Hello, everyone,
I don’t think that’s intentional, I got a reaper instead of a rival during the last rival trigger in the forest region (see picture) when my threat level climbed to 21, before that it was only when I was over 21 and then dismantled a rival have.
Reapers have a chance to spawn even if the region is only level 21 and no rivals were destroyed, this is likely the case that had happened.
No rivals were zero there weren’t any in the forest region
Then the reaper decided it was its turn to spawn instead since the chance is for it to spawn instead of the rivals as long as the requirements were met, which they were in this case.
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It happens. I once ran to Granhygget (I think) and ran into a reaper that didn’t have a reaper tag at all and was not one of the rivals. It was simply a tank but also a reaper and resulted in a regular reaper fight. Just, really odd 
And I had as recent as last week two reapers on my map. One has disapered or at least the icon. Not sure if it still is around. Haven’t taken the time to look for it.