The Pegasi
Broadwings
The Broadwing Pegasus is the workhorse (har har) of the world. Most pilots ride these. Found all over the world, they’re sturdy, reliable, and robust. They’re based on quarter horses and mustangs or similar breeds. Their wings are comparable to eagle, owl, kite, and hawk wings. Broadwings are technically omnivores, though the vast majority of their diet is vegetarian. They are not considered predatory, and travel in flocks up to 50 strong. Like horses in our world, there is a clear herd hierarchy with a boss mare and protecting stallion.
Longwings
The Longwing Pegasus is a coastal breed. They live largely solitary lives and live on the cliff sides of the coasts. They will nest annually in pairs in known nesting grounds. Based on lighter horse breeds like Akhal Tekes, Warmbloods, and Thoroughbreds, they are a bit more fragile but have more stamina than broadwings. They tend to be energetic, flighty, highly intelligent. Their wings are similar to gulls, albatross, frigate birds, and terns. They eat mostly fish by skimming the tops of the waves, or diving down into the water.
Shortwings
The Shortwing Pegasus is the draft horse of the world. They are generally flightless unless aided by intense winds. They’re steady, slow, and flashy. Based on songbirds, pheasants, ducks, and peacocks, they’re quite colorful. Different islands have produced highly specific breeds. However, they are almost universally used for heavy farm work, or hauling over land. They eat seeds, nuts, and grasses. Untamed they also travel in flocks, but tend to keep nearby forests for the safety of tree cover from flying predators.
Other Creatures
Bushcats, silverfish, and nymbaks oh my!
The Crevasi
A sub-species of pegasus adapted to live deep in the chasms, far below the layers of mist. They’re wings, now all but featherless, have been re-purposed to be an additional set of legs. They use these to help traverse the steep walls and floors of the chasms.
They have developed other adaptions to cope with the incredibly dark environment: small amounts of bioluminescence, which they use to not only see with, but also to form and maintain social bonds. Larger eyes, or multiple eyes that capture infrared light, large, sensitive ears, and feet with 2-3 toes to help grip the walls are other common adaptions.
Their size varies from a small pony to average horse. The larger ones are slow and graceful, able to reach the mosses, lichens, and even fern-like plants that thrive in the low light and high-moisture environment. The smaller ones move quickly to chase small prey such as bugs and lizard-like vertebrates.
Crevasi tend to live solitary lives, but will occasionally congregate, or meet up with other individuals that they have met before. Rarely they will stay together in sibling pairs.
No human in the Sky Cowboys world has ever seen these. Only when man has the ability to survive the journey below the mist will they, and their unique ecosystem, be discovered.
Bushcats
The bush cat is a land-based, ambush predator. It lives in areas with low cover such as scrub brush, dense undergrowth, or rocky crags/cliff sides. They are large cats, weighing in at a range of 280-400 lbs, and standing 40 inches or more at the shoulder. Bush cats are solitary, have large territories, and tend to be courageous rather than cautions. They are opportunistic and can to be a particular danger to anyone traveling alone in areas with lots of cover. Traveling in the wide open is more advisable when alone and over land, since the bush cat will not chase its prey over an open distance.
However, they don’t naturally take to hunting people. Their natural prey are animals like the nimbak, and other small to medium winged animals. They hunt by ambush and specialize in snatching prey from the air as it is taking off in a panic after the bush cat flushes it out. Bush cats have slightly longer hind legs that add power to their leaps, and short, stiff tails used as a rudder during their jumps. Their claws are more severely curved to hook into the skin of their prey and drag it down to the ground. The largest bush cats can take down pegasi, though this is not common, since pegasi are at the top of their prey weight class, and tend to fight back more than nimbak.
Large ears help locate prey in their natural hunting grounds that have sporadic lines of sight. They raise litters of 1-3 kittens. Kittens stay with the mother for up to 2 years. Bush cat coats tend to be dusty tan with minimal white markings, though coat patterns vary based on specific environments. A bush cat on a southern island may have a vastly different coat than one on a more northerly island. They have local names, but are universally known as “bush cat”.
Silverfish
I started sketching the Silverfish: a large aerial predator. As of right now I’m thinking they’re up to 60 feet or longer, with huge jaws that can chomp a pegasus whole. They’re covered with bright silver (think chrome) scales that reflect their surroundings like mirrors to help them take on the color of their surroundings. They ambush hunt by dropping out of the sky onto their prey similar to a peregrine falcon. They never touch land, and if they do they are almost always unable to get airborn again, thus they die like a beached fish. They live their whole lives in the air, surfing from one high-altitude current to the next. I haven’t completely worked out their flight mechanisms other than expandable skin to catch air currents like a flying snake.
They usually hunt other high-altitude creatures (not sure what those are at the moment), in packs. Like sharks and dolphins, they prey on flocks of animals and press them into small groups to pick off the ones on the outside of the flock. Since pegasi don’t school together like that, (they would rather scatter), they don’t often hunt them. However, silverfish are opportunistic. They will stalk and attack singular pegasi, making them a danger to lone pilots.
Pilots also have to defend their air-born herds from silverfish attacks. This usually includes a “chaser” or two who distract the silverfish and lead them away from the herd. This job is dangerous, but a well-trained pegasus and experienced pilot can fly circles around a silverfish. Once the silverfish are back up to a significant altitude or distance away from their prey they will often cease their hunt. Silverfish tend to be all-or-nothing hunters, and do very little long-distance or intensive stalking.
Nymbaks
Nymbaks are gazelle-like creatures.
They are hive-like in that if you capture the queen, the whole hive will follow. But the queen isn't necessarily docile, and the tusked males will dive bomb and try to spear anything that gets close to the queen.
But the risk is worth it as these animals provide useful materials like the wool that grows on their back (it can be sheared), and the fine skin of their wings, or the ivory of the tusks. There are annual nymbak drives to move the herds to new nesting, grazing, and shearing locations.