Giant Ant Lion

Picture a giant ant crossed with a mole. The giant ant lion's gray or sand-brown body is wrapped in a leathery shell dotted with tufts of stiff black bristles that sense movement and scent. It has small sunken eyes, rows of jagged teeth for ripping and grinding, and six heavy legs ending in sharp digging claws and flat bristles that brush loose earth aside. Its most striking feature is a pair of silvery, razor-sharp mandibles jutting three feet from the mouth, each with a single barb on its inner edge for spearing and holding prey.

Rather than hunt, the ant lion digs a steep, narrowing pit about 60 feet across, buries itself at the bottom under sand, gravel and stones, and waits. Half the time the pit looks like a sand-lined funnel, the other half like the mouth of a cave or lair. Anyone coming within three feet of the rim has a 20% chance of losing their footing and sliding in, and anyone inside the pit has a 50% chance each round of slipping to the bottom. Sensible precautions, such as roping oneself to a tree, prevent slipping entirely.

When prey hits the bottom, the ant lion erupts from hiding and snaps at it. If the mandibles connect, it will not let go until one of them is dead: the barbs impale, the jaws crush, and then the mandibles saw back and forth for an automatic 5d4 each round after the first hit.

Ant lions haunt badlands, desert edges and other places with loose sand and soil. A lair is the pit, a narrow tunnel to a large chamber for eating and sleeping, and a second winding passage up to the surface for escape. The ant lion also drags its leftovers out this way and hides them aboveground, which is about the only time it is seen outside. It gathers no treasure, but there is a 30% chance a lair holds 1d4 items left from past victims, each with a 10% chance of being magical (or a minor item, at the game master's choice).

Mating happens once a year in midsummer. The female gives off a scent only ant lions can detect; when a male arrives she stops, and the pair click their mandibles at each other for three full days without eating or sleeping. The clicking leaves them entranced, and if attacked they need 1d4 rounds to snap out of it. Afterward the male fertilizes her and leaves. Within a week she buries one to four eggs in the floor. They hatch in about six months and the young burrow off at once to dig their own lairs; a youngster has 4 Hit Dice but every adult ability, and matures in about a year.

Near settled lands ant lions are considered dangerous predators, and bounties are often paid for proof of a kill. They eat anything that falls in, though they prefer giant insects and usually consume one or more giant ants a day. They have no trade value, though farmers in some primitive cultures use the mandibles as ploughs.