False Moons

The first known image of a False Moon, which depicts a female idly floating in the skies above a large building.

### Date of Creation

July 27th, 2020

False Moons are a species of enormous cryptids made by by RandomStuff Animations.

## Appearance

False moons are unusually large, dark grey creatures that resemble deep sea anglerfish. Like anglerfish, they have a bulbous esca that brightly glows to attract prey. However, the esca is placed farther up on the body, with the base of it being attached to the forehead instead of the snout. This esca is only present in the females, with the males being far smaller and lacking both bioluminescence and functioning digestive systems.

## Behavior

These creatures, as they are animalistic beings, display no signs of sapience or sentience. The females behave and feed in a manner very similar to actual anglerfish, being ambush predators that use rhythmic flashing in their esca to draw in prey, with smaller species of Aircraft Sharks and Sky Mantas making up the bulk of their diets. These esca also produce a low drumming sound, which is theorized to be what lures their blind prey in. The females typically hunt at night or on cloudy days, where visibility is low. When seen from below on the ground, the glowing, bulbous esca of the females can sometimes be mistaken for a second moon, which is where their name comes from. On occasion, a female false moon will use her esca to lure in passenger planes and other aircraft, which she more often than not will consume if the aircraft gets too close. However, the fuel of aircraft poisons false moons, and if a false moon consumes enough aircraft, it will die of fuel poisoning, displaying symptoms similar to cholera.

When it comes to reproduction, because individuals are locally rare, encounters are also very rare. Therefore, finding a mate is problematic, and if a male finds a female, he may never get another chance at reproduction. As a result, false moons practice parabiotic reproduction, which is a common trait in actual anglerfish. When a male finds a female, he bites into her skin and releases an enzyme that digests the skin of his mouth and her body, fusing the pair down to the cellular level. The male becomes dependent on the female for survival by receiving nutrients via a shared circulatory system, and provides sperm to the female in return. After fusing, males increase in volume and become much larger relative to free-living males, with some attached males being mistaken by humans for extra fins. False moons practice live birth, giving birth to up to a hundred free-swimming young in events called spawnings. While a majority of the larvae die before reaching maturity, about 5% of all false moon larvae reach adulthood. The males live and remain reproductively functional as long as the female lives, and can take part in multiple spawnings.

## Theories

Very little is known about these creatures, resulting in theories on what their origins are to run wild. However, the main theory on their origin is that they originated from a different dimension where flying animals adapted to reach immense sizes, which is the same dimension both aircraft sharks and sky mantas hail from. If this is the case, it is unknown how all three species managed to find their way to earth.