Dragon

The dragon is a large, long-lived, winged reptile characterised by their sentience, flight, and magic.

Taxonomy and evolution


The taxonomy of the dragon had long been a subject of contention, thanks to their unique hexapodal form, which is not found in any other land species in history. However, archeologicalists concluded around the 1900's that, due to the lack of evidence for any winged serpent before roughly 4000 BCE, and the strong similarities with the drake remains dug up from that time, that the wings must have been added intentionally, and with many drakes at once. Dracologists concluded the same years later, at which the religious dragons shrugged with that it took them that long to find out what they had known from legends since time immemorial.

With the connection to drakes made, it was easy to trace back the steps to a small family of Silesauridae - cousins of the dinosaurs -  that survived the Cretaceous extinction event by downsizing and becoming omnivorous. The next 65 million years were spent regaining their size and acquiring increasing variety in bone structure and colouration patterns.

They finally split off from the drakes around the aforementioned year, in an event which is still poorly understood by scientists around the world, but the religious figures likely have their own solutions to this mystery.

Anatomy
The dragon is one of the largest chordates in existence, typically weighing between 400 and 750 kg in maturity.

Height is traditionally measured from the floor to the top of the head, not including horns or combs. Because this is rather inaccurate, subjected to a dragon’s pose, other standards such as nose to tail tip and neck base to tail base are used in the medical world. The height for males ranges from 203 to 226 cm, and for females from 229 to 249 cm. The head/body length ranges between 268 and 301 cm for males, and between 315 and 354 cm for females, with the tail adding another meter and a half on average.

Females are noticeably taller and longer than males, but the average mass of the two genders is about the same, because females typically have a more slender build than males.

Physiology
Stuff about dragon metabolism and nutrition

Flight
Average airspeed (males):        ~ 45 km/h Average airspeed (females):        ~ 53 km/h Average airspeed (Wind males)    ~ 70 km/h Average airspeed (Wind females)    ~ 75 km/h

Magic
The elemental bladder.

For more about this subject, the Magic page.

Health
The dragons are an extremely long-lived species. Rather than Earth's revolution about the Sun, they count their age in dragonyears, which constitute ten of such cycles, one for each traditional element.

The mean age at which dragons die of old age is 750 for females and 680 for males, measured in standard years. The range however is wide - the oldest known dragon is generally held to reached 1119 years.

Diseases

 * Flu
 * Plague
 * Dragonsrot
 * Fertility conditions

Reproduction
For the main article on this subject, see Dragon reproduction,

Life cycle
The early phase of a dragon’s life is complex, with multiple processes running simultaneously, and at different paces.

Language
The first speech a dragon learns is a collection of grunts, growls and yelps, commonly referred to as Hatchling-Draconic. One could draw parallels between this and a human baby’s nonsensical gibberish it utters before learning words (building on that comparison, several Dadaist poets in the early 20th century have written Hatchling Draconic poetry). The difference is that a hatchling is more intelligent than a baby, as its brain is more developed; it can be more developed, because the egg is more spacious than a woman’s cervix uteri, and the head doesn’t have to be limited in size.

This extra intellect expresses itself in the Hatchling-Draconic having distinct words that get repeated with consistent meaning. The amount and variety of these words varies wildly, as well as the period of life in which it is used. Statistics suggest four to six months before starting with the infantile language, and it being slowly replaced by proper words after one to three years. It often takes twins longer to learn a real language, since they develop their hatchling language together, and share words and can communicate with one another. Parents can understand these cues, and reply normally, to encourage the hatchling to learn new words.

The real language acquisition is similarly omnifarious in period of acquirance: this stage of life may start at one or three years of age, and full fluency is generally not achieved until the hatchling is fifteen to twenty-five years old. Vocabulary and manner of speech evolve even more slowly, the reason for which can be read below.

Childhood - 30 to 150 years
After about three to four decades a dragon is generally not considered a hatchling any more, although they often continue to be affectionately named as such by loving parents for centuries to come.

The social development of a young dragon can be considered rather slow, compared to other organisms. This is a fallacy. Self-awareness is unmistakable after the first decade, and true intellect evolves not much slower than a human child, as proven by experiments. The reason for dragons of fifty to act like people of eight (again, numbers?), which can objectively be called below their potential, appears to be primarily that it is expected of them to behave like that. It is proven to improve the adult’s mental health if the childhood was left to be as long as can be allowed.

There’s evidence of more rapid maturation being very possible, but only in extreme circumstances. A severe trauma can elicit such a development. However, this is often endangering to their wellness, and those hatchlings will require therapy as adults, since they did not get the same stable environment to grow up in as their fellows did. (I think Ddraig actually had such “therapy” in the form of all of her adventures, as shown by that awesome picture that show her in different phases of life, and dealing with memory of Schakri would be considered by psychologists dealing with being forced to mature at age 40.) Hmm, this all looks good to me!

Puberty - 150 to 200 years
Male dragons generally grow to be bulkier and more muscular than female dragons, but both sexes are equally capable of holding their own in combat - indeed, a female dragon protecting her brood is often considered more fearsome than a wandering male dragon.

Upon reaching sexual maturity, a male dragon will find themselves instinctively drawn to leave their home and seek out a mate. In turn, a female dragon will, starting from around the age of 150, start going through annual heat cycles - a distinctive period of heightened libido during which time pheromones are secreted in order to attract a mate - and begin to take a greater interest in their appearance. Both of these instincts are linked to ancient dragon breeding conventions. As clans were matriarchal in nature, a male dragon would be forced to leave his family clan in order to find a mate, while a female dragon would have to wait for a suitable mate to arrive from a neighbouring clan, and then contend with her sisters in order to claim a male as her own. In the modern age, these instincts are generally exploited by advertising agencies to either sell products to dragons of both sexes, or to goad male dragons into joining the military. Adulthood - 200 to 600 years

Upon reaching the second century

The most powerful phase of a dragon’s life, when they are fully fertile and at the height of their physical and mental capabilities.

Old Age - 600 years and Over
A dragon’s prime tends to end once they reach the sixth century of their lives, with the physical fitness and mental facilities of the dragon gradually declining after this point, along with their scale colours fading, chronic tiredness setting in, and the dragon becoming infertile. The exact age that these effects take place during varies significantly from dragon to dragon, and it is entirely possible for a dragon to remain in peak physical and mental condition for another century or so before beginning to be affected. Indeed, dragons who exercise frequently and keep their bodies and minds in shape tend to live longer than those who do not.

Genetics
The dragon possesses 72 chromosomes, and there is an unusually great amount of redundancy for each gene for certain physical characteristics. Just for scale colour, sixteen genes have been identified to contribute, which is what permits the "blending" that is perceived when a yellow and a blue dragon have a green hatchling.

Behaviour
Everything about overlapping culture that applies to most dragons here. Move some stuff in from other sections if need be.