###### KAMPOSI MAGNUS
The kamposi magnus was a tusked aquatic animal that inhabited Kampos (Ellis IV) until roughly 500,000 Standard Earth Years ago. Kamposi was an omnivorous apex predator with a dense, solid, compact skeleton adapted for the high-gravity, high-pressure environment of Kampos' deep oceans. Though the exact cause of its extinction is unknown, it is hypothesized from fossil records that an underwater volcanic eruption may have triggered an extinction event that disrupted the kamposi's food chain. The Governors Council of Ellis IV chose to name its planet Kampos after the kamposi magnus upon receiving recognition from the UEE Senate in SEY 2562.
###### DISCOVERY
In 2488, colonist Gary Yahontov of Ellis IV in the United Empire of Earth (UEE) discovered a large fossilized skull while dredging along the shore of his settlement. Yahontov used it as a piece of decoration in his yard for six years. Vira Kamposi, an academic passing through to study gravitational effects on local planet life, stole the fossil in 2493 and transported it via spacecraft to her former teachers at the University of Rhetor. Members of the paleontology department identified it as an undiscovered species and dispatched a research team to Ellis IV. A complete fossilized skeleton was discovered in 2496, 57 kilometers from Yahontov's home. Already nicknamed kamposi by the team, the researchers appended magnus to the name after the skeleton measured 11 meters long. The first herd of kamposi was discovered in 2543, challenging early conjecture that the kamposi was solitary.
When she returned to Ellis IV in 2494, Kamposi was arrested and convicted of theft, after which she served six months in prison. Yahontov successfully sued the University of Rhetor in 2501 for repatriation of the skull. It sat in his yard until his death in 2536, upon which it was confiscated by the government of Ellis IV.
###### DESCRIPTION
Reconstructions of the kamposi reveal that it could grow up to 12 meters in length and typically weighed about 40 tonnes. It had four eyes, two pairs of jointed mandibles around its mouth, and a pair of broad tusks on either side of its head. The teeth along the inside of its jaw and analysis of its bones indicate that it consumed both meat and vegetable matter. The mandibles likely facilitated quick consumption of prey, and the tusks probably aided in dredging up bottom-dwellers and uprooting plants from the ocean bed.
###### EXTINCTION
About 500,000 years ago, a supervolcano located near Kampos’ equator erupted underwater, causing planetwide tsunamis, substantial seismic shifts, and mass extinctions. The kamposi vanished from the fossil record shortly after the eruption took place. Analysis of kamposi tusks from several thousand years prior to this event indicate that there were no long-term stressors that might have contributed to its demise
###### CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE
The kamposi is considered a symbol of Kampos. Mostly covered in ocean, Kampos is home to a wide spectrum of aquatic life. The kamposi was one of the first major discoveries to come out of Kampos in its colony days. Possibly because it received a moderate amount of fame in the popular media after the first academic publication on it nicknamed the kamposi "lords of the deep," early inhabitants of Ellis IV embraced it as an emblem of their planet's oceans and unique biodiversity.
In 2945, a scale replica of the kampos skull first discovered by Gary Yahontov debuted in the Puglisi Collection. It remains the bestselling Puglisi item on Kampos.