Greater Peryton

The giraffowl are one of the hothouse's most charismatic groups, and they're distinct among the seraphs for the widespread flightlessness of adults. While most young giraffowl are small, swift fliers, there are exceptions; capricocks and crownprinces are flightless even as infants. And in turn, though the vast majority of giraffowl adults are grounded and lose all traces of their wings, there is a single family of these birds which doesn't. They are not primitive, but rather neotenic; their juvenile and adult lifestages have slowly become intertwined together, and they no longer lose their wings, for they are useful to the adult in the new sky island environments that these animals have specialized towards. They are the perytons, a small clade of six species across two genera.

Perytons are basically the giraffowl's answer to the skyland unicorn or a mountain goat; an energetic, agile, relatively small climber of steep surfaces. They are all, save for one, found in association with sky islands - but one, found only in the nightforest canopy, is arboreal. Their diets are omnivorous, much comprised of grass and forbs, but also the eggs and nestlings of mowerbirds. Male perytons sport large, arcing antler-crests attached to the top of their bills; these structures are purely used to attract a mate and are very delicate, with a hollow interior. Females, crestless, observe mock-battles between males involving ritualized display posturing but little physical confrontation before choosing their partner, who is then left shortly after and takes no role in childcare. Only a single pupa is born at a time, held in the female's abdominal pouch for around 4 weeks before it emerges; it will stay there another 2 weeks afterward until it becomes a strong enough climber - and flier - to keep up with her. With only one offspring per litter, and at most two litters per year, female perytons invest a great deal of energy into each one's survival and are strongly protective parents, keeping their young with them for up to 18 months - and so, usually, having two at a time accompanying them in different ages of development. When the third is born, the first is usually old enough to go off on its own.

Greater perytons of the firmament are the largest of the family, but they are still small for giraffowls - they can weigh up to 60 lbs. Their bodies are lightly built, almost fragile, and seem ill-suited to take any abuse. For while unicorns must be sturdy enough to take an occasional tumble, this is not of concern for the peryton, which can spread its wings and avoid any falls that could result from a misstep as it bounds along sheer cliffs. Their wings are short and broad, suited for brief, powerful flapping flight rather than prolonged exertion, and this is how perytons generally use their wings. Most of their movement is on four legs; sometimes, they may walk on just their back ones. Flapping is often used for wing-assisted incline running, to catch falls and only infrequently to cross distances of up to a half mile between islands. At such extreme distances their flight trends downward, becoming a long glide with occasional supplementing fluttering to maintain height. Perytons generally lack endurance for long migration, and are likewise vulnerable to predators if caught walking on the ground, where they also have difficulty taking off upwards, as their breast muscles are smaller than in other flying aukvultures, for they normally just drop off a cliff into the air to take off. This has limited their range significantly, and all species are found in southern Serinarcta, save for one. Yet where they do occur, perytons are unmistakable and intriguing, an exploration of the possibilities of giraffowl anatomy that demonstrates that even highly specialized lineages can sometimes revert to a more primitive form in conditions where their derived traits no longer benefit their survival.