Aeraja is an Air and Earth-type Creo that weakens its prey with a venomous bite and returns to collect the meal days later.
Aeraja is best known for a patient, two stage hunting strategy that allows it to bring down prey many times larger and stronger than itself. By lying low and biting ankles, it circumvents the defenses of Creo who could have knocked it out of the air long before it got anywhere close.
Biology
Aeraja has a violet serpentine body and bat-like wings. Both its head and the small wing-shaped membranes on either side of its tail's tip are a deep indigo.
An Aeraja bite is not meant to deal instant death. Instead it initiates a slow process of immune decay in the victim, which takes several nights to run its course.
Aeraja hunts in two stages. First, it folds its wings to its sides and worms its way beneath the soil's surface, within biting reach of most prey. With a lightning-quick strike, it sinks its fangs into its victim. After marking several meals for later in this way, Aeraja takes flight. For several nights, it roams the sky freely, making impressive maneuvers with its wings and tail membranes. These acrobatics help Aeraja work up a respectable appetite. At that point, its walking meals will have such deteriorated immune systems that it can simply swoop down and devour them, facing little to no resistance. Too heavy a meal will restrict the airborne mobility that Aeraja love so much.
Aeraja prefer habitats with rich loamy soil or layers of fallen leaves that they can burrow under. They rarely stay in one place for long, electing to range far and wide during their nighttime flights. That being said, they will always circle back to their selected prey, for the Aeraja that injects a creature always has first dibs on its flesh. Afterward, it is perfectly acceptable among Aeraja to pick on the carcass left behind by a fellow hunter. Large carcasses commonly feed multiple Aeraja.