Sky Rays
With lightweight and flexible keratinous exoskeletons, the Tharnydian Whip Ray takes on the methane exhaust of certain coral vents, filling their many small methane bladders with air until they can soar so high above the land that they appear as specs of dust.
Their bodies are covered in a mixture of mating photophores, breathing valves, eyes, and decoy eyes and natural eyes.
The eyes on their stalks allow them to see in the dark of the corralums, where they nest towards the bottom of the methane vents.
The large, widespread dorsal oculoids are for use in the air, and are capable of recognizing prey even from kilometers in the air at night.
They graze on spores and occasionally hunt rutas or other aerial predators by dive-bombing them at incredible speed and then curling up to bash them with a weighted or barbed regenerative tail.
Once they have landed and deflated their air bladders, they are still capable of bursts of flight, but once on land are clumsy and easily overcome. They have small, uncoordinated legs.
Some are eyes. Some are lies!
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