Modern Dinosaurs of the Savannah

    Hadruffalo: The open plains of Africa are crawling with predators. Every herbivore needs protection. For most that means gathering in immense herds. For others it means developing lighting-fast speed, or enormous size. The hadruffalo has taken the approach of standing its ground and fighting. The hadruffalo lives much like the heavily armed ceratopsians of Eurasia and North America, with a set of long, splaying horns almost 5 feet wide. It is actually a hadrosaur, a relation to the usually more docile saurolopes, and the "horns" are actually a modification to the head crests most lambeosaurine hadrosaurs use for communication and display. But the hadruffalo's crest has evolved into sharp, strong horns to battle with predators, including giant abelisaurs and dromaeosaurs. To display, males rub their horns on the ground or on trees, and they inflate large, colorful tissue sacs on their snouts, a substitute for the display crest, which is now a set of formidable weapons.

    Rapard: Almost no known predators have the stealth, grace and lethal beauty of the Rapard. It is higlhy elusive, mainly nocturnal, and thus easy to assume to be rare, but the Rapard actually has a very wide distribution, found an woodlands, forests and jungles across Africa and Asia. Dromaeosaurs the world over are known for being social killers, but the Rapard prefers to be alone. Dispute being solitary, and being only around 100 pounds, it is still capable of killing quite large prey by employing ambush tactics. They mainly hunt a t night, and their feather coats, which can very from tawny with spots to jet black, help it melt into its surroundings. Its favorite strategy is to perch itself above a resting animal, and pounce, striking at the throat with its jaws while using its large toe-claws to hold on as the surprised prey struggles. After the kill is secured, the rapard will often drag the carcass up a tree to keep other predators from stealing it.