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Description
In the warm tropical coastal seas of the Panmezo Ring, a string of four continents surrounding a vast but relatively shallow ocean called the Insulasia Ocean, life teems within it's warm depths. Reefs of colonial organism make up the very foundation of this abundant biome, serving both home and food source to the life that it attracts, and one such life is the speedy common coelacuda.

Five feet from snout to tail on average, they're small for the standards of Paradoxia, but make up for what they lack in size with ferocity. As ambush predators, they lie and wait among the reefs and keep a look out for prey with their vision, among the keenest in their family. Once spotting prey, they burst forward like blue torpedoes and dispatch them with sharp bladed teeth, often biting smaller animals clean in half, before retreating back into seclusion before other hungry mouths get attracted to the scent of blood in the water. Other larger predators higher up in the trophic level wouldn't pass up a snack like a coelacuda.

Once a year common coelacudas will bulk up on food, and then migrate into the center of the Insulasia Ocean in great schools comprising of the entire adult population to spawn. This massive gathering is unsurprisingly taken advantage of by many predators and fisher folk, who flock in to gorge on the fat fish. Those that are lucky enough to survive may do this again the next year, or the year after.

The major fishes of Paradoxia can be divided into four major clades, and among the most abundant are the jawless fishes which constitute more than 70% of all marine chordates on Paradoxia. The common coelacuda is not within this clade. In truth, it belongs to a less diverse but still successful group of fishes. But it cannot be considered a true fish, for it bears strong resemblance to a tetrapod what with it's bony fins, hinged jaws, and a shoulder girdle. And yet it cannot be considered a true tetrapod either.

The clade to which this animal belongs to represents a bizarre transition, an almost 'missing link' between fish and amphibian. Whatever it is, it isn't likely to be known anytime soon.

Description
In the warm tropical coastal seas of the Panmezo Ring, a string of four continents surrounding a vast but relatively shallow ocean called the Insulasia Ocean, life teems within it's warm depths. Reefs of colonial organism make up the very foundation of this abundant biome, serving both home and food source to the life that it attracts, and one such life is the speedy common coelacuda.

Five feet from snout to tail on average, they're small for the standards of Paradoxia, but make up for what they lack in size with ferocity. As ambush predators, they lie and wait among the reefs and keep a look out for prey with their vision, among the keenest in their family. Once spotting prey, they burst forward like blue torpedoes and dispatch them with sharp bladed teeth, often biting smaller animals clean in half, before retreating back into seclusion before other hungry mouths get attracted to the scent of blood in the water. Other larger predators higher up in the trophic level wouldn't pass up a snack like a coelacuda.

Once a year common coelacudas will bulk up on food, and then migrate into the center of the Insulasia Ocean in great schools comprising of the entire adult population to spawn. This massive gathering is unsurprisingly taken advantage of by many predators and fisher folk, who flock in to gorge on the fat fish. Those that are lucky enough to survive may do this again the next year, or the year after.

The major fishes of Paradoxia can be divided into four major clades, and among the most abundant are the jawless fishes which constitute more than 70% of all marine chordates on Paradoxia. The common coelacuda is not within this clade. In truth, it belongs to a less diverse but still successful group of fishes. But it cannot be considered a true fish, for it bears strong resemblance to a tetrapod what with it's bony fins, hinged jaws, and a shoulder girdle. And yet it cannot be considered a true tetrapod either.

The clade to which this animal belongs to represents a bizarre transition, an almost 'missing link' between fish and amphibian. Whatever it is, it isn't likely to be known anytime soon.