Cotton Candy Phlyer

Food could be scare in the tundra and barrens of Drake, especially for a plent that only eats one kind of fruit. Many Polar Spade-Leaves would be picked clean, causing a large number of Pink Phlyers to go hungry. For this reason a population of them were often forced to feed on other species of fruiting plants, to not compete with their more successful kin. Some were forced to eat spoiled fruit to survive. This population passed on traits letting its descendants eat more kinds of fruits and digest decaying material, letting them switch their diet and split from the Pink Phlyers.

As they evolved they adopted a mostly cyan color, the pink in their color diminishing to better camouflage with the Glassleaf, one of their new sources of food. Their butt nostrils and tail fins have also developed blue stripes, to better blend into the leaves of the Glassleaf. Similarly though, their total wingspan is the same size their wings are proportionally longer to their torso, as their bodies are a bit smaller to fit atop a Glassleaf. As the Pink Phlyers had bigger bodies, this new species was easily scared off by their ancestor and continued to leave Polar Spade-Leaves alone.

This group of Phlyers also had traits that gave them a smaller size, and with their small stature and large bat-like wings they struggled to survive the cold of the north. Because of the limitations of their bodies to produce heat they were pushed ever southward of the barrens and tundra, accidentally bringing the Glassleaf to the steppe. Some of these new Phlyers however moved farther south to the prairie, where they switched to feeding and nesting on the fruits of the Glountain. Even those of the steppe however will migrate to the prairie in the winter, as again their ability to withstand the cold is too limited.

One of their strategies for the cold is to huddle together in their family group, the young kept in the middle with their two parents wrapping their wings around them. Adult Cotton Candy Phlyers still mate for life, choosing their mates based off the toots they make. Like their ancestor, the mother will give birth to two to three young at a time, but now the mated pair will make crude nests made of bits of soft plant material on top of either a Glassleaf or a Glountain, keeping them away from more predators. On fairer weather, only one parent will typically bask at the nest at a time, while the other will fly away to search for fruits. As their nest trees naturally produce fruit, adolescent Phlyers can feed themselves at a younger age than their ancestors. However, climbing on the ends of a Glassleaf’s leaves can cause them to fall to the ground. If a young Phlyer falls from the nest before they are ready to leave, their large wings will let them glide safely to the ground. When they land they will toot out to signal to their parent to rescue them. Falling is not uncommon, and can give them experience for flying as an adult.

A large portion of a Cotton Candy Phlyer’s time on sunny days is spent basking with their large wings, both to warm their small bodies up and to photosynthesize. They have developed the ability to store this sugar as the antifreeze sugar compound xylomannan, which helps prevent damage from ice forming on their wings. Their basking behavior was partly what led to their immigration to the steppe and prairie, as they were driven to nest farther south to have better access to sunlight.