Photino Birds are an informal name given to a species of Dark Matter creatures, which are colonizing all the stars of the universe, feeding off the energy in their cores. Unaffected by the physical heat of the star, the creatures simply orbit its gravity well. They appear in the Xeelee Sequence of stories. The creatures are effectively Terraforming the entire universe, an amazing feat for any sentient species. Unfortunately, this makes the universe inhospitable to Baryonic Lifeforms, such as Humans and Xeelee. (Xeelee Sequence Novel: Ring)