Draft dragons - a question

Cheopis wrote:I'm now curious if DW has considered what Draft dragons look like, or if they are just giant hauling beasts that need no description.

lol, of course he did. This is MWW after all.

Cheopis wrote:Dragons though, when you start getting into weights in the tons, I think you pretty much have to get the legs fully under the body of you stay on land. The evolutionary baggage required to have the bone mass to carry a multiton body with outflung legs would be extreme. I am fairly confident Darwin would object.

I suppose it's possible that the dragons might move with outflung legs and NOT carry their bodies all the time. Imagine a massive body with undulating rib muscle motion like a snake in addition to leg locomotion. In essence, snake-with-legs locomotion.

I'm boggling in my head a little at this thought though. I could imagine it being possible, as it would allow tremendous mass, and the ability to swim, navigate difficult terrain and dig. It would probably require either near-prehensile forelimbs or a very agile and long neck to allow it to reach sufficient vegetation to feed itself. Or, perhaps, a very low neck and head, to allow the mouth to be at ground level, like a lawnmower.

The original curiosity about the harness a Draft dragon would use is now eclipsed by what a Dragon even looks like.

I'm now curious if DW has considered what Draft dragons look like, or if they are just giant hauling beasts that need no description.

I figure the columnar/beneath legs and minimal tail model is almost certain there, over the outflung legs and long and maybe muscular tail model, just because I can't yet wrap my head around the alligator/skink kinda shape working out as a draft animal on land. (As swimming draft animals - that I can picture.)

JeffEngel wrote:

Cheopis wrote:Dragons though, when you start getting into weights in the tons, I think you pretty much have to get the legs fully under the body of you stay on land. The evolutionary baggage required to have the bone mass to carry a multiton body with outflung legs would be extreme. I am fairly confident Darwin would object.

I suppose it's possible that the dragons might move with outflung legs and NOT carry their bodies all the time. Imagine a massive body with undulating rib muscle motion like a snake in addition to leg locomotion. In essence, snake-with-legs locomotion.

I'm boggling in my head a little at this thought though. I could imagine it being possible, as it would allow tremendous mass, and the ability to swim, navigate difficult terrain and dig. It would probably require either near-prehensile forelimbs or a very agile and long neck to allow it to reach sufficient vegetation to feed itself. Or, perhaps, a very low neck and head, to allow the mouth to be at ground level, like a lawnmower.

The original curiosity about the harness a Draft dragon would use is now eclipsed by what a Dragon even looks like.

I'm now curious if DW has considered what Draft dragons look like, or if they are just giant hauling beasts that need no description.

I figure the columnar/beneath legs and minimal tail model is almost certain there, over the outflung legs and long and maybe muscular tail model, just because I can't yet wrap my head around the alligator/skink kinda shape working out as a draft animal on land. (As swimming draft animals - that I can picture.)

There are certain reptiles in the lizard classification that loose their tails. Some have basically short tails. Others a small head and a short neck. Think of a Bobtail with the head of a Texas Horned Toad, having six legs, and on steroids.

TN4994 wrote:[
There are certain reptiles in the lizard classification that loose their tails. Some have basically short tails. Others a small head and a short neck. Think of a Bobtail with the head of a Texas Horned Toad, having six legs, and on steroids.

Now there is an image that will stick around for a while.

JeffEngel wrote:I figure the columnar/beneath legs and minimal tail model is almost certain there, over the outflung legs and long and maybe muscular tail model, just because I can't yet wrap my head around the alligator/skink kinda shape working out as a draft animal on land. (As swimming draft animals - that I can picture.)

I think draft dragons have an erect stance; any browser benefits from an erect stance because it's less energy to stand up that way. (Look at the erect stance of tortoises.) And we know with some confidence that draft dragons are tachymetabolic and probably automatic endotherms, because they can pull a wagon all day, which also goes with the erect stance. (They also have to have at least some social behaviours and a modicum of intelligence, at least as much as a cow. If they didn't, you'd never be able to teach them to start and stop on command.)

I can't imagine someone calling it a dragon if it's got a short neck and short tail; not a diplodocine sauropod tail, whiptail theropods are totally unsuited to being draft beasts, but I think the neck and tail are both fairly lengthy. You just have to make sure the trails are long enough that you don't get tail-to-the-face while driving.

Graydon wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:I figure the columnar/beneath legs and minimal tail model is almost certain there, over the outflung legs and long and maybe muscular tail model, just because I can't yet wrap my head around the alligator/skink kinda shape working out as a draft animal on land. (As swimming draft animals - that I can picture.)

I think draft dragons have an erect stance; any browser benefits from an erect stance because it's less energy to stand up that way. (Look at the erect stance of tortoises.) And we know with some confidence that draft dragons are tachymetabolic and probably automatic endotherms, because they can pull a wagon all day, which also goes with the erect stance. (They also have to have at least some social behaviours and a modicum of intelligence, at least as much as a cow. If they didn't, you'd never be able to teach them to start and stop on command.)

I can't imagine someone calling it a dragon if it's got a short neck and short tail; not a diplodocine sauropod tail, whiptail theropods are totally unsuited to being draft beasts, but I think the neck and tail are both fairly lengthy. You just have to make sure the trails are long enough that you don't get tail-to-the-face while driving.

I did have a brief, disturbing picture of long tails that lay to either side of the driver, and get pulled to signal the dragon on that side to slow or stop. The dragons may find it more disturbing. The driver may not care for it either.

Wouldn't long trails - enough that the dragons right ahead still have tails that don't reach the wagon - make for awkward pulling?

Fairly light, thin tails and necks may be easier to carry on a long body, and keeping those tails somewhere out of the way (perhaps on supports on the outsides of the wagon) would be a manageable task.

JeffEngel wrote:I did have a brief, disturbing picture of long tails that lay to either side of the driver, and get pulled to signal the dragon on that side to slow or stop. The dragons may find it more disturbing. The driver may not care for it either.

Wouldn't long trails - enough that the dragons right ahead still have tails that don't reach the wagon - make for awkward pulling?

Fairly light, thin tails and necks may be easier to carry on a long body, and keeping those tails somewhere out of the way (perhaps on supports on the outsides of the wagon) would be a manageable task.

That's a first rate disturbing picture generator you've got there!

I don't think the pulling gets awkward; you just need some more trek chain than you might otherwise have done.

In terrestrial tetrapod biology, an animal with a substantial tail that has legs (so I'm not talking about snakes) ancestrally has the rear set of legs attached to the tail by muscles; caudofemoralis longus is the muscle name. (Losing this muscle as the tail shrank to a pygostyle is the main reason that theropod dinosaurs and chickens walk differently.) This means the tail has to move from side to side as the critter walks, and the mass of the tail and tail ligaments can be used as elastic and inertial energy storage, to help drive efficient walking. Mammals, because they spent so long being small, where you don't get a lot of benefit from energy storage that way, lost this linkage differently and where you see major tails, such as pangolins and spider monkeys, it's been re-evolved and doesn't have this link.

There's also a strong distinction between bounding gaits -- the primary spinal flexion up-and-down, as in pretty much all mammals -- and lateral gaits, where the spin flexes back and forth, as in crocodiles. We don't know if draft dragons are bounding or lateral-gaited. Bounding means the tail comes up and down, and lateral means side-to-side. In either case, I doubt dragons would tolerate having their tails fastened to anything very well.

If one imagines a late hadrosaur -- Edmontosaurus, say -- and both stretches it a bit for the third pair of legs and evens out the leg sizes (hadrosaurs had much larger rear legs than front, what with having bipedal ancestors) I imagine that might not be too far off a draft dragon. The counter-weight tail shortens a bit, too, but I have a lot of trouble believing in a browsing hexaped that never rears up to get tasty leaves that would otherwise be out of reach, so perhaps the forward (mid-legs to front) is more flexible and everything from just in front of the mid-legs to the tail is more rigid, as in hadrosaurs.

Maybe the draft (or hill) dragon isn't a lizard type animal?
The glossary mentions: The hill dragon was a roughly elephant-sized Safeholdian dragon commonly used as a draft animal by humans.
Perhaps it's just a term (incorrectly used) for a large reptilian scaled animal on Safehold.

Like our river horse, the hippopotamus is misnamed (not saying hippos are reptilian or scaled). FYI: Several internet sources indicate that a hippo's running speed on land is estimated to be between 30 and 50 Km/Hr (18 - 31 mph) but they can only maintain this for a few hundred meters/yards.

Let's increase its size to a small elephant, give it six legs, and scales like an armadillo.
Heck, let's just add a pigtail, tiger ears and sad beagle eyes.

TN4994 wrote:Let's increase its size to a small elephant, give it six legs, and scales like an armadillo.
Heck, let's just add a pigtail, tiger ears and sad beagle eyes.

Wouldn't it be simpler to just give a Triceratops an extra set of legs?

Weird Harold wrote:

TN4994 wrote:Let's increase its size to a small elephant, give it six legs, and scales like an armadillo.
Heck, let's just add a pigtail, tiger ears and sad beagle eyes.

Wouldn't it be simpler to just give a Triceratops an extra set of legs?

Isn't that DW's "Prince Roger" series, and John Ringo's "Looking Glass"?
Besides Patty has a tail that attacks.
What about a six-legged Zitidar?
ref: ERB's John Carter.