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Sarcocerastes
Topic Started: Jul 15 2013, 01:59 AM (66 Views)
Saberrex
Advanced Member
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A Sarcocerastes male in profile -Illustration by Saberrex


Sarcocerastes
Sarcocerastes
Meaning: Horned Flesh Render
Description: small crested theropod
Species: S. wucai, S. americanensis
Family: Oviraptorosauria, Oviraptoridae
Length: 10-12 feet
Lifestyle: hunter and scavenger
Range: Eurasia, North America, Africa

Distinguishing features: One of the most ferocious small theropods to exist, this oviraptor is a vicious pack hunting “land falcon”. The animal is brightly colored; bright blue feathers, with green mottling and yellow skin. Adults are adorned with a head crest (that is usually larger in the males) that has a black ridge and have piercing red eyes. They have eagle-like beaks that can easily rend flesh and nine inch killing claws on their feet that resemble a dromaeosaur’s. They also have vicious curved claws on their hands. Males are smaller than females and the animals travel in packs of 20 to 25. All females even subordinate ones; dominate the more heavily ornamented males. An alpha female who continually travels around a territory that covers about forty miles per pack leads the group. The pack only stays in one area for any length of time during the breeding season when males display to females in secluded clearings where no predators will bother them. The females breed with one partner per year and lay ten to twenty eggs in a spiral and dotingly sit upon them until they hatch. The males bring them food and take over parental duties when the eggs hatch. The young are buff to brown color and are able to walk immediately from birth. The young mature at age four and leave to join other packs at age five. They live about thirty years maximum.

Habits and Habitat: Found anywhere from scrubland to the open plains, they feed on a variety of herbivores including hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, pachycephalosaurs, hypsilophodonts, ornithomimids, and pterosaurs when they can catch them. They are often seen around nesting grounds of any of these, waiting for their chance to pick off eggs and hatchlings. Upon larger herbivores such as those mentioned, they will ambush their prey, surround it, and slash it to death with their claws. They are also prominent scavengers, feeding on carrion and plucking meat from the last bits of a kill. They will also follow larger carnivores, snatching up prey that they flush out. They are themselves prey for dromaeosaurs, large pterosaurs, ceratosaurs, spinosaurs and tyrannosaurs, all of which find them to be good as meals or in-between meal treats. These are not just hunters: they are also hunted.
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