Bull-lizard

    “There’s no creature more unusual than a Bull-lizard. I doubt there’s anything stranger in this land.” – Unknown farmhand upon seeing an adult Bull-lizard.

    The Bull-lizard (Cerastegos lediblocki) is a huge, herbivorous pareiasaur related to the tiny, extinct Elginia that dwells in open areas and sparse forests. Measuring up to 30 feet in length and weighing 3 tons, it is a hefty animal that resembles the long-extinct aetosaurs like Desmatosuchus (a creature not seen since dragons began recording their history). Despite its resemblance to these ancient crocodilians, it is most closely related to turtles.

    A solitary animal, the Bull-lizard is heavily armored. Both its back and belly are plated with osteoderms and it is armed with both a long, heavy tail and a pair of bovid-like horns that give the animal its name. In very old adult males, particularly those over a century old, the span of these horns can measure almost 15 feet across the curves. Its shoulders are also armed with enormous spikes that help protect it from attack. As such it has few predators aside from large carnivorous dinosaurs, dragons and the Alphyn, whose bone-crushing jaws and sharp beak can easily penetrate the creature’s armor. In particular, Alphyn prefer to hunt Bull-lizards by ambush or by goading them into charging before leaping away at the last second, tiring them out before moving in to crush the skull or bite the throat.  

    Bull-lizards mate in summer, and eggs are laid in warm, moist soil in traditional nesting grounds away from humanoid habitation and abandoned. Able to fend for themselves, Bull-lizard hatchlings receive no parental care upon their emergence before the autumn. As clutches number about 100 eggs per mother on average, the likelihood of survival is raised, as predators cannot devour all the babies. However, those that do survive must remain in protective areas predators cannot follow until their fourth year, when their armor grows in. Until that time, they are quite vulnerable to attack by all predators ranging from small theropod dinosaurs and big cats to crocodiles and more. 

    Bull-lizards feed predominantly on plants, particularly grass, shrubs and small trees, but they are known to eat meat from time to time. Males in particular will not hesitate to eat small animals where they can catch them, and they are quite fond of stealing eggs from small dinosaurs. This can lead to conflict with the eggs’ parents, at which point, Bull-lizards hunker onto their stomachs and lash out with their tails at their foes before rising incredibly fast to charge and gore their enemies. Such was the case when ten drunken human soldiers out on patrol happened upon an angry male Bull-lizard who was defending a meal of hadrosaur eggs. The two men that survived the encounter only managed to escape due to the intervention of the rest of the company’s Gorgosaur mounts.          


A creature who was suggested by as a potential creature to be added to Kairegorn's fauna. As such, it is named in his honor. Originally, it was much more like a Pareiasaur in appearance, but after looking at Desmatosuchus, I could not resist creating a beast that was a mix between a crocodile and a pareiasaur.