Dragons as a class of vertebrate animals

[Pellanor]

In my setting I'm thinking of having Dragons as a class of vertebrate animals, much like mammals and reptiles. I'm trying to think of some of the features which should be common to all such dragons, as well as some possible orders and families (ie. rodent, chiroptera, canine, feline, primate, etc...).

For the most part I'm looking for species that could have naturally evolved in a thick atmosphere, oxygen rich environment with a gravity slightly lower than that of earth. The thicker atmosphere and low gravity should allow for larger flying creatures substantially larger than what we have on earth (I did a bit of research and something about tiger sized would be the biggest critter that could take off from the ground. Anything larger would need to dive off a cliff or something else to start.) As well the heightened amount of oxygen should allow larger creatures to evolve. Of course there will be a few magical mutants (ie, the traditional 80' long dragon).

For those interested in a bit more detail on the environment, the global temperature is probably about 10c(18f) warmer than earth, with the thicker atmosphere distributing heat well over the entire planet. It only ever snows on the tallest peaks. There is also plenty of large plant growth in most regions, and very little barren land. The ocean is relatively shallow, and all fresh water. Also there are basically no seasons, but a very long day-night cycle (roughly 30x as long as on earth). The world has just recently left an interglacial period (much like earth is currently in) and so there may still be creatures around that evolved in a cooler climate, with lower ocean levels.


For the Dragons, I'm thinking that they should all be 6 limbed creatures, usually four legs and 2 wings, though some families have evolved differently. Most have a tough leathery skin and a high metabolism. Typically they have evolved to make use of the extra oxygen for greater strength and bursts of speed, keeping their body mass down to the level where they can still fly.

Two families I've thought of so far.
1. The Great Hunters. Basically these are Felines with Wings. Often they have boney protrusions around their heads, "manes" they use to defend themselves (and they also look badass).
2. The Landwyrms. Instead of wings they have an extra set of legs, and are the most massive of the Dragons.


PS. So far the only animal class besides dragons that I've though of is the "Raptors", feathered dinosaurs. I also want something that evolves very quickly, with each generation having apparent differences from the previous, but am not sure what other major traits that class would have. I have no idea what race the primary sentient life on the world will be, though I may have one sentient species from each major class.

PPS. All the ecology knowledge I have comes from wikipedia. If I've made some mistake here, feel free to correct me.

PPPS. If any of you artists out there feel like sketching out some concept art of anything that comes up in this thread, it would be 12 flavours of epic.

[Stargate525]

By class, I'm assuming you mean the biological term, making it Metazoa Chordata Draconis Family Genus Species.

A day/night cycle that long would wreak havoc on what we know about biology, but that's neither here nor there, as classification hardly has to do with sleep cycles.

As for Families, I'd propose the following (names butchered to offend Latin);

penaea- Flying family. This would be the tiger-sized predators.

podatea- The six-legged ones.

undaea- Swimmers, either amphibious or permanent residents of the water.

regiusia- Your 80 foot monstrosities. Even if they are mutants, if they can breed true they need a family.

aeria- Sky whales with scales. In a thicker, more oxygen-laden atmosphere this becomes feasible and worthwhile. I'd see them as harvesters of the skies, drifting in the atmosphere and skimming off airborne pollen, spores, and the occasional bird or three.

[Pellanor]

By class, I'm assuming you mean the biological term, making it Metazoa Chordata Draconis Family Genus Species.

Yes sir.

aeria- Sky whales with scales. In a thicker, more oxygen-laden atmosphere this becomes feasible and worthwhile. I'd see them as harvesters of the skies, drifting in the atmosphere and skimming off airborne pollen, spores, and the occasional bird or three.

Genius! Pure win!

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Vertebrates don't have six appendages--four is universal. Anything with six, assuming it could operate as a vertebrate would therefore have a very divergent evolutionary path from other vertebrates.

I think you're usually better off simply asking people to accept dragons through suspension of disbelief than trying to turn them into normally evolved animals. On the other hand, wyverns are somewhat more plausible, being not that different from pterodactyls.

(I did a bit of research and something about tiger sized would be the biggest critter that could take off from the ground. Anything larger would need to dive off a cliff or something else to start.)

Neat info. Do you know if this includes creatures with hollow bones and other characteristics adapting them to flight?

Is there a problem with assuming dragons are more like pterodactyls? We could even assume dragons basically glide.

[Stargate525]

Vertebrates don't have six appendages--four is universal. Anything with six, assuming it could operate as a vertebrate would therefore have a very divergent evolutionary path from other vertebrates.

Hardly. Snakes, for instance, have none. Fish have two or three, depending on whether you count the anal spine. All are vertebrates. The dragons meet all official classifications, namely a spine.

...Am I right in thinking we can assume a certain method of digestion to make this true across the board?

I think you're usually better off simply asking people to accept dragons through suspension of disbelief than trying to turn them into normally evolved animals. On the other hand, wyverns are somewhat more plausible, being not that different from pterodactyls.

Kudos to him for trying though. I think this would be really cool it it were pulled off correctly.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Hardly. Snakes, for instance, have none. Fish have two or three, depending on whether you count the anal spine. All are vertebrates. The dragons meet all official classifications, namely a spine.

Eh, good call SG. Snakes do have a vestigial pelvis indicating the presence of legs in prior evolutions, though I'm no expert on. I suppose fish are the opposite end of the spectrum, of course.

Nevertheless, I stand by my assertion that in nature we do not see six appendages attached to vertebrates, and therefore one that did exist would "have a very divergent evolutionary path from other vertebrates."

If you wish to assume evolution produced these creatures, one way might be to develop other species to show why such a form might become necessary. Dragons, presumably a super-predator that not even dinosaurs could compete with, would have to be driven to such an evolution by threat of a competing predator (with the predator preys on the dragon or on the dragon's food source). Having them far outclass all other animals becomes problematic when evolution is concerned; even if it drove them to reach such levels, traits that do enhance survival will stop being selected for. Hence you need something like an anti-dragon introduced into the ecosystem, which though inferior to dragons (or not), is close enough to justify the existence of such a creature (alternatively, after a certain point you could create vastly different species of dragons competing with each other, as with later dinosaurs that faced few threats besides other dinosaurs).

I'd say the best place to start with a project like this is in researching pterodactyls.

[Elemental_Elf]

Obviously Dragons would have diverged much earlier than mammals... I mean 6 limbs is a huge step away from the norm.

Personally, I would trace Dragon evolution back to the Dinosaurs (or similar creatures in your world's evolution).  Dragons could have started small, but intelligent and slowly grew in size and complexity  over millions of years until finally we have the big bad boys we all know and love from the Monster Manual.

The hardest thing to reconcile, IMO, is the Dragons sentience. On Earth, sentience and world domination go hand and hand but that's a topic for a different thread.

At any rate, I see no problem classifying Dragons as Vertebrates but then again, I'm not a biologist (just a Lawyer in-training :) ).

[Xeviat]

Pallanor, what you're doing is close to my heart. In my setting, Dragons and Griffons (as well as Hippogriffs) are in the same group of animals. At one point in Earths history (as my world is earth 50 million years in the future), a few birds evolved the third pair of wings unique to all dragons; this evolution was magically manipulated, as this was the time of the coming of the aberrations.

Over time, two distinct groups appeared. Drakes ("Dragon" is a term for vastly powerful elemental spirits) grew to a very large size and reverted to a more reptilian state. They possess feathers in their youth, but quickly lose them as they begin to learn to fly. They are all preditory. I'm going with the Discovery Channel excuse of a hydrogen swim bladder and consumed platnum as a catylist to explain their fire breath.

Griffons remained avian and stayed relatively small (the largest reaching the size of lions). Griffons are the preditory line, while Hippogriffs are grazers.

But yeah, no vertibrate has six limbs. It's just not in our genes. One thing interesting about invertibrates is when they play with their genetics they found that invertibrate limbs can be programed to turn into anything (X-Ray irradited maggots once came out as flies with legs instead of intenna).

---------

So, it all depends on how real your fantasy is. Dragons could be an entirely new group of animals, evolved directly from sea dwelling invertibrates (crustations more likely); but that's really weird. They could be related to reptiles and birds, and you can just handwave the extra limbs as a mutation (who would have come up with feathers before dinosaurs did it?).

Or, you could use something I had been working on a long time ago, but no longer intend to use it.

[ic=Dragons]Dragons evolved from Ampibians. They still share some ampibian traits; their eggs are laid in water, and their larva appear to be large fish. The continue to metamorphosize as they grow older, which explains some of the vast differences between dragon age categories.

Even though they are related to ampibians, they went in entirely their own direction. Their skin is leathery rather than scalled like a reptiles. Their breath weapons are actually chemical weapons, coming in several varieties depending on the species. Most opperate through glands in the throat, each containing a different chemical that are reactive with one another.

Fire would be a massive exothermic reaction: bombadier beetles can spray boiling liquid, and there are plenty of chemicals which create fire when mixed (potassium and something else did ... it's been a long time since Middle School chemistry). Acids, Poisons, and even Cold could be justified (you know those instant icepacks?).[/ic]

So, yeah, I wouldn't be too worried about "could it happen" and focus on the fact that it did happen in your world.

[Pellanor]

Neat info. Do you know if this includes creatures with hollow bones and other characteristics adapting them to flight?

Hmmm.... I'm trying to remember. I think I've got all my math saved somewhere, but I would have to go track it down.

I know that this page was the basis for most of my math, with the rest coming from various wikipedia articles. There were a lot of estimates involved as well. Basically I figured out how much a tiger would weight if it had the density of a falcon, then figured out what wing area would be required for something of that mass, based on a falcons wing shape, and used that to calculate wing span. I then checked to see if that wing span was within reason of the estimated largest possible biological wing. It's not exact, but it's close enough for me.

The hardest thing to reconcile, IMO, is the Dragons sentience. On Earth, sentience and world domination go hand and hand but that's a topic for a different thread.

The majority of dragons are not going to be sentient.
As an aside, in my world sentience is a supernatural trait that didn't evolve naturally. The Gods selected some of the more intelligent animals, like dolphins and chimps, and granted them sentience some few thousand years ago.


Wow, this is crazy, every time I think I'm finished replying I get a new reply e-mail.

@Kapn Xeviat
Thanks for all those suggestions. I can see you've put a lot of thought into this.
I've got no problem with using the "something mutated 200 million years ago" excuse for the six years. There's going to be enough other stuff that's just plain different from Earth (ie. no tectonic plates) that it makes sense that some things just ended up different.

By the way, do you have any idea where I could get my paws on that Discovery Channel Dragons special? I've looked around fr it before, but had no luck even finding out when it's going to air next.

[Nomadic]

Indeed six limbs is a rare thing, however it is by no means impossible. It simply means that the dragons had need of those extra limbs. Perhaps they were four limbed and then took to the sky to take advantage of something. Though I have an idea on that...

Have the proto-dragon be a small thing with thin frontal limbs. Perhaps a catcher of small insects and the like. Over time its limbs develop flaps to aid in the catching of flying prey and they continue to get larger. Before you know it these creatures are making short glides from tree branch to tree branch in chase of food. Soon those glides become longer and result in the development of larger muscles. Eventually these creatures take to full born flight. All the while their wings are moving back to a more optimal position. You now have the first Wyverns. For dragons its a little different. Perhaps the proto-dragon had small ridges on its back which in the wyvern developed into spines to protect against larger animals. Designing a dragon from that proto-dragon should be quite doable. There are a few creatures I might suggest looking at.

Firstly the larger pterodactyls. While your dragons have enough atmosphere to fly more like a bird, they will be ungainly and thus you can glean some ideas from the old flyers. The other big one here is the bombardier beetle. Sounds weird at first, but if you are to have fire breathing dragons it is practically a prerequisite that you understand the mechanisms. Just remember that your coolest stuff, like breathing fire or poison or anything else will likely develop before they get huge. Once they are huge their is no pressure to develop those since they have enough weight to throw around to protect themselves (the exception being if they have huge competition).

In regards to your day/night cycle that is going to play utter havoc with your environment. You are going to HAVE to set that up before you set up your creatures. I can tell you right now that you probably won't find anything like a human here. While it could happen it isn't an ideal design and would be out competed by better designs before it could get to the point of developing intelligence. And on that final note remember that intelligent dragons means they will likely be the dominant species on the planet.

[Pellanor]

Right thanks for more input.
I managed to track down some of my old notes from when I first started working on this last summer. Turns out I got this idea form a similar topic by Xeviat.

@Nomadic
Good idea on starting with the day/night cycle first. I'll start a new topic for it asap.

[Stargate525]

Nevertheless, I stand by my assertion that in nature we do not see six appendages attached to vertebrates, and therefore one that did exist would "have a very divergent evolutionary path from other vertebrates."

I would argue that as a class of its own, and comparing any two classes already under vertebrates, all of them are on rather divergent evolutionary paths. But that's neither here nor there, and I agree that these are something completely different.

If you wish to assume evolution produced these creatures, one way might be to develop other species to show why such a form might become necessary. Dragons, presumably a super-predator that not even dinosaurs could compete with, would have to be driven to such an evolution by threat of a competing predator (with the predator preys on the dragon or on the dragon's food source). Having them far outclass all other animals becomes problematic when evolution is concerned; even if it drove them to reach such levels, traits that do enhance survival will stop being selected for. Hence you need something like an anti-dragon introduced into the ecosystem, which though inferior to dragons (or not), is close enough to justify the existence of such a creature (alternatively, after a certain point you could create vastly different species of dragons competing with each other, as with later dinosaurs that faced few threats besides other dinosaurs).

http://animal.discovery.com/convergence/dragons/

I've got it on DVD, it glosses over the additional set of legs IRC, but it does give a rather interesting evolutionary background for a typical western dragon (as well as eastern, and all the mechanics are scientifically plausible!)

Since it was already mentioned, you can get it on DVD at the discovery channel store; I think that's the only method right now, unless you're insanely lucky with Animal Planet.

[Ra-Tiel]

[...] Hence you need something like an anti-dragon introduced into the ecosystem, which though inferior to dragons (or not), is close enough to justify the existence of such a creature (alternatively, after a certain point you could create vastly different species of dragons competing with each other, as with later dinosaurs that faced few threats besides other dinosaurs). [...]

Simple solution: "Draco draconi lupus est".

Just make all dragons and draco-types (wyverns, drakes, hydras, basically anything with the "dragon" type) cannibalistic in nature. The dragon populace could regulate itself from becoming dominant.

// Edit: How the heck did the link get messed up?! :huh:

[Xeviat]

Here's the link to buy the Dragon DVD directly from Discovery. I'm sure you could find it on Amazon and such to:

http://shopping.discovery.com/product-58095.html?endecaSID=11B5C3F08056

[Stargate525]

Simple solution: "Draco draconi lupus est".

Just make all dragons and draco-types (wyverns, drakes, hydras, basically anything with the "dragon" type) cannibalistic in nature. The dragon populace could regulate itself from becoming dominant.

doesn't even need to be cannibalistic, necessarily, just have a bad enough conception chance and make them fiercely, violently territorial. Those who can fight off everyone else for that rare female (and in flying creatures that means best flying ability in most cases) will continue the species. The territory a dragon claims, by evolutionary trial and error most likely, would be large enough to sustain only one to three adult dragons (a mating pair and some youngins).