Aukvulture

The **aukvulture** (*Gigamitus discor*), also known as the **reaper** and the **seraph**, is a species of large, quadrupedal, pterosaur-like bird with a yellow, black, and white plumage, a moderately-long tail, and, uniquely among birds, has long wings with two clawed fingers to walk on ending in the wing tips that fold backwards, similarly to pterosaurs. The aukvulture originally did not exist, but has since been created by SciiFii and introduced across the world except the Arctic or Antarctica to help boost biodiversity. The aukvulture is the only living member of the Gigamiforminae subfamily, which are most closely related to a widespread subfamily Carduelinae. The aukvulture comes in two subspecies, the **beastly aukvulture** (*Gigamitus discor theriocephala*) and the **sapient aukvulture** (*Gigamitus discor vigilis*).

The aukvulture is among the largest flying birds on Earth, with the wingspan of up to 20 feet (6 meters) across. The beastly aukvulture is known to exploit the refuse of a wide range of societies, skipping diving and hunting for its own food and instead staying around boats and garbage dumps, but it is able to dive and hunt all by itself if far away from civilization. The aukvulture is thus a strong flyer and can still swim, but isn't a very skilled diver any longer. The beak of the aukvulture is robust and has enlarged tooth-like projections along it, making it resemble the teeth of a butcher's bone saw, well-suited to strip off leftover meat scraps from large bones. Aukvultures are intelligent for large flying birds, an outlier with a very large brain to body ratio nearing average proportions. Their increased intelligence coincides with a shift from fishing to scavenging and living within close proximity to the oceanic sapient species. Aukvultures are thus very mild-mannered, patient, inquisitive, and able to learn patterns easily. While gulls are a belligerent pest and a thief of the food supplies (and occasionally attacking smaller beings), aukvultures stick around being inoffensive and quiet and learning how to exploit the civilization's resources without any need to be aggressive about it. Just the the presence of aukvultures around boats discourages gulls by their large size alone, and so their presence is not only tolerated, but encouraged.

The beastly aukvultures nest on rocky cliffs with a polygamous social structure, but the benefits carried by both sexes being large has little differences between them, with males being only slightly bigger, and adaptation to fit into the coastal societies so well has made them largely non-aggressive. Female mate choice is the rule, with males aggressive drives redirected away from fighting each other and instead toward proving his worth as a provider by gathering as much food as he can for a potential mate and driving off rival species, like seagulls, that also nest on the same cliff sites. Though only the female broods her pupal offspring, the male protects her and his other partners (2-4 in the harem being typical) and feeds them all as they sit so that they don't have to leave their young, for they lack a fully-developed pouch and only exhibit a skin fold that can be laid over the nest like a blanket. Feeding up to four families at once can be a lot of work for the male, and it is very common for younger or smaller subordinate males to be allowed into the group, called a tribe, to help. These smaller males are often allowed to mate by the females when the dominant male is not around, and as long as he doesn't see it happen, all parties seem willing to turn a blind eye to this infidelity in exchange for help providing food and keeping away the seagulls.

Seagulls are indeed such a threat to the little dove-sized aukvulture chicks that though they are born with wing feathers and can fly shortly after hatching, they avoid leaving the nest at all for up to two weeks, instead bonding closely to their mother and other familiar adults in their tribe and learning to recognize them and avoid unrelated adults. During this time, all of the adults feed them. When they do begin to fly, they are escorted by the adults for more than six months until they are large enough to be safe from flying predators. During this time they are instructed by their elders on how to find food and interact positively with the ocean-going sapient species, as well as with other competitor animals. The young may begin to leave their caretakers around this time, though are not driven away aggressively and may stay much longer. Juveniles stay together as a flock for another two or three years after leaving the natal tribe until they are fully mature and then split off to find mates and form their own tribes.

The sapient aukvultures are a species that is sapient despite their lifestyle not requiring it. They use no tools at all, for their jaws do all they need, and their vocal language is more primitive than even many non-sophont birds which are more intrinsically social. Aukvultures have only limited ability to make hoarse honking sounds and so most of the sapient aukvultures’ communication is nonverbal - gestural and symbolic, often taking the form of beautiful and elegant dances. They name their children not with a vocal word but with an individual series of gestures that the child learns to represent itself, and carry these unspoken names through life. Their culture has a history going back to the first of their kind that were created by humans, and it too is told in dance but a different, coordinated sort that often whole groups engage in together to tell. The sapient aukvultures are a contemplative, sensitive and emotionally perceptive race, empathetic to other lifeforms and culturally opposed to the taking of any life, because even as obligate carnivores they are natural scavengers and their relatives do not hunt. They are not technology advanced, yet they have a highly developed code of ethics and strong moral principles which distinguish them from their wilder brethren, and they have been known to occasionally use advanced technologies made by more technologically advanced species such as humans. They do not fight amongst each other and kill only in mercy; they are spiritual in that they believe their lives continue in some form after death and so are respectful of the dead’s life essence - a similar concept to a human soul but extended to every living thing - but they lack an organized religion. They take the world as they see it and are not naturally particularly creative; they do not usually draw or write, though they tell stories of fiction and create fables passed down to their young often to warn of exaggerated real-life dangers, but can be taught to draw and write to tell stories.

The conservation status of both subspecies of aukvultures is **Least Concern** due to successful conservation efforts, the aukvultures' wide range and their tolerance to many of the human activities, and, in the case of the sapient aukvultures, are able to work and live alongside humans and other sapient species.