Southern Wyvulture

The trio of giant aukvultures - stormshadow, drakevulture, and awegull - originated on the northern continent five million years ago, but have since spread over the wider world. As they establish themselves in environments unlike those from which they first arose, time slowly changes them as they adapt to utilize new habitat and unfamiliar food resources.

The southern wyvulture is a Serinaustran drakevulture that can be found in the northern coastal region, especially in the dunes around the great blue salt lake. The vegetation composition of the southern continent is denser than across Serinarcta, giving large vertebrate prey better cover to avoid large aerial predators, and this has led this aukvulture to become smaller - but at 6 feet high and with wings 20 feet tip to tip, it's still hardly little. It favors open environments with wind to aid its takeoffs, and so seaside regions fill the bill nicely. Unlike larger aukvultures, it can take off without the use of its wings to launch. It is equally competent walking on two legs as it is on all fours, and can run bipedally faster than on its wings over level terrain, letting it pursue smaller animals on the ground. It is a generalist carnivore, hunting along the margins of land and sea, taking some terrestrial prey, especially burdles, and also fishing, with a narrow snout well-suited to dipping below the surface and snatching slippery targets. A very strong flier, it follows a keen nose to carrion and gorges before stronger carnivores come around to finish the scraps, and it can feed just as well on the wing as on dry land, spotting fish from above and swooping just above the water to catch them and occasionally grabbing seraphs out of the air. It sometimes follows flocks of tribbfishers out to sea, catching them when they are distracted diving for fish too small for the wyvulture to collect. If its ancestor, the great crested drakevulture, was the tiger of its ecosystem, then the southern wylvulture has become a jackal; fast, cunning, and able to eat almost anything it can catch.

The bill crest of the wyvulture has narrowed significantly, reflecting its owners increased agility and need to quickly snap at smaller prey animals; a heavier beak would now be restrictive. Males develop a thickened layer of bright red keratin over the top of the crest during the mating season, increasing its size again by half, which distinguishes them from otherwise similar females. This is shed after pairs form, a hollow sheath that is scraped off on rocks and branches once its use is completed. Both sexes care for their young, alternating brooding their pupa in a simple scrape-like nest in sandy areas, often in the company of several other pairs for shared defense. Three to ten chicks fledge in around 4 weeks and stick very close to their parents; adjacent pairs coordinate their brooding so as to ensure their chicks pupate within a few days of each other, which lets them group all of their broods together for safety. Though chicks can fly within a few days of hatching, they cling to the backs of the adults and are carried on their very first flight from the sand dunes to sheltered wetland sites where they will spend their next fee weeks feeding on insects and small prey under the parents' watchful gaze. When they are a little less vulnerable, they will follow the adults on their own wings back toward the coast. Families remain together for two years before young go off alone and pairs nest again. Though they do not cooperate to hunt, several pairs will often rear their young together for many years in a row, developing a sort of familial bond.