DOD Bestiary: Hypster

Common Name: Hypster
Pronounced: (Hipster)
Classification: Hypsteria / various sp.
SGOC Rank: Fauna / Megafauna

Length: 3 – 21 feet
Height: 1 – 5 feet at the hips
Weight: 5 – 1400 lbs.
Diet: Herbivore / Omnivore
Social Structure: Solitary, Herd (3-50+ members)
Home Planet: Earth
Distribution: Worldwide
IUCN Status: Least Concern

Description:

Hypsters are a loose collection of small to medium-sized ornithopod dinosaurs that are found on every continent of post-Cycle Earth. They are all unified into the clade Hypsteria by a single key feature: their teeth. Hypster teeth resemble those of their giant guan cousins, fused into a complex grinding battery that is constantly replaced with new teeth. Numerous species of hypster are known and many have yet to receive full taxonomic documentation; a few well-known families are described below.

Fulgurosaurs (Fulgurosauridae, “Lightning-reptiles”), or “lightning lizards”, are the most primitive and speciose hypster family, which contains at least thirty known genera. They are two-legged herbivores that live in groups and, as the name suggests, can run extremely quickly. Integument varies wildly between species, including scales, scutes, hair-like plumage, and rolls of insulating fat. Many have highly developed social structures, and some are known to dig burrows. Large, hadrosaur-like fulgurosaurs (up to twenty feet long) are the primary herbivores within Vostok Prime, the largest World Below cavern in Antarctica.

Saltators (Saltatosauridae, “Leaping-reptiles”) are an Asian family of hypsters that evolved to live in mountainous regions. They are best known for their springy legs, balancing pole-like tails, and long toe claws, all of which are modified for hopping and climbing on rocky terrain. All saltators are small animals (less than four feet) and feed mainly on moss, lichens, and alpine plants. They are notorious among hunters for being hard to shoot.

Psittacocephali (Psittacocephalidae, “Parrot-heads”) are arboreal South American hypsters with grasping hands and feet, flexible tails, and a distinct hinged beak. Like parrots these animals are specialized fruit-, seed- , and nut-eaters, grasping them with their hands and gnawing them open with their crushing beaks. All psittacocephali are small tree-dwellers except for the group’s black sheep, the crackbeak (Brevirhynchus casuarius), a ten-foot terrestrial animal that feeds mostly on fallen fruit.

Quillosaurs (Hystrisauridae, “Porcupine-reptiles”) are mid-sized American hypsters that sport a coat of defensive quills. Similar in size and behavior to fulgurosaurs, most quillosaurs are strong-armed burrowing animals that rely on their quills to defend themselves. A few species can even shed their quills explosively when startled. Quillosaur quills are useful as ad-hoc sewing needles and those of the larger species can even be made into darts for Skrag blowguns.

Zilants (Lambtonidae, “Animals-of-Lambton”) are a family of European hypsters that resemble shaggy, elongated flightless birds with one-toed feet. They have vestigial arms that cannot be seen through their plumage, and as their long legs would suggest they can run extremely quickly. Zilant social and breeding behavior is similar to that of other hypsters.

Ghules (Ghulidae, “Ghule-animals”) are a family of shaggy, carnivorous relics from the days of Gondwanaland, and thus are found in habitats all throughout the southern hemisphere. All but the smallest ghule species are quadrupedal, and they all are dedicated predators, bringing down their victims with sharp stabbing beaks and long, canine-like front teeth.