Why would the mouth of a creature evolve to be away from the head?

Exhibit A: The apex predator of my world, one that can both fly and swim under water.

This deadly monster employs 4 limbs - they act as wings in the air, and fins in the water. It hunts for game in the air, in the oceans, and on land. This body of this thing is the size of a bus. This is all very amazing and this thing is ludicrously threatening with spikes all over the place, 6 eyes, and a spiked tail to boot, but I'm having trouble explaining a particular aspect of the creature.

I bring attention to its mouth:

The mouth is placed along the bottom of body, away from the head. I've yet to find an example of such a design on any creature on Earth, where the head and the mouth are completely separated.

If you'd like to see an example what kind of land creatures this thing hunts, please see my question on the Armatae Bestia.

So the question is, what could have caused the mouth of my creature to develop away from the head?

Notes:

• The creature occasionally uses its head as a weapon, like an ice pick.
• The creature is a carnivore, and does not need to chew its meals.
• The mouth is also used as a grabbing tool (hence the large amount of spikey-teeth). You can assume that the muscles around that area are strong enough to collectively hold up ~1 ton. You can also assume that the teeth around that area can be individually manipulated to a certain extent (eg: the creature can choose to only use inner ring of spikes instead of both rings to grab smaller objects, or that the creature can use only the outer ring while keeping the inner ring flush with the surrounding area in order to pick up larger objects such as logs/rocks).
• The teeth can be used to rip things apart, by "stabbing" into the target, and then spreading the teeth.
• The slit down the center of the mouth area opens up to accept food. The teeth are often used to "shove" food into that abyss.
• This creature is a solo hunter, not a pack creature. It is very territorial, and often fights other members of its species over prey and territory.

posted about 9 years ago

Aify‭

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