Spec-Dinovember Day 26: Mud Sifter, a theropod specialized for feeding on small invertebrates
Returning to Elan Bank and the Kerguelen Plateau from day 19, the limited number of founding taxa present during the bank's breakaway has allowed many niches to be filled by unorthodox clades. Noasaurs are already unorthodox creatures without an island environment, so the ones marooned here have become even more odd. Numeniasaurus limulus is a elaphrosaurine that has become specialized in feeding on the worms, snails, and crustaceans that burrow into the muddy coastal volcanic sands. They can be found in large flocks feeding on the flats during low tide, retreating to sheltered cliffsides and uplands of tussock grasses during high tide.
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I swear when I started this one I wasn't looking at ibises! I was going with the idea of Limusaurus as a godwit, but the upturned snout reminded me of Alec Baldwin's face stretch thing from Beetlejuice, so then I looked at curlews, and when I finished drawing the beak I stepped back and realized that's just an ibis. Ah well, chalk that one up to convergent evolution and call it a day! So then I leaned into that and gave it a bald head and neck like the Australian white ibis, and a little neck ruff. I wanted to make the ruff into the hood turkey vultures have, as I imagine these critters would have need of keeping warm where I've placed them. They'd probably just have fuzzy necks and heads instead, but maybe they need to go bald for picking into beached carcasses or something, I dunno
