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Pocket Universe F5M9561 - Faunal Observations

Ophanim Carver

A heavyweight Neopterosaur, averaging a mass of 240 kg, a wingspan of 15 meters, and a height of 7.8 meters.

Adults are colored in black, purple and blue, with a distinctive orange eye. The teeth in their bills have evolved into large, shearing plates, with can even cut through bone.

The Ophanim Carvers are named for their unique mating display, where they kill, eat and hollow out the skeleton of an Ophanim. The Carver will then place the skeleton around their neck.

The Skeleton remains on their neck for the entirety of the mating season, and they move and fly with it attached. The heavier the skeleton is, the more appealing the wearer is to potential mates, as it shows off their strength. They also use the skeletons of larger Ophanim as a funnel to amplify the sound their calls.

While their prey, the Ophanim, exist worldwide, Carvers are only found in tropical regions, usually near the coasts.

Pocket Universe F5M9561 - Faunal Observations

Sun King’s Heartbreaker

The Neopterosaur possessing the largest wingspan, although they are not the heaviest or tallest.

The Males, which reach a wingspan of 17 meters, a height of 4.1 meters, and a mass of 210 Kilograms, are around twice as large as the females, which only reach a wingspan of 9 meters, a height of 2.6 meters, and a mass of 100 kilograms.

Due to this extreme sexual dimorphism, the mating strategy of Heartbreakers is a single male presiding over a large group of females during the mating season. These groups often congregate on beaches, which provide ample space for the Neopterosaurs to roost. A single male can mate with up to 50 females during a single mating season.

When a male is challenged by another male, they compete by showing off the patterned undersides of their wings, and by slamming the sides and tops of their beaks together. In these displays, the competitors tend to avoid using the underside of their beak, which possesses a large, bladelike crest, which has another purpose entirely.

This crest, which is larger and more colorful in males, although it is possessed by both sexes, is used as an axe, with a Heartbreaker slamming downward with its head to smash the crest into hard shells or flesh, cutting or breaking apart their target, then feeding using the elongated tips of their beaks, which are thin to allow access into gaps in the armor of prey.

Their name, the Sun King’s Heartbreaker, is a reference to early palaeontologist The Very Reverend William Buckland, who is alleged to have devoured part of the mummified heart of French King Louis XIV, who styled himself as The Sun King.