Nov17
on November 17, 2015
Flexitarian
Dragons must have to eat a LOT. A huge-sized dragon might weight in the range of 1800-2200 kg (4000-5000 lbs) and would likely have to consume meat equal to a human every day to gain enough calories. Or, excluding bones and such, half to a third of the meat from a cow. A dragon could devastate the ecology of a region.
Of course, dragons are the alpha predator to end all alpha predators and could probably feed on animals that normally have no fear of predation, such as lions, elephants, and hippos.
I guess it could be interesting from a world-building perspective to figure out either how they could avoid devastating the ecology of the region despite the large consumption (the “we need heroes to save us from the dragon demanding daily sacrifice of our city inhabitants” way) or what implications there would be from dragons magically needing less food. Innate magic might already make sense for the breath weapon, so why not include it in the food?
Actually, being reptilian-like, they should have a food consumpion rate similar to snakes and crocodiles, which eat far less in comparison to their weight than their mammal counterparts (say the above mentioned lion).
They are warmblooded though, just like kobolds and lizardmen are.
are they though? some of them have cold auras and others are mentioned s liking to sun themselves for warmth