Winged Beasts, a squandered resource?

[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.