Winged Beasts, a squandered resource?

[Morthoron]

Well, we know there must have been more than nine, because Legolas shot one down:

"This is Nazgul Two to Ground Control
I'm feeling very still,
And I think my Fell Beast knows which way to go.
Tell Khamul I love him very much..."

"He knows!"

"Ground Control to Nazgul Two your circuit's dead, there's something wrong.
Can you hear me Nazgul Two?
Can you hear me Nazgul Two?
Can you hear me Nazgul Two?"

"Can you...here am I sitting on my Fell Beast
Far above the world.
Middle-earth, I seek the Ring
On my pterodactyl thing."

Ummm...sorry, David Bowie moment.

[Boromir88]

Morthoron Anytime someone mentions David Bowie I think of Labyrinth, can't really describe whether it's a good feeling or bad though.

Also, it's not like these fell beasts were some huge dragon-sized/like creatures as the movies portray. I believe they're even smaller than eagles (or at most roughly the size of eagles)...I mean they were just really large vultures and they stank. Afterall, Legolas shoots one down with a shot and Eowyn decapitates another.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

Morthoron Anytime someone mentions David Bowie I think of Labyrinth, can't really describe whether it's a good feeling or bad though.

I really liked Bowie up until 1976's 'Station to Station', but I have been indifferent to his career afterwards.

Originally Posted by Boromir88

Also, it's not like these fell beasts were some huge dragon-sized/like creatures as the movies portray. I believe they're even smaller than eagles (or at most roughly the size of eagles)...I mean they were just really large vultures and they stank. Afterall, Legolas shoots one down with a shot and Eowyn decapitates another.

You know, I thought that also, until someone pointed out Tolkien letter#211, in which a correspondent named Rhona Beare asked Tolkien if the WitchKing rode a pterodactyl. Like any Elf, Tolkien answers both yes and no:

Pterodactyl. Yes and no. I did not intend the steed of the WitchKing to be what is now called a 'pterodactyl', and often is drawn (with rather less shadowy evidence than lies behind many monsters of the new and fascinating semi-scientific mythology of the 'Prehistoric'). But obviously it is pterodactylic and owes much to the new mythology, and in description even provides a sort of way in which it could be a last survivor of older geological eras.

[Boromir88]

Like any Elf, Tolkien answers both yes and no

Of course.

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

I wonder, though: do we have any information as to where the so-called fell beasts came from? Could they possibly have been something Sauron was working on relatively recently, breeding in Mordor? Perhaps they were his attempt to bring back the strength of the dragons of old, but being of lesser craft and power than Morgoth, this was the best he could do, and they simply hadn't been sufficiently mature to carry a rider until that point in the Third Age. That's one thought.

Another might be that the Nazgul at first were out trying to ascertain the location of the Ring, and if they'd been swooping about on these hideous winged mounts, they might not have received even as pleasant a reception as they got from Farmer Maggot and the Dwarves of Erebor. A creepy black rider on a black horse might give one pause, but the same creepy black rider flying in on a critter disturbingly reminiscent of a dragon (especially to the Dwarves) would inspire doors to be locked and barred even before the thing landed, methinks.

[Boromir88]

I wonder, though: do we have any information as to where the so-called fell beasts came from?~Ibrin

I don't think so, or at least nothing new that hasn't already been brought up in the thread.

The difficulty also is exactly what type of creature they were. Tolkien, in some form, compared them to pterodactyls, also I'm pretty sure there is some mention of them having feathers, but there's not much else.

The term "fell beast" is not a specific ID, in the way that a certain race is - like say Elf, Dwarf, Ent...etc. Those words all refer to a specific race, when you see "Dwarf" a specific image pops to mind. "Fell beast" is far more vague, as all it really means is some evil, or deadly, animal or creature and just the descriptive words Tolkien chose to refer to the flying-things the Nazgul rode.

[Lalwendë]

In the real world the only 'fell beasts' you find are sheep and the occasional hiker in a cagoule, so in that respect the term makes me laugh.

Bringing back up the quote Nerwen posted:

A creature of an older world maybe it was, whose kind, lingering in forgotten mountains cold beneath the Moon, outstayed their day, and in hideous eyrie bred this last untimely brood, apt to evil. And the Dark Lord took it, and nursed it with fell meats, until it grew beyond the measure of all other things that fly; and he gave it to his servant to be his steed.

Tolkien makes it clear their origins are unknown, but that they had been around in more ancient times, and had gradually died out apart from in isolated areas. They sound as though they could be nocturnal creatures (a little like bats?) and they are carnivores. They can also grow to a huge size if they are bigger than any other flying creature - presumably including both Eagles and Dragons?!

[Gordis]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

I'm pretty sure there is some mention of them having feathers, but there's not much else.

It had no feathers:

And behold! it was a winged creature: if bird, then greater than all other birds, and it was naked, and neither quill nor feather did it bear, and its vast pinions were as webs of hide between horned fingers; and it stank.-LOTR

Now wings as "webs of hide between horned FINGERS" is a feature of mammals, for instance bats.
See this comparative anatomy illustration comparing wing structure in pterodactyls (upper picture) in bats (the picture in the middle) and birds (bottom picture)
Wings

Edit: Here a better drawing: Wing Bones
with explanations here
The question is whether Tolkien himself was aware of these facts. Probably he wasn't.

The absence of feathers speaks against the FB being a bird. All the rest, (except the wing structure) indicates a reptile.