realistically, the largest and strongest dragons in your setting should be herbivorous. plants are a much more abundant source of food than animals
>>97878709Plants also offer far less calories by mass, which is an important constraint for a creature that flies in a remotely realistic way, and the relatively efficient distance-coverage of gliding-capable flight mean it is in fact possible to just swoop more prey off the ground or find more to scavenge.
>Dragons>RealismfaggingThat's not what Dragons are for, you sped.
>>97878709No they shouldn't, you are retarded. There are plenty of gigantic carnivores from the past AND it's a fools errand to try to make giant dragons "realistic".You are just actively making dragons worse with this dumbass subversion bullshit.
>>97878709grass is more abundant, but there is higher energy density and availability in fruits. if you can easily fly to locate and move between fruiting trees over a large area then you have reliable access to high calorie foods in all seasons. that means you dont need to ferment leaves or grasses for energy. large raptors show us you can do the same hunting goats or monkeys. no reason you cant also do it to cows, or elephants
>>97878709only if the herbivorous dragons exist for carnivorous dragons to prey on
>>97878709The nutrition in plants is much less bioavailable. All the animals that use the most energy on anything other than digesting food are at least partially carnivorous.
>>97878709I think people are conflating strongest with most dangerous. Sure, for every Tyrant King who can swallow a man in a single bite, there's a Thunderbeast, and for those who cannot survive being attacked by either, the Thunderbeast's prodigious mass and reach make it even more terrifying, but those who've gathered the power needed to face a dragon know that the Thunderbeast is far less of a threat than the Tyrant King.
>>97879049am i a joke to you?
>>97878709If my dragon where at all realistic they wouldn't breath fire or flySo, you know, eat a big back of dicks
>>97878709>realisticallyViolates squared-cubed law.Violates the laws of thermodynamics.Violates the laws of conservation of mass and energy.Eat shit and die.
>>97878709Traditional games?
>>97879284am i a joke to you??
>>97878709There are no plants.
>>97879300that bitch ain't never flying
dragons eat magicthey prefer humans to animals because they have more magic in them
>>97879049Even animals we classify as "True" herbivores practice occasional opportunistic carnivory.If a birds nest falls into a cow pasture, the cows will eat the chicks whole.
>>97879400
>>97878709The largest living creatures we know of are not herbivores so
Uranium contains over 20 billion calories/gram. The strongest dragons would collect and concentrate fissile elements within their bodies and draw energy from a biological nuclear reactor. It's simple science.
>>97879648So godzila?
>>97879601Why is this image in Spanish? Besides, that creature is much smaller than that dinosaur, and worse of all, it was carnivorous.
>>97879644So the largest dragons should be sea monsters. That actually makes perfect sense to me, but we tend to usually consider sea serpents and the like as separate thing from true dragons, even they are sometimes supposed to be related to dragons.
>>97880013>the largestSpace monsters. Size increases with lack of gravitational forces (and with cold actually)
>>97880043I am down for galaxy cosmic dragons.Think there is even a whole deck in ygo around such dragons.
>>97880043Their bulk would be long and narrow to allow for angling towards the nearest star in such a way as to reduce surface area struck by solar winds. But they'd also need some sort of sail-like structures they could expand and contract, to help them radiate out heat but also to absorb solar energy as needed.Hence:>serpentine bodies>wings
>>97878709Fuck you dragons eat rocks
Dragons should photosynthesize.
>>97878709If abundance of food is the deciding factor why would herbivores be stronger than omnivores?
>>97879601Those pterosaurs were carnivores.
>>97879145Not the anon you're replying to but OP is implying dragons should eat leaves, which aren't very calorie-dense and require more energy to digest, and therefore not a very sustainable diet for a flying creature.Birds that eat plant matter are mostly granivores and frugivores because seeds and fruits provide more calories whilst requiring less energy to digest.
>>97878709>Gold dragons can eat almost anything, however, they usually sustain themselves on pearls or small gems.>Like all dragons, cloud dragons can eat just about anything. They seem to subsist primarily on rain water, hailstones, and the occasional bit of silver.>Brown dragons are able to digest sand and other mineral materials to sustain themselves over long periods of time.>Crystal dragons prefer gems and metal ores to all other foods.etc. One of the best>Like other dragons, brass dragons can, and will, eat almost anything if the need arises. In practice, however, they eat very little. They are able to get nourishment from the morning dew, a rare commodity in their habitat, and have been seen carefully lifting it off plants with their long tongues.
>>97879400Well not with that attitude.>>97880013Well dragons were original just serpents and more associate with venom spraying than breathing fire. So it checks out.>>97880043Kino.
>>97878709Correct. Realistically being tat the top of the food chain apex predator is actually a precarious position. If the chains below you are hurt badly due climate change, deforestation, or the prey is gone or severely diminished, you are very likely to suffer malnutrition and die. Extinction rarely goes out with a bang. It usually ends up in a whimper.
>>97878709lol fuck your realism
The primary reason apex predators are so vulnerable is the 10% Rule of energy transfer. In any ecosystem, only about 10% of the energy from one trophic level is passed on to the next. It's the reason why we generally don't pure eat carnivores: You would need many more cows to make a tiger steak.Because so much energy is lost as heat or used for metabolic processes, an apex predator requires a massive geographic range and a huge number of prey animals just to sustain a small population. If climate change or deforestation shrinks that "base," the top level doesn't just get hungry; it becomes mathematically impossible for them to exist.Evolution often rewards apex predators for being highly specialized hunters. While this makes them efficient, it also makes them rigid. If a specific prey species disappears due to disease or habitat loss, the apex predator often can’t just "switch" their entire biological toolkit to a different food source overnight. They are optimized for a world that is suddenly gone.>Extinction debtThis occurs when an event (like habitat fragmentation) happens, and while the species doesn't disappear immediately, it is "doomed" because its population has fallen below the Minimum Viable Population (MVP).>Inbreeding: With fewer mates, genetic diversity plummets.>Slow Reproduction: Large predators (think tigers or polar bears) usually have few offspring and long gestation periods. They can’t "bounce back" as quickly as rodents or insects.>Lag Effect: A species might linger for decades, but if they aren't replacing themselves faster than they are dying, they are essentially "living ghosts.">BioaccumulationTo make matters worse, apex predators deal with biomagnification. Because they eat so many organisms from the levels below them, any toxins (like heavy metals or pesticides) in the environment become concentrated in their tissues. They aren't just starving; they are often being poisoned by the very food chain they rely on.
Our tower is a lot different. We are not quite apex predators because we actively manage our environment. This is to the point that many pants and animals find it beneficial to become livestock. Obviously, any complex system is vulnerable to shocks and system collapses, but even at our worse we are still generalist. If the dragons are smart, they should be active participants.
Interestingly, if you look at the math, humans aren't actually "apex predators" in the biological sense. Ecologists calculate the Trophic Level on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 for plants, 5 for top carnivores).Because our diet is so heavy on plants and grains, the global average Human Trophic Level is roughly 2.21. That puts us on par with pigs or anchovies, not polar bears. This "middling" position is actually our greatest strength. By eating lower on the food chain, we have access to that 90% of energy that is usually lost before it reaches a top-tier predator. Humans are the ultimate generalists. If the wheat fails, we eat potatoes. If the fish disappear, we eat insects. Ecologically speaking, humans are an anomaly. We don’t just sit on top of the food chain; we’ve effectively built a biosphere-sized life support system around ourselves. While a lion is at the mercy of the wildebeest population, we just clear the savanna and plant corn. The two "cheat codes" that separate us from the "precarious apex" trap: Generalism and Environmental Engineering.There are roughly 25 million wild lions left in the world, but over 1.5 billion cattle. In terms of "DNA success," the cow won the lottery by hitching its wagon to us.
>>97884628Probably why most settings have dragons as a relatively rare or near-extinct species, then.
>>97884960Dragons are also depicted as>not particularly picky: they can eat elephants as well as cattle>highly intelligent: they can adapt behaviour when their physical form is insufficient>flight capable: they can move great distances to find food or avoid dangerAnd of course >actually just magic and can handwave away any issues
>>97884674A more realistic route for dragons might be to make them into scavengers instead. Being able to glide through the air, use their superior senses to spot carrion or fresh kills from miles off, and then swoop down to either scare or bully whatever made the kill off of the corpse.Vultures already do something similar with fairly good success. Dragons would be more effective in terms of scaring off competition, because few predators want to fight the giant armored reptile that can breathe fire, and also gain some extra nutrients because they can probably crack larger bones that vultures would struggle with.Granted, there's also some pretty heavy tradeoffs there in terms of needing more food overall to sustain themselves as well as the extra weight making flight more costly, but likely not to an impossible degree as long as the dragon is still merely dinosaur sized. You would still need sufficient herbivorous megafauna in order to sustain all of that, but it would avoid dragons needing to be quite so hyperspecialized.
>>97878764>calories by masshere's an idea...
>>97887957It works for Godzilla.Except when it dosen't.
>>97884707The real big brains are Corvids and Rock Doves. Fuckers didn't even have to be livestock to win.I also standby the fact we need to extinguish to the Argentine Ant to prove we really are the dominant species on the planet.
>>97884707Where did you get that number for the lions? Estimates put it at 20,000-30,000. How did you get 25 million?
>>97887957The problem is, you dont nuclear fusion your food.Besides did Godzilla eat radioactive material? I thought the radiation changes his genetics that his body cells nuclear fissions and he can discharge the energy.
>>97884707Was this partially AI generated?
>>97878709Why wouldn't a dragon get a majority of it's energy through photosynthesis? It's wings could be like huge leaves sucking up the sunlight
>>97890892>you dont nuclear fusion your food.I do not. A dragon might.
>>97891312Also, uranium fissions, not fusions.
>>97878709>realisticallydragons are demonic monsters born of fire and blood, not real animals
>>97891325You are right. My bad.>>97891312Good point, but than a dragon would every 10 years.
>>97884491>tfw no brass dragon gf
