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Description

One of the most massive parasites that a skuorc can possible be afflicted with is a visceral monster that writhes and burrows beneath their scaly hides just as a mole tunnels through soil, ripping through flesh with a blade-like beak and huge claws. These are the parasitic offspring of the rasps, one of the largest verminfan species and highly predaceous animals once full-grown. Adults find an unaware gantuan or skulossus and create a small incision to implant a small egg, repeating this process across every animal it can find. Over a period of months, the larvae slows develops, feeding on muscle tissue with horrendous vigour, using its radula-like toothed tongue to "lick" pathways through flesh. Infected animals are easily recognizable by the faint scarring patterns in the skin by the skewer infant's feeding underneath, and the huge pimple-like openings from where the larvae emerges periodically to take a breath. It is little mercy that the powerful immune systems of these animals, defensively honed over millions of years of ever worsening parasitic infections and predator attacks, usually allows them to weather this affliction.

Burrowing several inches beneath the dermis, it is usually unreachable by pest-eaters and has free rein in its abode of flesh. Its tubular body is angled with numerous backward-facing bristles, and its soft skin is loose and elastic, to allow it to slide with ease through layers of muscle, pulled along by strong forelimbs, and hooking itself securely with its pick-like jointed beak tip (back legs are scrawny and don't play any role in locomotion at this stage). Although its feeding habits are quite painful to its host, its saliva contains mild neurotoxic and antibiotic compounds, dulling the discomfort and preventing infection, since it still requires its host to get through the experience alive so it can eventually pupate and emerge. Most of its underdeveloped skeleton is cartilaginous so it can squeeze its body through the layers of tissue (and prevent it from being harmed if its host happens to rub its side against a hard surface), while a low metabolism allows it to feed minimally and go hours on minimal oxygen (after all, there's no need to regulate one's body temperature when the host's body already does so). By the time the larva is ready to pupate, it can weigh almost as much as a human infant and be over forty centimetres in length, dwarfing in size any other parasite aside from some particularly lengthy gut worms; even should it be caught by a cleaner bird or other animal surfacing through the skin, it's so big that it can actually defend itself quite effectively against them.

Secreting a cocoon of mucus, it eventually emerges as a small feathered bird, no hint of its previous life as a grotesque grub-mole. Even after pupation the host is not necessarily freed from its torment, as the juvenile bird will continue to linger about like an oxpecker, becoming a flying parasite and, if anything, is an even bigger nuisance, picking at wounds or actively creating new wounds to continue feeding on the skuorc's flesh, with the cygnosaur unable to do much about it, and without even the dubious benefit of numbing and medicinal saliva to dull the aftereffects, now that the rasp has no pragmatic obligation to keep its host alive. Eventually, the rasp moves beyond grazing flesh as a nuisance to becoming an active predator as it grows large enough to reliably kill prey, sometimes larger than itself. Although the nature of its lifestyle changes dramatically over its lifespan, from the moment of hatching from a tiny egg up until its final maturity as a massive arboreal, it never forsakes the hunger for flesh by any means.

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Description

One of the most massive parasites that a skuorc can possible be afflicted with is a visceral monster that writhes and burrows beneath their scaly hides just as a mole tunnels through soil, ripping through flesh with a blade-like beak and huge claws. These are the parasitic offspring of the rasps, one of the largest verminfan species and highly predaceous animals once full-grown. Adults find an unaware gantuan or skulossus and create a small incision to implant a small egg, repeating this process across every animal it can find. Over a period of months, the larvae slows develops, feeding on muscle tissue with horrendous vigour, using its radula-like toothed tongue to "lick" pathways through flesh. Infected animals are easily recognizable by the faint scarring patterns in the skin by the skewer infant's feeding underneath, and the huge pimple-like openings from where the larvae emerges periodically to take a breath. It is little mercy that the powerful immune systems of these animals, defensively honed over millions of years of ever worsening parasitic infections and predator attacks, usually allows them to weather this affliction.

Burrowing several inches beneath the dermis, it is usually unreachable by pest-eaters and has free rein in its abode of flesh. Its tubular body is angled with numerous backward-facing bristles, and its soft skin is loose and elastic, to allow it to slide with ease through layers of muscle, pulled along by strong forelimbs, and hooking itself securely with its pick-like jointed beak tip (back legs are scrawny and don't play any role in locomotion at this stage). Although its feeding habits are quite painful to its host, its saliva contains mild neurotoxic and antibiotic compounds, dulling the discomfort and preventing infection, since it still requires its host to get through the experience alive so it can eventually pupate and emerge. Most of its underdeveloped skeleton is cartilaginous so it can squeeze its body through the layers of tissue (and prevent it from being harmed if its host happens to rub its side against a hard surface), while a low metabolism allows it to feed minimally and go hours on minimal oxygen (after all, there's no need to regulate one's body temperature when the host's body already does so). By the time the larva is ready to pupate, it can weigh almost as much as a human infant and be over forty centimetres in length, dwarfing in size any other parasite aside from some particularly lengthy gut worms; even should it be caught by a cleaner bird or other animal surfacing through the skin, it's so big that it can actually defend itself quite effectively against them.

Secreting a cocoon of mucus, it eventually emerges as a small feathered bird, no hint of its previous life as a grotesque grub-mole. Even after pupation the host is not necessarily freed from its torment, as the juvenile bird will continue to linger about like an oxpecker, becoming a flying parasite and, if anything, is an even bigger nuisance, picking at wounds or actively creating new wounds to continue feeding on the skuorc's flesh, with the cygnosaur unable to do much about it, and without even the dubious benefit of numbing and medicinal saliva to dull the aftereffects, now that the rasp has no pragmatic obligation to keep its host alive. Eventually, the rasp moves beyond grazing flesh as a nuisance to becoming an active predator as it grows large enough to reliably kill prey, sometimes larger than itself. Although the nature of its lifestyle changes dramatically over its lifespan, from the moment of hatching from a tiny egg up until its final maturity as a massive arboreal, it never forsakes the hunger for flesh by any means.

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This post could be seen months earlier on Patreon ; consider subscribing if you'd like to support me!