Hook-Beaked Needleworm
This descendant of the Banana-Beaked Needleworm (Acutognathus arierum) has developed a new technique that enables it to be much more successful as a scavenger. Unlike its ancestors, it has learned that if it regurgitates a considerable amount of its stomach acid, its carrion will begin dissolving from the inside-out, allowing it a higher access of nutrition from which it can feed from its needle-like appendage. It learned that from getting the organ lining of its carrion stuck within its needle down to the stomach, and it tried manipulating its stomach to get it out, eventually contracting it in the right way to vomit, which also dissolved a small section of its carrion into liquids that could be consumed, so the Needleworm kept on doing so to dissolve its meals and it became embedded within the instincts of its future offspring to vomit into their meals. It dissolves parts of its meal by first sticking its needle into the side of its food item. It when then contract its stomach muscles inwards, sending out a burst of stomach acids into its food to start softening it to produce even more juices. It will then back away from the carrion to stick its needle back out, and will then wait about twenty seconds (20 sec) for the innards of the body to soften and for the acid to dilute enough to be safe for consumption. It will then suck up the juices from its food and regain its lost nutrients that way, using its remaining stomach acid to digest the food and using energy from it to make more stomach acid and to help with other bodily functions, such as maintaining its cells and organs with nutrients.
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This new method has its drawbacks though. Stomach acid takes energy to produce and is not an infinite resource, so it has to be managed carefully. As a result of this, the Hook-Beaked Needleworm is careful about when it injects it to feed and how much it injects.
It prefers the bodies of smaller-sized creatures such as canetodes and cacosapods to feed from as they dissolve without requiring as much effort, and it will only feed from the bodies of dead wyverns as a last resort.
Another drawback of this technique is that contact with too much acid will begin to dissolve the needle, which is made of chitin and does not grow back once fully-formed. To mitigate that, the Hook-Beaked Needleworm has changed the shape of its needle, making it much flatter so that the stomach acid flows out smoothly, and compensating the sharpness of the needle by creating a hook-shaped protrusion at the end. It will bend its head slightly downwards to get the acid through the needle. Although wear-and-tear may eventually take effect on the needle, it takes much longer to lose function than without the upwards curve as the acid exits rather quickly. There is still well more than enough time to sexually reproduce, and it may still live up to multiple years regardless, which is worth the costs as it may be fed on by larger predators within that timespan anyways, such as Pinprickers (Thalassaraptor fundatus), Prarie Pinpointers (Thalassaraptor gallicorpus), and Pinpointers (Thalassaraptor kokovajilotus). Blattealimax panivore may feed on juveniles of this species.
The Hook-Beaked Needleworm grows up to thirty centimeters (30 cm) in length and takes seven to eight weeks (7-8 wks) to grow, after which individuals will mate with other members of their species in hopes of fertilizing others or being fertilized.
Females will lay twenty-five to thirty (25-30) eggs underneath a fresh carcass so that the offspring have a meal to boost them after hatching to increase their chances of survival. Hatchlings do not have as potent stomach acid as adults do due to their younger age and smaller body size, and will make do with their needles until they are four weeks (4 wks), when they are strong enough to be able to spend their acid on decomposing their food. Adults and juveniles of the species alike switch between activeness and dormancy every three hours (3 hrs) as a part of their circadian rhythm.