Farmers who graze their cattle near slow-moving rivers or placid lakes warn their neighbors when rumors of a cuero pass from village to village. These strange, flat creatures haunt waterways in search of large prey to satisfy their voracious appetites. When more passive, cueros lie in wait at the bottom of a lake or river for suitable prey to swim overhead. In lean times, cueros sit just beneath the water's surface near the shore and stay perfectly still until an animal comes near to drink. They sometimes even bury themselves in the muddy banks of a river to surprise passersby. Their upper surface resembles wet, wrinkled cowhide, or perhaps a drowned animal, but its underside is dominated by a toothy maw. A cuero is over 10 feet across, with a long dangling tail, and weighs around 600 pounds.

Sporewings. Sporewings are cunningly evolved variant cueros, adapted to life outside of the water. Their hunting and mating habits are similar t their aquatic cousins, but they have developed buoyant air-sacs that enable them to hover and fly, using their muddy coloration while clinging to the ground or to mounds of vegetation to hide their presence before launching themselves into the air to unleash their entangling spores onto their victims and gnawing them to death once they have been overcome.