Minnosparrow

Minosparrows are air-breathing, fish-like fauna which breed in water, have air-breathing aquatic young, and spend their short adult lives almost constantly airborne.

=Life Cycle= The young, which cannot fly, live in large pools and shallow bodies of water inland in the marsh. They are herbivorous, but in their adolescence gain a taste for meat and start eating various small fauna. However, they are good at leaping out of the water at a young age. The juveniles can swim rapidly, leap out of the water, and glide to nearby ponds, allowing them to evade aquatic predators or escape ponds which are getting too shallow.

Adults live for a few weeks along marshes and estuaries, flying in groups. They snap at each other with their beaks during the spawning season, but are not especially competitive or complex in their mating behaviors. They land at the edges of pools and shallow bodies of water inland to spawn.

=Physiology= Minosparrows have somewhat narrower heads than those of their ancestor. Soft, fatty tissue smooths out some dips in its body, such as around its intake hole, making it more aerodynamic. Its lower fins are thick and fleshy, acting as “landing gear” and allowing the adults to land on soft mud or wet sand. Like its ancestors, it has no scales: its body is smooth and slippery. Like all gilltails, they do not have bones, so they are lighter than they may seem. They do have gristly reinforcing structures at the base of the wings and around the intake valve, however.

Their circulatory systems and muscle tissue is efficient at storing and using oxygen: a holdover from its distant ancestor the Chum Gilltail, which had to adapt to low-oxygen conditions. The Minosparrow, however, is even better at quickly using oxygen in its body, to the point its muscle tissue is dark red from its oxygen-storing pigments. Like opahs, they keep themselves warm through sustained muscle activity. They breathe in the following way: humid air enters their intake valves, the air goes through tubes in their bodies and is absorbed by lunglike structures in the back, and is then "exhaled".

The upper fins have sensory strands, giving it information on its body’s stability in the air. (It lacks the inner ear mechanisms common among Earth animals that give balance information.)

Lacking teeth, they swallow prey whole. They favor Cloudswarmers, and fauna over flora.

=Behavior= The adults have lifestyles somewhat more like sparrows or swallows than flying fish; their tails become proportionately shorter and less muscular, since they don't move their tails rapidly to get out of the water. Where the wind is weak, though, they may strongly leap upward like a stranded fish to take off. They can take off quickly, but don't fly especially fast or high, similarly to gamefowl like turkeys. Indeed, they usually fly about four feet up from the ground. They can't make especially sharp or quick turns, though they can still navigate well when the obstacles are sparse. Their greatest strength is stamina, allowing them to fly for three to five hours at a time with no rest, or longer if there’s coastal breezes. They feed almost constantly on small, airborne organisms in the marsh and outlying coastlines, and are active both at night and at day.

They are not particularly intelligent, and occasionally smack into Leafy Plyentworts (which lure in the Gushitos they eat) like a bird smacking into a glass office building. Their camouflage, schooling, slippery bodies and large numbers of young ensure their survival. They have several predators, including Tipsnappers, an occasional predator.