DOD Bestiary: Marsh thorntank

Common Name: Marsh thorntank (Thorntank)
Pronounced: (Marsh thorntank)
Classification: Eucanthopholis horrida (Rough True-spiny-scale)
SGOC Rank: Megafauna

Length: 13 feet
Height: 4 feet at the hips
Weight: 850 lbs.
Diet: Omnivore
Social Structure: Solitary (associates with gigants)
Home Planet: Earth
Distribution: Europe
IUCN Status: Vulnerable

Description:

A common sight trundling among Europe’s herds of gigants is the marsh thorntank, a much smaller but even pricklier animal. A type of nodosaur, this squat species sports a long whip-like tail and a row of conical spines along its flanks. Armored dinosaurs like the thorntank and gigant have fared somewhat poorly since their heyday in the Cretaceous, which may be due to climate change and competition with more prolific low-browsing herbivores. Whatever the case may be, they are a rare sight on post-Cycle Earth.

Marsh thorntanks are mainly browsers of low-lying vegetation, being unable to reach or even rear upright to get at higher growth. Their piston-like tongues allow them to hoover up small animals, insects, eggs, and even dung, all of which is fermented in their cauldron-like gut. They are competent swimmers and often find themselves walking along the bottom of rivers and lakes, nipping at waterplants. Always on the move but never in a hurry, marsh thorntanks rely on gigant herds to knock down trees and other out-of-reach edibles, following behind the herds and feeding on the messy ankylosaurs’ leftovers. Although slow-running these animals can maneuver on an axis quite quickly, presenting attackers with their barbed whip-tails at any angle; an irritating epidermal secretion wards off any predators that come close enough to bite the animal.

The reproductive behavior of the marsh thorntank has yet to be observed, although it’s currently thought that they breed at the same time as the gigants for mutual protection. Scutelings are highly precocious and are able to keep up with the adult thorntanks and the gigants within hours of hatching. This species offers minimal parental care and won’t even protect its young once they’ve hatched.

The marsh thorntank is a worthless animal when it comes to subsistence hunting; the meat just isn’t worth digging out of the animal’s shell. They can, however, be tamed for use in cart-pulling and other draft labor, which requires the animal to be docked of its dangerous whip-tail.