Dragons: r or K selected? i.e., how pissed are mama and papa dragon?


Dragons: r or K selected? i.e., how pissed are mama and papa dragon?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory

Comments

  1. Lex LarsonJanuary 25, 2016 at 11:44 AM

    Wyverns don't have two sets of legs.  Just two legs and two wings.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lex LarsonJanuary 25, 2016 at 11:45 AM

    (Also: mama and papa dragon are crazy mad!)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jeff RussellJanuary 25, 2016 at 11:50 AM

    So, given how flipping big they are, presumed (super)human intelligence, and that we usually model them on the biggest scariest stuff we can find in real life (so, like alligators, crocs, and dinosaurs), you'd suspect a high parental investment.

    That being said, it might be pretty interesting to have dragons go the complete opposite way - zillions of unintelligent babies, and only the very few strongest make it to adulthood. Didn't Courtney Campbell or Daniel Davis modify Hoard of the Dragon Queen so that baby dragons were weird parasites that turn you into a kobold, and maybe you develop into a dragon? I think making them icky parasites that start out like worms and only make it "dragon" after decades or centuries might be pretty neat.

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  4. Tore NielsenJanuary 25, 2016 at 12:00 PM

    I imagine dragons are ego-driven. even if they do not feel very protective of their spawn, they'll make the feeble hominids suffer for generations.

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  5. Bret GillanJanuary 25, 2016 at 12:32 PM

    Well, if they're like other lizards it's probably a large number of offspring with virtually no parental attachment after hatching and perhaps a short protective phase where they're growing and still in a shared lair. After that they're vulnerable to predation by each other and territorial adult dragons.

    It's always interesting to wonder how animal tendencies would change with sentience. I always prefer it that human or greater intelligence doesn't mean they also acquire human traits, so given the above I'd say the parent probably doesn't give a shit and probably doesn't even know since they've had dozens and dozens of offspring who are either dead from competition or have scattered to set up their own territory somewhere. "Out of the lair, out of my hair."

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  6. Lex LarsonJanuary 25, 2016 at 1:15 PM

    This image is missing my character, which would be revenge-killing the dragon poachers.

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  7. Casey G.January 25, 2016 at 1:16 PM

    They're an endangered species! Important to the environment. What other animal is going to eat manticores?

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  8. Lex LarsonJanuary 25, 2016 at 1:17 PM

    You want a griffin infestation, because killing dragons is how you get one!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Gus LJanuary 25, 2016 at 5:28 PM

    I go with super r-selected. Each adult dragon just releases hundreds of spawn a day from all sorts of mechanisms (tiny eggs smeared on every surface), parthenogenesis from shed scales, mites in dragon dung like tapeworms.  Each of these little bastards looks totally different and is as much a ravenous beasts of bad emotion as the parent.  These things just totally destroy any environment, soon creating their own cannibal ecosystem.

    ReplyDelete

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