DOD Bestiary: Mangler

Common Name: Mangler (Roc, Rukh)
Pronounced: (Mangler)
Classification: Goliaraptor calconychus (Crushing-claw Goliath-plunderer)
SGOC Rank: Megafauna

Length: 42 feet
Height: 12 feet at the hips
Weight: 7 tons
Diet: Carnivore
Social Structure: Solitary
Home Planet: Earth
Distribution: northern / northeastern Asia
IUCN Status: Vulnerable

Description:

The mangler is a gigantic dromaeosaur and the largest non-SGO predator in all of Asia. Rare to the point of being legend, this huge carnivore is specialized to attack equally large prey, a task that it excels at.

Although instantly recognizable as a raptor, the mangler’s anatomy has evolved considerably in response to its lifestyle. The arms are massively built and laced with muscle, and the hands are tipped with huge hooked claws that earned the animal its name. The hindlegs are thick and fairly short for a raptor; juveniles walk on their outer two toes like all raptors, but adult manglers are so large and heavy that they walk on all four toes like a therizinosaur. A huge killing claw, close to two feet long around the curve, protrudes from each of the dinosaur’s second toes. The tail is a fairly stiff rod for balancing out the head, which is heavily built like a tyrannosaur’s and lined with long robust teeth. The mangler’s body is covered in a coat of thick insulating plumage, including a set of small wings that the giant animal uses to “mantle” struggling prey.

Manglers are extremely territorial animals; they have to be to keep their huge endothermic bodies fueled. Outside of the breeding season these raptors simply can’t stand the sight of each other. Most manglers spend their time either sleeping or patrolling their territory, taking opportunities to hunt whenever they turn up. Prey – large mammals and dinosaurs, mostly – is ambushed from tree cover and hacked at until it falters, at which point the mangler leaps onto and pins its victim beneath its clawed feet, gouging it as the helpless animal is eaten alive by the mangler.

Unlike many raptors the mangler is a solitary animal, congregating only around watering holes or to breed. Males will wander into the territory of females in heat and begin carefully courting her; female manglers are often larger than the males and must be approached with caution. Mating itself is brief and the male is quickly chased away by his mate afterward. Mangler eggs are laid in a large nest of vegetation to incubate for the next three months; the resulting chicks are small but they pack a nasty bite even upon hatching. Mother manglers care for their young for another six months before chasing them away to live solitary adult lives. Manglers start out as agile half-climbing, half-gliding arboreal predators but become exclusively terrestrial as they age.

Manglers are aggressive, territorial animals that require huge amounts of food to survive; on the surface world, this means they will attack livestock and may travel great distances just to find them. These creatures can wreak havoc on isolated ranches and are difficult to kill with readily available weaponry. In the remote forests and taiga of northern Asia, most manglers can get away with plundering cattle.