Ferropodous

A ferropodous is an extremely dangerous red-list abnormal that is worth a fortune on the abnormal black market.

History
As soon as a ferropodous egg hatches the newborn will immediately go in search of a host in which it'll gestate for about an hour or so. After finding a suitable host, the ferropodous secretes an enzyme inhibitor that'll sedate the host until it's fully grown. However, the human metabolism is significantly stronger than that of the other species the ferropodous encounters in the wild, so a human being would be fully awake and unaware if they were the host to a ferropodous; the only outward indication is that the enzyme inhibitor that a ferropodous secretes will slow down the host's eye photoreceptors. The body temperature of a newly hatched ferropodous is 98.2 degrees, which means that a ferropodous could get under a human's skin without that human even noticing because their body temperatures are so close. After the ferropodous gestation period ends, it'll burst out of the host's body (immediately killing them) and proceed to go on a feeding rampage; killing everything in its' path until satiated and going into a dormant state until its' next cycle.

Two thieves stole a pair of ferropodous eggs believing they were just rare works of art and sold them at a private auction. One of the eggs hatched early in Monaco before the Sanctuary could secure it, resulting in the newborn ferropodous having killed several people.

The second egg was in a safety deposit box in a small town bank in the northwest US. The Old City Sanctuary team wanted to at first handle it discretely by pretending they had everyday business with the bank to retrieve the egg, but they soon realized they were too late. The bank's air conditioner was faulty and the heat forced the ferropodous to hatch from its' egg sooner than planned. Thinking quickly, Kate Freelander staged a faux hold-up to pretend they were bank robbers so none of the patrons or staff could leave the building. This action granted the Sanctuary team barely enough time to scan everyone there to see which one of them were host to the ferropodous; once the host was located, the plan was to remove and contain the creature before it fully gestated and escaped to go on a murderous feeding spree. Despite interference from the local law enforcement, the FBI, and an abnormal bounty hunter, Magnus and her team were able to successfully extract the ferropodous from its' host and get it back to the Old City Sanctuary with no loss of life. Dr. Will Zimmerman named this ferropodous "Taco".