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So we have the animal that breathes ice and the traditional fire-breathing dragon. We even have animals on Earth that can emit electricity of over 800 volts.

But what about another element, wind?

There's the jet-dragon, but it was deemed infeasible for various reasons and the hypothesis was that its propulsion was intended to be a form of navigation. This creature does not have to be a flying creature or a dragon, or push air out of some hole (but it can be.)

Criteria that I am looking for:

  • The creature can use powerful wind forces to frighten, disarm, confuse, disable, kill, or flee from other animals.
  • The former criterion means "our ability to blow with our mouths" or small winged animals "flapping their wings" is not a sufficient answer.
  • The ability to push air can come from any part of their body, even an imaginary structure that you invent within the realm of science. I'm not constraining how it comes to be.
  • It needs to be strong and usable. For the purpose of this question, let the force of its wind be sufficient to kill small animals (with or without combination with the environment), frighten large animals or render itself difficult to be preyed upon, or retrieve food in some manner with wind.
  • If its wind power is for fleeing, let your creativity fly (pun maybe intended.)

So I propose the question: How do you get an animal with wind power?

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    $\begingroup$ I've always thought of the 4 elements as air, water, earth, and plasma (fire/lightning). And light, if you want. I've never heard of a system with only ice, fire, electricity, and wind. $\endgroup$
    – Xandar The Zenon
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 0:16
  • $\begingroup$ The Nintendo 64 game Quest 64 refers to it as wind, not air. I didn't want to go into the semantics of it all but that's an example. : ) $\endgroup$
    – The Anathema
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 0:50
  • $\begingroup$ You just confused me by saying other. That made me think these were the only elements. It's not that important, though. $\endgroup$
    – Xandar The Zenon
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 1:01
  • $\begingroup$ @TheAnathema Air seems more traditional, if you're going with the traditional greek system of elements. Of course, they didn't know about plasma, either. $\endgroup$
    – PipperChip
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 21:40
  • $\begingroup$ So interesting question and few answers this is sad $\endgroup$
    – Drakio-X
    Commented Dec 6, 2020 at 8:42

6 Answers 6

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May I suggest:

THE WIND SHRIMP

Perhaps you have heard of Mantis Shrimp, or even the pistol shrimp, but the wind crab takes these spring-and-lock mechanisms to the next level. It's a terrestrial shrimp with a unique twist: it has turned one of its claws into a vortex cannon. It has a specialized claw which stores spring energy, retracting its claw into the "loaded" position. The claw, when released, forces air along evolutionarily designed groove to eject air out the end of the claw at fantastic speeds. It uses this special ability to:

  • Shoot birds in the eye. The sudden blast of wind causes many predators to flinch, letting the wind shrimp prance away!
  • knock prey items out of the air or into water, such as blowing holes in the wings of a butterfly or shooting caterpillars off low-laying leaves into pools below.
  • Clean up leaves, because it is a considerate crustacean and enjoys a tidy habitat as well as punching holes in said leaves to impress females.
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  • $\begingroup$ Goodness sakes, I laughed. I quite enjoyed your use of its wind power to attract mates, too. ;) $\endgroup$
    – The Anathema
    Commented Feb 1, 2016 at 22:58
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    $\begingroup$ I think they're called "Windy Shrimp" and are native to Vergon 6. $\endgroup$
    – Samuel
    Commented Feb 1, 2016 at 23:14
  • $\begingroup$ @Samuel I didn't even know... there was no intentional copying, I promise! $\endgroup$
    – PipperChip
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 9:36
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Use Sound.

Wind is simply a fluid responding to pressure gradients, the fluid flows from a higher pressure to a lower one. Wind is really just kinetic force carried by a fluid, sound is the same. The pistol shrimp does this impressively underwater, but while we call air currents "wind" we don't do the same for water currents. I discuss creatures (in air) with sonic powers in this answer, so I'll not duplicate it here.

To summarize, you can get a creature that can disorient with pressure waves in air, but killing is very difficult to do.

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How about a flying creature that can store wind from its dives to be used later?

It would have a big mouth, or other opening to help funnel the air into a large, muscled bladder. To fill the bladder up, it would repeatedly fly as high as it could, and dive. Once it got up enough speed, it would open its mouth to pressurize the bladder.

Then, to release the air and use it for defense, there's simply a valve that opens up to let out the air. It could also use its mouth to direct the released air toward different targets (or maybe a few targets at once, if you want).

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A large fly mammal with large lungs and large lung capacity and a large mouth. It would breathe in large amount of air and breathe it out stunning it smaller flying animals allowing it to moving in for the kill.

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    $\begingroup$ You could replace "fly mammal" with virtually any other name and your answer would remain functionally the same. Could you please clarify how its lungs would be powerful enough to kill other animals? $\endgroup$
    – The Anathema
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 14:44
  • $\begingroup$ @The Anathema not kill stun. Its teeth and claws for do all the killing. $\endgroup$
    – Bryan McClure
    Commented Feb 3, 2016 at 2:34
  • $\begingroup$ I thought I made that clear $\endgroup$
    – Bryan McClure
    Commented Feb 3, 2016 at 2:35
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You could have the animal put water in a special, electrified sack. The electrified sack would use electrolysis to split the water into Hydrogen and Oxygen. This would pressurize the sack, and allow the animal to release wind (actually Hydrogen and Oxygen) later on.

Not sure what you're using this for, but this would also make the Hydrogen and Oxygen filled bladder explosive. (Which could be an interesting plot device).

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How about an animated tornado? Or perhaps a whirlwind, if scaled down, as in Heinlein's story, "Our Fair City?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Fair_City
Such a being could (I assert) deliver heat or cold, not just batter with airborne debris. Even paper debris could be deadly, e.g. to drivers on the freeway.

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