They say Tolkein used "fell beast" to describe lots of random stuff. There is no real name for the winged beast, but this description is nice. It makes me think of DnD style Wyverns... they couldn't be true dragons because that'd have an obvious name, but maybe something close but not quite would work... like Wyverns.
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. A creature of an older world maybe it was, whose kind, fingering 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.
And I still think the AD&D Foulwings are modeled after them. At least when the drow were riding them.
They were very large with black, leathery wings, toad-like bodies, and horse-like heads. Their skin was black and covered in "horn-shaped, wriggling skin growths." They were clumsy fliers. Their most distinctive feature was their three jaws filled with razor-sharp teeth and centered around a single snout. Their eyes glowed red in infravision.[2]
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