Save the Umbrellas

Characteristic Behaviors:
Like bats, umbrellas are frequently found hanging upside down in dark places. They are not exclusively nocturnal, however. Umbrellas generally shun sunny days (except Parasolis), and come out only on cloudy or rainy days. They live on nutrients derived from moisture in the air and are capable of hibernating for years between feedings if necessary. During their dormant season umbrellas may fold their wings tightly about their bodies, securing them with an “umbrellical cord” about their middles, or they may retreat into skin-tight cocoons. Umbrellas rarely breed in captivity; most are captured wild in their native breeding grounds (China) and exported.

Domesticated umbrellas, like domesticated turkeys, are generally flightless. Years of evolutionary degeneration, brought on by umbrellas’ growing dependence on humans, has weakend the umbrella’s skeleton to the degree that most individuals are unable to fly. Far from the ice age days when vast flocks of umbrellas could be seen circling the frozen tundra in search of thawing pools of water, the domesticated umbrella will not even expand its wings unless a human carries it to moisture. Occasionally on a windy day instincts will be aroused and an umbrella will attempt to take flight, but this is often a fatal experience resulting in skeletal inversion.

Habitat:

Umbrellas of the Bumbershootus and Collapsicus genus are most at home in the areas of year-round precipitation. In semi-arid climates, umbrellas tend to disappear after the end of the rainy season. Labeling and tracking of umbrellas has established that many of them try to migrate to the equatorial zone in search of more rain. Since they are flightless, many umbrellas take the bus; however they have small brains and no innate sense of direction, and often find themselves hopelessly lost unless some kind human adopts them.