Bulette

The bulette, also known as a landshark, is a particularly loathsome creature that lives in the starwood area of the forest of Cormanthor. It swallows its prey feet first, and it is not uncommon for the head to be left behind afterwards, or even for the bulette to fall asleep in the middle of eating, leaving its victim half alive in its jaws.

The male bulette's mating ritual is fairly complicated, involving the killing of deer and boars, these being placed in a wide circle. He then digs a shallow pit in the middle of the circle, and lines it with the bones of the animals he has killed. Over the course of about a week, the bulette slowly grinds the bones in the pit into a fine powder. He then digs underneath the pit and waits for the female.

The female usually comes along within a month after being attracted by the odour, at which point the bulettes mate. It takes only a day and a half for the female to lay around a dozen eggs, covered in spines, and by the next morning, they have hatched. During hatching, the female bulette makes a noise like an elephant. Once hatched, the newborn bulettes immediately attack the mother, in an attempt to kill her. She fights back, and although she usually kills a few of the young, she succumbs to their attacks more often than not.

For the 48 hours immediately after the hatching of the eggs, the powder in the mating pit is saturated with fluid from the eggs, making it into a very effective fertilizer.