A legend even among legends the glorious phoenix is an extremly rare and beautiful sight to behold. First documented in Egypt, and Arabia, now present day Iran, it became a symbol of life and death because of it's almost magical abilty. The real phoenix doesn't burn itself in flames when it dies, no but it conjures the illusion that it does. The birds feathers are incredibly reflective they glow in both the sunlight and moonlight giving them a greatly varied lighting-effect. They can control this effect at will and seem to use this mostly for mating but can use it for defense as well.
The birds feather color seems to affect the sheen even more then the change of day. The color of a phoenix normally is a shade of crimson red with a deep gold tinge on the tips of the feathers with the back of the wings having a shade of bright orange, this color gives the same lighting effect as fire hence it's symbolism. However the red is the most common but there are color-variants with even more spectacular lighting effects however these are extremely rare. Phoenix variants range from gold to black to even green but by far the rarest and most beautiful of all is the blue phoenix, more commonly called the sapphire eagle, only one has ever been recorded and no one has ever seen one since the first.
A phoenix has the same build as an eagle but larger with a wingspan of about fourteen feet. It has very long tail feathers, like a quetzals, that stretch for about seven feet with two larger ones stretching out about eighteen feet. While they embody grace and beauty the phoenix is by no means peaceful and harmless these avians are known to take down creatures the size of cattle. They are omnivorous but their diet is rather unusual even for a bird, the only vegetation they eat are figs, cinnamon, and papyrus while the only meat they consume is that of cattle, and antelope no one is sure why. The phoenix only hunts when it has chicks to feed as the young cannot digest vegetation just yet. Phoenix mate for life and will defend their nest and each other at all costs and with incredible ferocity. They lay only two eggs, always a male and female, once every 12 years and when the young hatch it'll be another 5 years until they leave the nest. Their age limit is unknown but the only one that was captured gave some interesting clues to their age but unfortunately it escaped ninety years after it's capture and it was still a healthy young animal.
No one knows how many phoenix there are but many think ancient man may have hunted most of them to near extinction as they are incredibly rare and difficult to find partly because of their small numbers and partly because of their habitat which is just as a dangerous as they are. Phoenix may never have been numerous and with their small numbers today many think the only ones living are the last of their species and will soon fade into mythology yet again. Scientist are desperately trying to find a way to save this magnificent dying breed from extinction.