mouth, the shell itself poses the main logistical problem. It could be broken down, yes ; many of these animals quickly evolved plaque like structures in the back of their mouth, similar to molars and deriving from their beak, in order to efficiently divide the shell into smaller digestible pieces. But digesting the shell was something else altogether. Gastric juices would take months to efficiently attack its hardened structure, and small pieces could pierce vital digestive organs and kill the predator.

This was solved through several means. First, immediately after taking the prey, the togre would continuously vomit large quantities of gastric juices to soften the shell before digesting it, housing the prey in their overextended mouth, effectively working as a second stomach, while nutriments were continuously sucked-in. Next, specially designed ring muscles would efficiently pull down the soft parts of the prey while holding its structure down, in order to stop the largest shell pieces from coming down, while the smaller pieces were digested away. For this task, their throat and higher esophagus is lined up with extremely deep and wrinkled structures which capture and retain the smaller pieces, preventing them from going down the lower esophagus and stomach. These pieces, if they couldn’t be broken down, would be rendered harmless when trapped in this folded nightmare, and even if they pierced it would in any case not harm any vital organ. Slowly, the hardest pieces would calcify, progressively covered by a smooth calcium lining that turned them into pebbles, which would in time be regurgitated down by the togre. The entry of their den would often be lined up with such smooth, well recognizable white, smooth oblong “pebbles”. As such, the togre would hold on the prey externally for up to a month, as all the soft parts were digested and sucked down ; the largest pieces that couldn't be processed were left down at the den entry.

This led later on in particular toward species specific behavior where females would select males depending on the kind of calcified pebbles they had on their den entry, which in turn pushed these species to encourage the formation of these pebbles rather than selecting traits that would get rid of such a cumbersome, accidental occurrence. In turn though, this made many prey species selectively wary of pebble-like formation, often triggering a strong avoidance or flight response at the sight of a mere clutch of eggs. This meant essentially that pebble like structures were only placed and shown at the entry during the reproductive stage, when most togres wouldn’t hunt.