DOD Bestiary: Beelzebird

Common Name: Beelzebird (Lord of the flyers, Devil dragon)
Pronounced: (Bee-el-zee-bird)
Classification: Beelzedrakon tantibus (Devil-dragon-of-nightmares)
SGOC Rank: SuperGiant Organism

Length: 210 feet
Height: 120 feet, 175 feet upright
Wingspan: 760 feet
Weight: 210 tons
Diet: Carnivore
Social Structure: Pack (3-8 members)
Home Planet: Earth
Distribution: Airspace worldwide
IUCN Status: Least Concern

Description:

While it may not be the largest or the most heavily armed, the beelzebird is still one of the most formidable predators on post-Cycle Earth.

As ornithocheirid pterosaurs they sport the characteristic “half-moon” crests, but beyond that they are adapted for one thing: hunting other SuperGiant Organisms. A beelzebird’s body is extremely robust and evenly-proportioned for a pterosaur, including four long and powerful limbs suited for terrestrial travel. A beelzebird’s wing membranes are reduced to the absolute minimum dimensions required for long-distance flight, ensuring its versatility both on the ground and in the air. The tail, short and stumpy in other pterosaurs, is enlarged to contain fat stores for prolonged flights. Unique to the beelzebird is the innermost toe, which is raptorial and sports a curved hook-like claw for grasping its prey. The hands are similarly equipped for grappling and tearing SGO flesh, which resulted in the complete atrophying of the third finger.

The key to the beelzebird’s success lies mainly in its jaws. Unlike the uniform “fish grab” teeth of its non-SGO relatives, beelzebird teeth are more conical towards the front of the beak for piercing and tearing, while the rear teeth are serrated for sawing through meat and hide. The animal’s beak is robust and its jaw musculature is quite powerful for a pterosaur, while a heavily-muscled neck allows beelzebirds to rip and tear at their prey, pulling its flesh apart crocodile-like.

At less than half the size of their quarry, beelzebirds make up for their smaller size with numbers, pack coordination, and the element of surprise. A sinus in the beelzebird’s skull contains a highly developed lobe that can detect sources of ionizing radiation from tens of miles away, which the creatures use to track their radioactive prey from the air. Beelzebirds hunt in a loose flight formation, and when prey is spotted they approach from above and behind, staying high up until they are nearly on top of their target; when close they drop into a sharp nosedive, swinging their legs forward to knock their prey over before falling upon it with rending claws and snapping jaws. If this initial assault doesn’t kill it, the rest of the hungry pack will. Beelzebirds are also efficient land-stalkers, striding along the ground and snapping up anything they happen upon. Beelzebirds rarely scavenge; larger terrestrial carnivores tend to drive them off.

Adult beelzebirds are sexually dimorphic: males are larger and sport a whitish ruff of pycnofibres around their neck; females are smaller and lack the ruff. Both genders have a pair of beak crests, which grow in upon reaching sexual maturity.

Beelzebird flocks come together to breed at only one place on Earth. During the mid-November winter, adult males worldwide leave their packs and flock to southeast Iceland in the thousands, descending upon the flat coasts and plateaus and staking claim to the most visible spots to display their crests, which are now flushed with brilliant red hues. The females arrive by the start of December, wading through the sea of displaying males and carefully selecting their one and only mate for the year. While a female beelzebird will mate only once per season, a male will attempt to mate with as many females as possible.

Once mated, female beelzebirds retreat to Iceland’s inland mountain ranges in search of roosting spots, gathering trees, stones, and assorted debris to construct their nests. About fifteen leathery-shelled eggs are laid in each nest and will hatch into fully-developed flaplings within two months’ time. These offspring are precocial and more than capable of fending for themselves, yet they remain in the nest for another two months under the watchful eye of their mother, who provides them with energy-rich food from the nearby ocean. Four months after her eggs were laid, a female beelzebird’s surviving young leave the nest as a pack and head out to terrorize the world beyond.

When beelzebirds are threatened they can be ferocious fighters. The combination of strength and mobility that makes them such potent predators also makes them extremely dangerous in combat. Beelzebirds have been documented following the progress of fights between – or in a human military’s case, against – SGOs, circling high above the battlefield in hopes of a casualty, but if one does not appear soon enough, the hungry pterosaurs have been known to intervene on their own behalf….

Like all SuperGiant Organisms, beelzebirds possess a reactor gland and are mildly radioactive themselves, but in this regard they are still considered “safe” for people to approach.

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Artist's Commentary:
The beelzebird was one of the very first fictional species that I designed for the Days Of Dikorus kaijuverse. They were originally going to have four equally-sized wings along with a pointed lance-like beak; with this they’d attack smaller prey by skewering them. I later revamped the beelzebirds into pack-hunting predators that relied on cooperation to hunt larger SGOs. At one point the beelzebirds were going to have modified fingers that acted as airfoils, but I dropped these for simplicity’s sake. I partly based the beelzebird on the great leonopteryx, a Pandoran flying superpredator from the film “Avatar”. The beelzebird’s breeding habits are based on those of Ornithocheirus as depicted in “Walking With Dinosaurs”.

Artistic Notes:
— A beelzebird has two (2) clawed fingers per hand; the wing-supporting digit is the 4th finger.
— A beelzebird has four (4) clawed toes per foot; the innermost toe is robust and sports the creature’s curved killing claw.