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Silver Dragon Breath dragon forums
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Ragnarok
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Joined: 27 Sep 2004
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Location: Tucson, AZ, USA.
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 Posted: Tue 04 Sep 2007 20:40 Post subject: |
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| Shadow Dragon wrote: |
| The idea of oxygen circulation down that deep is another issue they have. I think it is volcanic vents do that. So maybe caves have something similar when you get far enough down. |
If trapped in a cave, there are huge problems with air and food. If simply in the depths of a unexplored cave, then only food (and water, to an extent) are issues.
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Shadow Dragon
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Joined: 30 May 2006
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| Posted: Wed 05 Sep 2007 21:13 Post subject: |
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It still comes back to the similarities to the deep ocean. Say there are dragons deep underground. When they die, smaller creatures like insects and crustations would eat it. Larger animals would eat them, like moles, snakes, and other smaller vertibrates. And because of say a dragon sized animal, it would be supplying more food to the simpler creatures, the larger creatures have more to feed on, and so on and so forth.
So far though, as explores go deeper into caves, animal life starts to decrease. However, I wonder if it is possible that there is a "dead zone" (not actual phrase) like the ocean, where it does that same thing.
Water, I don't know. There is no doubt that caves have water. One of the reasons they are so hard to explore. The problem is more of the minerals that are bound to be floating around in it. Some could be helpful, but others could be deadly... 
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Ragnarok
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| Posted: Thu 06 Sep 2007 0:38 Post subject: |
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| Shadow Dragon wrote: |
| It still comes back to the similarities to the deep ocean. Say there are dragons deep underground. When they die, smaller creatures like insects and crustations would eat it. Larger animals would eat them, like moles, snakes, and other smaller vertibrates. And because of say a dragon sized animal, it would be supplying more food to the simpler creatures, the larger creatures have more to feed on, and so on and so forth. |
You don't get predatory systems with 110% energy output. Heck, you don't get any food chains that even come close to a 100% energy output.
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| So far though, as explores go deeper into caves, animal life starts to decrease. However, I wonder if it is possible that there is a "dead zone" (not actual phrase) like the ocean, where it does that same thing. |
Which would seem to make "huge dragons living deep in the caves" very unlikely.
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| Water, I don't know. There is no doubt that caves have water. One of the reasons they are so hard to explore. The problem is more of the minerals that are bound to be floating around in it. Some could be helpful, but others could be deadly... |
But in quantities suitable for sustaining large numbers of very large creatures? Any pools would probably have been long stagnant, and while rainwater and such do drain through rock and dirt, would the relatively small amounts be enough?
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Shadow Dragon
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| Posted: Thu 06 Sep 2007 2:43 Post subject: |
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bah, I am not saying they are going to be the size of cruise ships, or that there is a whole dragon ecosystem. Maybe reaching beyond the double digits. In the world.
They wouldn't need to eat everyday either. Most reptiles don't. Some go months without eating. I think it is usually larger reptiles that go longer (still not talking about an RV roaming in the underground)
Water...I still don't know. Adapting to the harmful bacteria, draining sites, or absorbant skin like a frog? To tell the truth, as far as knowledge seeking goes, you have a better reputation than I do. How would you think it plausable?
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Ragnarok
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Location: Tucson, AZ, USA.
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| Posted: Thu 06 Sep 2007 10:21 Post subject: |
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| Shadow Dragon wrote: |
| bah, I am not saying they are going to be the size of cruise ships, or that there is a whole dragon ecosystem. Maybe reaching beyond the double digits. In the world. |
If there is not a stable breeding population, then extinction is inevitable. Even more so when all members of a species are isolated from each other. As for size, it was in reply to the Noodle's comment about "gargantuan cave lizards." If you'd like to talk about different sized creatures, feel free to do so, but for the time being, I'm working under the assumption that such dragon-like creatures would be "gargantuan."
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| They wouldn't need to eat everyday either. Most reptiles don't. Some go months without eating. I think it is usually larger reptiles that go longer (still not talking about an RV roaming in the underground) |
It depends, I think. Things like pythons are capable of eating things bigger than they are, so it makes sense that they wouldn't need to eat something like that very often. A large creature living deep in a cave, however, would be stuck with prey that is much, much smaller than it is (small cave lizards and bats would be my guess, assuming that they got deep enough into the caves), so it would need to eat much more of them, much more frequently.
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| Water...I still don't know. Adapting to the harmful bacteria, draining sites, or absorbant skin like a frog? To tell the truth, as far as knowledge seeking goes, you have a better reputation than I do. How would you think it plausable? |
Consuming (and thriving on) stagnant water? I've no idea how that would be possible. If they had evolved a rather complicated filtering system, maybe, but I'm not sure how well that would work, or even if such a thing could be evolved from almost nothing. Though, since some caves have naturally very high (90%+) humidity, absorbing moisture from the air seems possible, but I think that's more of an amphibian (or plant) thing than a reptilian thing.
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DarkDragon
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| Posted: Thu 06 Sep 2007 16:41 Post subject: |
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I have a small point to bring up on food consumption and size. Some creatures are more.. efficient in their use of the food they eat. Perhaps dragons could be just incredably efficient in digestion and such.
Not a real expectation, just a scientific point to throw out.
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Shadow Dragon
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| Posted: Fri 07 Sep 2007 3:18 Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| I'm working under the assumption that such dragon-like creatures would be "gargantuan." |
I think a Komodo is a very BIG lizard, anything bigger...could be called gargantuan. ^_^
Food, I can't say for certain. The same way I don't understand why there is so much life under the ocean when a few key elements are missing. Sunlight and Plant life.
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Rayadragon
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| Posted: Fri 07 Sep 2007 10:02 Post subject: |
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My super deep-sea ecosystem knowledge is pretty limited, but I'll take a shot at it.
Not all bacteria need oxygen and sunlight to live. They're incredibly inefficient though (It's something like a 1:10 energy production/conversion rate as compared to those that use oxygen, but I'm remembering this from many, many years ago and I'm too lazy to look it up). Plankton feed off of inefficient bacteria, bigger things feed off of plankton, etc. The system does not have a 100% conversion rate, as Ragnarok pointed out. The system always requires energy input from the bacteria, who get it from the environment.
In terms of the cave explanation, if the water is stagnant, eventually the nutrients will run out. It doesn't matter how efficient the larger creatures may be at utilizing their food. It's still not 100%. The ecosystem would collapse without appropriate input.
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