Puraeus

Although Venus has no trees, even it has more arboreal organisms than Mars, most of them living in the floating jungles of the upper atmosphere. Martians meanwhile have not much to climb on except for rocks, boulders, mountains and maybe a few tall shrubs here and there. The degrading climate has stopped supporting the growth of tree-like organisms millions of years ago. The only exception is the region of the Hellas Basin, but even here the scale-trees and tube-trees grow only sparsely, making the region resemble an open savannah more than forest. As such there are not many organisms specially adapted to dwell on them.

One of the few savannah-dwellers that can actually be called arboreal is a relic from an earlier time. The puraeus is one of the last remaining flagrobrachians. These are one of the groups which make up the insect-like phylum Aspiderma, to which also belong the wadjets. The relationship is immediately apparent, with the six lens-eyes, large head-plates and even little external gills, which look like they could be the archaic precursors to wings. Yet this animal cannot fly, but instead slithers and hangs between the branches of the scale-trees like a serpent. Neither are flagrobrachians the ancestors of wadjets, they are their own group that, as fossils show, made their way independently out of the vanished Martian oceans onto land.

Their most distinguishing feature are their mandibles, which have been repurposed into a pair of raptorial arms from which sprout long, prehensile tendrils. The puraeus is an ambush-predator, which lies in wait hanging from trees, ensnaring any smaller creatures which might climb or fly by, such as nekhbets. As the puraeus can no longer utilize its mandibles to kill and chew its prey, its jawless mouth has evolved a syringe-like spur, hidden underneath the headshield. With this it injects venom into its prey, as well as a strong acid, which digests it from the inside and allows the predator to simply suck it dry, like a spider.

The venom is also useful as a defensive weapon, as the puraeus can fall prey to various flying creatures such as ballousaurs. It is usually not strong enough to kill the attacker, but based on the behaviour of those bitten, it appears to cause a lot of stinging pain. Of course, no astronaut has ever volunteered to test that hypothesis themselves.

Puraeus also nest in trees, usually in holes beneath the bark. There they also raise their young. Once two puraeus have mated, only the impregnated partner will care for the offspring, but does so quite dutifully until they are old enough to hunt themselves. Until then it will usually feed them with regurgitated juices.