Volaero Mermaids

Volaero Mermaid
Also called aeromaids.
Size: 30'
Habitat: Tropical waters of Topazial Sea
Threat: Medium- High (when in schools)

Based off of the flying fish.

Aeromaids are a smaller species of mermaid that live in the warm, tropical waters of the Topazial Sea. What makes them special from other mermaid species is their greatly enlarged pectoral and pelvic fins, which makes them seem to have two sets of wings. They also have a deeply forked, vertical tailfin. The fins on their sides can fold back against her tail if she wishes to swim normally, but they can be unfurled in an instant after the aeromaid darts out of the water to use the warm updrafts along with her thrashing tail to skim above the surface of the water. This is useful for both escaping the jaws of much larger predators and taking unwary human vessals by surprise. She can also flap the fins like wings for lift to stretch the distance of their gliding flights. Aeromaids may be small compared to other mermaids, which might make them seem less dangerous, but they typically travel in schools and won't hesitate to storm a vessal all at once, landing onboard and gobbling up one or two unfortunate humans before pulling themselves back into the water. Being assaulted by a school of aeromaids can be just as deadly as a single giant mermaid attack, albeit less destructive. Then again, the chaos caused has been known to draw the attention of larger predators to clean up the aftermath...

Aeromaids have excellent eyesight to improve their visual acuity in the air and have wide, expressive eyes. They may seem to be young giant mermaids at a glance with their less pronounced frame, but this is simply the form their airworthy adaptation has taken.

Their evolutionary path is obviously deviating from that of other mermaid species and many scientists wish to study them but doing so is extremely dangerous is as with any other Felaryan predator.

Luckily, they are rarely found very close to shore or out of their native tropical waters, in which they are usually content to dart around just under the surface for available food. But when in their hunting territory, not even low-flying aircraft are safe and the voaleros are the bane of ships that are only armored on the bottom.

They can be somewhat overconfident in their abilities of evasion; taunting a meiramines mermaid and expecting to be able to dodge a pressurized water attack usually gets them shot down more often than not. In more serious matters, such as getting too close to a caecelia or such, they can put too much faith in gliding and be attacked by something that can chase them faster underwater... As such, aeromaid schools often get themselves into trouble and their numbers are usually kept to about five per school. Known to accompany leviathans if they are near the surface, but aeromaids dislike the dark depths and much prefer the warm, sunlit surface.

There exist stories of volaeros, tales that tell of a young mermaid who yearns not to walk on land as in some other stories, but to fly amongst the clouds, leaping again and again in futility. But eventually she perseveres, growing a pair of wings and taking off into the open sky. These stories often spitefully end with the flying mermaid's wings being singed off from flying too close to the sun, being forced back down to live in the ocean. ... Yeah, stories about predators rarely end well. ^^;


Flying mermaids. Discuss.

Well, one things for sure, I won't be taking a trip down there anytime soon.

They sound SO cool! I bet sailors are too dazzled by the sight of flying boobies beautiful girls to really be aware that they're about to be eaten. Bwuhaha.

Interesting beings you have here. I think I'll give it a thumbs up. No, two thumbs up.

I'd love to see how these flying mermaid/harpy fish develop.

Thanks for the positive remarks!

It's not so much that they resemble harpies at all, but the fact that their fins are developing into functioning wings suggests that that is the evolutionary direction they are going. Hell, one day they might end up looking like aquatic angel-looking creatures. But now their advantage lies the matter of surprise- when she's flying right at your boat you have only a split-second to react and in that time you'll probably be trying to grasp the concept of a flying mermaid.

I'll leave the "zomg flying bewbies!" niche to the harpies.

*just got this awful image of a Saku Naga throwing an Aeromaid to a boat... and the Aeromaid's saying; 'WHEEE!'*

My head coughing up random things!

I really like Aeromaids though, very original. And the evolutionary theory with them too, that adds a nice scientific touch.

But... but... I like the amphibious flying boobies too! TT-TT

L'Ryn wrote:

*just got this awful image of a Saku Naga throwing an Aeromaid to a boat... and the Aeromaid's saying; 'WHEEE!'*

Of course, if you want to throw one like a paper airplane, you'd have to catch it first.

L'Ryn wrote:

*But... but... I like the amphibious flying boobies too! TT-TT

And they still have boobies. They're just harder to glimpse.


I'm thinking of different names that don't contain the suffix "maid". A few words I'm playing around with are Volans, Icaria or a variation of Icarus as mentioned before, the flying fish family name Exocoetidae and the latin "aero" for flight and "piscis" for fish. Of course, I could stick with aeromaid, but I'd like to see what we can come up with.

Oh, and here's the flying fish world record flight.

Astrology!

They could totally be called Volans, and it could be like, a name given to them many centuries ago by a primitive people who revered them as both signs of fortune and as eupheisms for murder... err... yeah, rethink that. LOL.

Astrology in Felarya, even in name, is interesting enough. Volans has this nice feminie sound... makes me think of a certain organ though.

EDIT:

I mean like, the Saku Naga could be the Volan's friend or something, and they'd work together in hunting, the Saku Naga keeping the boat from going ashore, and the Volans getting a meal from it. I know nothing though.

Even more dangerous than the normal ones. It would be funny if they got overconfident enough to irritate Anko.

Hehe. I'm pretty sure that Anko wouldn't give them time to taunt her, all those cute and delicious mermaids flying around...


Okay. Tentative names.

Aeropiscis (Latin for words flight and fish)

Volaero- Volan, the flying fish constellation and aero.

Icaridae- Icarus and exocoetidae.

Alright. There's my lazy names. Any thoughts of alternate ones?

Adwedd Bysgota or Adwedd for short
Welsh for 'Flight Fish'

Okay. Volaero mermaids, aeromaids for short. That seems right.

Any other thoughts?

I like this idea ^_^
Definitely an original one with lot of possibilities

Glad to hear.

But something has occured to me- I'm compromising between a normal-sized mermaid and a giant one for a mermaid based off of a flying fish- and flying fish evolved that way solely to escape predation, and it serves little more purpose than that. Do you think that keeping them mid-sized and predatory would be preferrable to a smaller and prey-based type? Maybe an offworld species that evolved the only way it could- if not to grow giant, then evolving their fins to be in order to survive the harsh seascape. Meh, just a thought.^^

I love the idea, very original, and I'd love to see them darting around over ships eating people with hit-and-run sort of attacks.

/Fish/ wrote:

not even low-flying aircraft are safe

*gulp* I can most definitely make a story out of this, once I finish drawing several of my characters and *still thinking of name* gets some excuse for a workshop where he can build a junk aircraft.
^
You know, I might just call him S-Guy.

/Fish/ wrote:

Volaero Mermaid


There exist stories of volaeros, tales that tell of a young mermaid who yearns not to walk on land as in some other stories, but to fly amongst the clouds, leaping again and again in futility. But eventually she perseveres, growing a pair of wings and taking off into the open sky. These stories often spitefully end with the flying mermaid's wings being singed off from flying too close to the sun, being forced back down to live in the ocean. ... Yeah, stories about predators rarely end well. ^^;

This little section reminds me of the story of Icarus. To those who don't know, the story of Icarus is about a boy (Icarus) and his father who are held prisoner. The father invents two pairs of wings out of spare wood, wax, and fallen bird feathers. One pair for the father, the other for Icarus. They escape their prison (which is a tower or something) by jumping of the window's ledge and flying toward a nearby island. Icarus is warned by his father that the salty air will disolve the wax in a matter of time, and not to fly too close to the sun, but Icarus does so anyways (Just how some people are told not to look at the sun but do it anyways). The wax melts, thus Icarus falls to his death in the ocean. Icarus's father gets to the island, and hangs his wings as a grave for his son. In other stories, the father made the wings out o brass (or so I'm told)

@Mikeimp:

Spot on.
In fact, one of the names I was toying with was "Icariamaid" after the aforementioned story. I think that since they seem to be in a transitional stage in evolution, doubts about their eventual success of true flight would be somewhat comforting to their potential prey.

mikeimp wrote:

This little section reminds me of the story of Icarus. To those who don't know, the story of Icarus is about a boy (Icarus) and his father who are held prisoner. The father invents two pairs of wings out of spare wood, wax, and fallen bird feathers. One pair for the father, the other for Icarus. They escape their prison (which is a tower or something) by jumping of the window's ledge and flying toward a nearby island. Icarus is warned by his father that the salty air will disolve the wax in a matter of time, and not to fly too close to the sun, but Icarus does so anyways (Just how some people are told not to look at the sun but do it anyways). The wax melts, thus Icarus falls to his death in the ocean. Icarus's father gets to the island, and hangs his wings as a grave for his son. In other stories, the father made the wings out o brass (or so I'm told)

Ah that was it---Icarus. I was trying to remember what story that was but it kind of escaped me.