M.T.O TANIWHACodename: Rhedosaur
Scientific Name: Tuatarataniwha harryhauseni (Harryhausen's
Spike-Backed Sea Monster)
Height: ~20 m / ~49 ft
Length: ~50 m / ~131 ft
Weight: ~1,200 tonnes / ~1,320 short tons
Category: 3
Aggression Level: 4
History: While kaiju organizations have been making great progress with finding these mighty organisms, there was still little they knew about their behavior, specifically their travel routes. Projected pathways in the past have been somewhat reliable when finding daikaiju, but there is still a large margin of error to be had and is only useful when a daikaiju is going on a rampage. Remote monitoring of these beasts would give more detailed maps of how and where daikaiju migrate, and how far their territories may span. While some daikaiju like the Beiru titans do not stray too far from their territories, other daikaiju are more nomadic and often have vast territorial pathways. Finding out more about daikaiju travel routes would not only be invaluable from a scientific perspective but would also serve as an effective early warning system if a certain daikaiju is nearing a populated area. The first of these remote tracking systems to be implemented on daikaiju would be the Remora-Cam. Designed after the suckerfish of the same name, this camera has similar ridge-like mechanics and structures that can grip onto the surface of an object and capable of withstanding the forces of ocean currents for days on end. The camera itself is enveloped in several inches of glass and other transparent material to withstand the immense pressure at the depths of the ocean, is fitted with a tag that sends signals to a then-experimental GPS satellite (which would be the basis for NAVSTAR), and to avoid disturbing the deep sea organism it has attached itself to (as well as other deep-sea organisms around the animal) it is also fitted with red lights that automatically switch as ambient light decreases. While the device was tested successfully on submersibles and large cetaceans, they were still in need of an aquatic hyperfauna to tag. Several attempts were made to attach the camera to Godzilla, but his armored body proved too irregular in texture for the camera to attach. Ogra was also considered for the camera, but after Arkion's roar flushed her and Gorgo across the Atlantic, no one has been able to find them. For Apex, they needed to set their sights on a more manageable creature that was common enough to be considered a viable option...
Such an opportunity would come in 1972. About a year after Arkion's global roar shook the Earth nearly setting in a mass awakening of daikaiju, a series of small anomalies were detected in New Zealand, specifically off the coast of Rakiura, more commonly known as Stewart Island. A few residents of the island's only town Oban reported sightings of "sea dragons" in the water surrounding their town, followed by several sightings further south made by a lighthouse owner of a larger reptilian-looking beast emerging in the dead of night investigating the structure before diving back into the sea. Most of these eyewitness accounts lined up with the timing of the small anomalies on the east coast of the island, enough of a connection to send a few agents to investigate whatever was working in the seas of this ancient archipelago. After scouring the southern tip of Rakiura for two days, they eventually found what looked to be a large coastal cave, with several shed scales littering the surrounding area from something very large. Walking over to the mouth of the cavern, they were able to hear the guttural moans of something large within them. A remote-controlled vehicle dubbed N.I.G.E.L was sent in to find the source of the strange sounds. Shortly afterward, the drone managed to capture glimpses of several large reptilians living within the cave system, huddling beneath the artificial starlight of the glowworms dwelling high above in the ceiling...before quickly being destroyed by a curious individual that saw the rover as possible food.
Apex immediately began to call over reinforcements after finding the cave, forming a crude research facility in close proximity to it. The creatures were identified to be rhedosaurs (named after the sea monster Rhedus from Native American folklore in the area where the first specimen was found), which were properly described and seen in 1960 after discovering the remains of a juvenile specimen in British Columbia that had been hastily terminated by former United States kaiju kill-force (nicknamed "The Lizard Slayers"). Dealing with much larger individuals and a greater number of these reptilians, Apex made sure to monitor from a distance as to not possibly disturb these giants from their blissful slumber, usually venturing around the mouth to collect pieces of skin the creatures would often shed. After examining the shed scales of the rhedosaurs they found them smooth enough for the Remora-Cam to latch on effectively. Apex mythographers and paleontologists also discovered potentially revealing information on the biology and behavior of these saurians. Myths on the North and South Islands told by various tribes spoke of reptilian sea beasts that dwelt in the coastal caves, most likely ancient accounts of rhedosaurs, with a few of these myths stating these creatures travel to the islands on an annual basis from their home far across the sea. This is corroborated by fossil evidence as well, with several incomplete skeletons of large reptilians similar to rhedosaurs being found in abandoned caves ranging from thousands to millions of years old that were repeatedly visited every year. All the evidence showed these creatures were most likely a migratory species that travel vast distances to this island adobe once a year. A perfect candidate for the Remora-Cam.
Thus a plan was set into motion to tag one of the rhedosaurs in order to track the beast and reveal the migratory habits of these scaly behemoths. Of course, it was easier said than done. Remote means of tagging the creatures via N.I.G.E.L failed miserably several times, so Apex agents had to enter the cavern and latch Remora-Cam onto the reptilians manually. Initially, it did not go as planned. The beasts, startled from their slumber by the tiny newcomers, suddenly panicked and tried to escape out of the caves. The Apex agents barely managed to get out without being crushed by the incoming monsters as they raced into the sea. Several of the reptilians escaped into the ocean, but the team did manage to corner one of them, a young male upon later analysis, against the land. The reptilian beast fought back viciously before making its way inland to escape its attackers. Apex agents pursued the creature from a distance, as it powered through the dense Zealandian forests. After nearly fifteen minutes on the chase and over ten kilometers covered, they finally managed to put an end to the pursuit after firing an electrified harpoon into its neck, stunning it long enough for the procedure to take place. With the titan subdued but still very much alive, they needed to be fast if they were to secure the tag onto the creature. The Remora-Cam latched onto the dorsum of the Rhedosaur with success, and not a moment too soon as the saurian began to stir. Awakening, the titan rose in rage as it snapped and snarled at the presumed enemies around it. Backing all its assets away, Apex made sure to give the reptilian a wide berth as they slowly herded it towards the shore. After a few more minutes of intense threat displays, the rhedosaur made a mad dash to the water, tumbling across the rocks and hitting the ocean with a thud as it swam away into the depths of the sea...
Over two weeks later, Remora-Cam was finally retrieved near the shores of the North Island. After weeks at sea, Remora-Cam only suffered minor damage, which proved the durability of such a device. But the real question was whether it had managed to catch anything of notice. Fortunately, this was also true. The footage revealed the journey the rhedosaur made once it entered the sea after the deployment of the camera and proved to be an invaluable source of information for the study of daikaiju as a whole. Exiting the water of New Zealand, it was seen swimming alongside various other rhedosaurs, some with juveniles in tow, suggesting the return migration back to wherever they came from was underway. As the rhedosaur split from these grouping and made its way across the Southern Pacific, the camera tracker caught glimpses of the deep sea, passing by abyssal plains and what would be the first true discovery of hydrothermal vents (as opposed to the 1977 discovery made official to the public). Various new species of deep-sea fish were recognized passing by the saurian as well as new geographical formations throughout the South Pacific as the rhedosaur continued its way east. Surfacing every few days, the rhedosaur would usually stick to the depths during the daytime and come to forage with the safety of night. A few predatory attempts were filmed on the camera, usually with the rhedosaur devouring the occasional mid-sized cetacean, though generally, it seemed more than content with absorbing the geothermal energy released from a few hydrothermal vents littering the seafloor.
But the best had yet to come. After several days of swimming and thousands of kilometers from the nearest land, the tagged rhedosaur surfaced and came across a massive storm. As it got closer, the circulating mass of clouds billowed lightning, with towering waves hundreds of feet high smashing into the ocean's surface. Diving underwater, the Remora-Cam found the water ahead of the rhedosaur also looking to be violently churning, with large debris swirling in the cloudy vortex of the bubbling maelstrom. The reptilian did not proceed forward for some time, pacing through the calmer water reluctant to enter. Then, out of the corner of Remora-Cam's view, a large object began ascending to the surface. The rhedosaur also seemed to have sighted this mass and dove down towards whatever was making its way to the surface. As it got closer, the moving mass was revealed to be something unimaginable. A group of titanic ichthyosaurs, easily as large as even a Kujira Gami Whale, glided up from below. The rhedosaur swam by the side of one individual, and the entire group of beasts passed through the wall of swirling water. It seemed the rhedosaur was using the massive beasts as a kind of "shield" to protect it from the violent vortex sweeping the area, specifically swimming on the side of the ichthyosaur that was not subject to the full force of the current. For a few minutes, the water was hazy with particulates pulled up from the seafloor obscuring the view. Then, the water began to clear, and the rhedosaur broke off from the pod of ichthyosaurs. At the same time, the camera's feed began to show signs of electrical interference, interrupted by periods of increasing static before the film finally ended and the camera presumably dropped off shortly afterward where it would drift back through the titanic maelstrom for thousands of miles until being rediscovered by the humans that made it...
But just before the camera feed ended, the rhedosaur surfaced one final time. What the team saw was not the typical vast expanse of open ocean, but land. Sheer rock faces erupting from the sea and land like dreaded spires from hell. Growing out of them, dense foliage and other floral matting, with hordes of flying beasts gathering around the top and sides. Other rhedosaurs were vaguely seen resting on the steep slopes, vying for limited space alongside what looked to be creatures very similar to the therapsids Todora and Maguma that were observed by Apex over a decade earlier. And etched onto those very spires, wherever there wasn't flora or fauna covering its surface, was the barren rock that had been eroded into various effigies. The effigies of
skulls...Description: A large semi-aquatic reptilian carnivore, the Rhedosaur is a rather generalistic but formidable organism that makes its home throughout the world's oceans. While superficially squamate-like in appearance, rhedosaurs are rhynchocephalians, an ancient branch of reptiles that were once found worldwide before a changing climate and the subsequent diversification of squamates pushed them to near extinction. Sharing a similar body plan to distantly related species from the Jurassic oceans of Europe, the rhedosaurs are a part of the sphenodont branch of the family, branching off from the modern-day Tuatara just before the end of the Cretaceous. This may explain why this reptilian daikaiju might migrate to New Zealand, perhaps drawn there by an instinctual urge to mate and raise their young within the safe confines of their ancestral home. Fossil evidence suggests that after splitting off from their fellow sphenodonts in New Zealand, this branch of reptilians became quite prolific within the Southern Hemisphere, mainly around the Antarctic. After shifts in climate halfway through the Cenozoic began a large-scale cooling trend across the planet, these reptilians found their tropical homes giving way to more arid and frigid conditions. Most of the family is thought to have gone extinct after the rapid cooling during the Eocene and Miocene, but the remaining members of this sphenodont branch began to rapidly evolve and adapt to cool climates and grew to become prolific throughout the oceans as generalistic hunters of the seas being comfortable in both frigid and tropical waters. Some of these creatures began to make their way up north of the equator, with a few eventually reaching Canada and Japan by the Pleistocene. Even after The Golden Demise, fossils evidence suggests rhedosaurs are as successful as ever if not moreso with the decline in larger daikaiju predators, being distributed across the globe's saltwater bodies, though their largest and most concentrated populations remain in the Southern Pacific, spending most of their lives in the open ocean except when they are ushered to the shores of New Zealand by the instinctive need to breed.
Even after millions of years of accelerated kaiju evolution, the rhedosaur retains various traits in common with their tuatara cousins such as a pineal eye, armored tail, and lack of true teeth, and much like their non-kaiju relatives, their physical appearance has not changed drastically after their initial radiation into the seas as their generalistic body plan has allowed them to survive through extinction events with relative ease. Unlike their terrestrial cousins though, rhedosaurs are far from lethargic invertebrate eaters. Larger than a blue whale and armed with massive jaw serrations and sharp claws, these aquatic predators make short work of most prey they can get their hands on. Despite their formidability, they are quite low on the daikaiju food chain, often being devoured and eaten by larger predators (some isotopic evidence suggests Godzilla and Anguirus have eaten many in their lifetimes). As a result, they needed to evolve various defenses in order to evade their would-be predators. A flattened tail covered in osteoderms to add greater surface area for swimming can provide short bursts of speed when needing to hunt prey or to escape from an incoming predator. If the hunter continues to pursue, the rhedosaur will unleash an inky cloud into the water much like that of an octopus squirting ink. This cloud contains is made up of the toxic waste produced by symbiotic archaea that live within the skin of this marine reptile. The archaea show some of the same heat and methanotrophic properties of the ones that dwelt within Gaira's fur, capable of absorbing energy from methane seeps and hydrothermal vents as the creatures bathe in the chemical soup. Unlike Gaira, the archaea of the rhedosaur produce an irritating poison as opposed to a corrosive gas as a waste product (though some parts of their chemical composition are similar), siphoning this poison out of pores in its skin that irritates enemies and can even make them sick fora few days. Fortunately, the poisonous residue is harmless to humans and other wholly biotic life due to having evolved to be a specific defense against other daikaiju, and even then it may fail against larger enemies that are less bothered by its toxicity. If this fails, then the rhedosaur will unleash its deadliest defense. Possessing a rudimentary version of the internal biological nuclear reactors that powers the atomic breath of Godzilla, a rhedosaur is capable of releasing an incandescent ray, capable of carbonizing flesh and boiling water in seconds. This can sometimes be enough to dissuade whatever enemy has managed to get this far in chasing a rhedosaur, though it is a last-ditch weapon. The very basal condition of a rhedosaur's nucleo-synthesis sac is only capable of firing a beam of incandescent gases for less than a minute before running out, after which it may take days for them to muster enough atomic energy to do so again. This attack is also quite ineffective against higher-tier predators with powerful defenses that allow them to survive unscathed, but for the most part, a rhedosaur is not a filling-enough meal for such apex predators so they mainly leave them alone. Despite the low standing in the food chain and the low threat they possess to daikaiju, a rhedosaur can still be relentless against human aggressors, and thus requires special attention when one does arrive within a populated area.
Character: Being low-class predators, rhedosaurs usually resort to flight when dealing with a larger carnivore. However, if they have exhausted their defensive options, a rhedosaur will resort to unbridled aggression. When they attack, they often do so with extreme ferocity as a way to discourage predators from trying to deal with such hostile prey. Like Gorosaurus, this can often result in a lot of collateral damage as the rhedosaur does its very best to cause severe damage to whatever is still continuously pursuing it. This method of unbridled aggression can be an effective last-ditch solution when facing enemies, but it is also quite risky if a predator is brazen enough to attack anyways, as rhedosaurs possess relatively soft skin for a daikaiju (though still capable of withstanding typical firearms). When escaping an enemy, they will often seek out a narrow tunnel or hollow chamber to escape into, usually, their own burrow or a natural cave that they usually live in, which would explain the preference of such features in the migratory population in New Zealand. In these caves, they often try to be as discreet as possible, resorting to low and quiet rumbles when communicating with each other as to avoid detection from predators. If they are discovered by something they view as a possible threat, they will immediately try to escape. This becomes quite interesting when viewing the 1972 incident where the rhedosaurs were unperturbed by the N.I.G.E.L units but tried to escape at the sight of humans, viewing them as some kind of threat to them or their young. Combining this with anecdotal evidence of smaller daikaiju being hunted and killed by ancient human beings (like the Atlantic civilization hunting Zigras), then it is quite possible the rhedosaur population may have also undergone hunting by an ancient civilization of humans, to the point that the fear response to humanoid-like beings has been embedded into the minds of the modern survivors thousands of years after their hunters have long vanished.
---NEXT: The Nightmare Realm---Rhedosaurus is owned by Warner Bros.
https://www.deviantart.com/105697/art/Man-s-Arrogance-The-Rhedosaur-816217663
