There are quite a lot of characters in Tolkien that don't quite fit the formal hierarchy of being, as it were: creatures with intelligence,personality and an in-dwelling spirit. Are they all Maiar? And if not, what are they? The eagles and the ents, of course; Ungoliant and her offspring; the vampire-like Thuringwethil (sp?); the dragons; Bombadil and Goldberry, and the River-Mother. Many of these clearly can propagate their 'species'. There are probably others. Tolkien was plainly struggling about orcs, and did not really come up with a satisfactory answer. He created a lot of beings that didn't fit his system, and there is no solving this one. Since Tolkien's conceit for his creations was that LOTR, the Silmarillion and the Hobbit were all surviving accounts of a vanished world, we can just accept that this surviving material didn't include all the answers and explanations of the mysteries of the Elder Days.
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