Berengarian Dragons

[Mikey]

The spitting fire thing I could live with; the inflammable-venom theory seen a number of places could fit.

And while there are circumstances (which GK pointed out) which could technically support the 200-m flying animal, then one would have to think of the rest of the ecosystem - a 200m long animal, which flies to boot, would probably have to eat 25%-50% of its body weight in a day IF it had a particularly energy-rich diet. If it ate energy-poor food, like pandas, it would have to be eating approximately 36 out of every 24 hours.

[Reliant121]

Unless of course they are vegetarian.

DIDNT THINK OF THAT DID YOU!!!

mind you, it would be a very effective method of deforestation.

[Mikey]

Unless of course they are vegetarian.

DIDNT THINK OF THAT DID YOU!!!

mind you, it would be a very effective method of deforestation.

Yes I did - I never referred to what type of food, just the quantities.

[Reliant121]

shuuushhhh

[Mark]

And what if it's natural bio-electric energy had some sort of anti gravity ability? Hmmmm? After all, dragons are THAT cool.

[Teaos]

Mark you should consider writing for trek...

[Mark]

Gee, thanks. I think

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Well, you do have the quantum down pat.

[Mark]

[Varthikes]

The spitting fire thing I could live with; the inflammable-venom theory seen a number of places could fit.

And while there are circumstances (which GK pointed out) which could technically support the 200-m flying animal, then one would have to think of the rest of the ecosystem - a 200m long animal, which flies to boot, would probably have to eat 25%-50% of its body weight in a day IF it had a particularly energy-rich diet. If it ate energy-poor food, like pandas, it would have to be eating approximately 36 out of every 24 hours.

It is possible that they wouldn't need to eat EVERY day. There have been versions of dragons that only needed to eat once- or twice-a-week. More, if they were doing extra work. Example: Anne McCaffrey's dragons, which grow up to 45 feet (14 meters).

Although, one would, at some point, also have to consider the...ahem...other...body functions for a 200 meter creature. That would be one big pile of dren...

[Teaos]

Maybe they dont crap, maybe thats why they have fire breath, they get rid of waste that way.

[Varthikes]

I have thought of that...

In fact, that's sort of how I figured it for my dragons.

Although, my dragons don't constantly have fire breath. The flame comes when they breathe into a specialized pair of lungs right above their air lungs. There, the air is super heated then forced out. On its way out, it comes into contact with a specialized saliva secreted in the back of the throat and ignites. I was thinking that the waste is somehow configured by the body to fuel the heat and provide the special component in the special saliva.

[Mikey]

Example: Anne McCaffrey's dragons, which grow up to 45 feet (14 meters).

Yeah, but they eat rocks, too.

However, the 45m Pern dragons were exceptional specimens, and they did eat multiple entire adult large herd animals at a sitting. Plus, the required caloric intake would go up exponentially - not arithmetically - for a creature from 45m to 200m. In fact, to echo Reliant's misinterpretation of my statement, a strictly carnivorous diet would probably not be best suited. In addition, Pern dragons flew a couple of hours excercise daily, plus a little transportation (and of course during Fall.) One would imagine that a "wild" dragon would spend a lot more time aloft, based on our observations of flight-capable animals.

[Varthikes]

Correction: Pern dragons are 45 feet maximum (Ramoth), which equals to 14 meters.

[Graham Kennedy]

Well let's crunch a number or two.

An Bald Eagle is around a metre long and weighs about 6 kilos. Scale up to 200 metres and you get an animal 200^3 times bigger, or 8,000,000 times the mass of an eagle - about 48,000 tons. Now if the dragons are long necked and long tailed, as I suggested, then this figure would be far lower. Let's assume that our dragon weighed 10,000 tons.

An African elephant weighs about 4 tons. So the ecosystem of a continent like Africa could support 2,500 times fewer dragons than it could elephants, assuming their energy useage was the same.

According to this source, Africa has 400,000 to 660,000 elephants. So it could support 160 - 264 dragons. That's not a viable population.

If I were writing a Berengaria story, and I was stuck with 200 metre dragons, this is what I would do...

1) The dragons are found across the planet. They're not confined to any one area, and so can feed off the entire ecosystem.
2) The ecosystem is quite simple. There's plant life, there's a few species of herbivores, a few species of insects, and then there's the dragons. Idea being, they're not just the top predators, they're the only predators. There's no other species chomping up their food.
3) They're also omnivores. They like meat, but they can and do eat vegetation as well.
4) Berengaria has a sun somewhat brighter than ours, which puts more energy into the ecosystem. The plants grow very, very big and fast on the planet.
5) There are no really large areas of desert on Berengaria. Virtually the entire land area of the planet is good for vegetation to grow.
6) There's not much in the way of oceans. There's a great deal of land area covered in vegetation.

With all that, I can imagine a worldwide population of 10,000 ton dragons numbering in the tens of thousands or more.