Dragon Colours

[Raven]

:roll: In The White Dragon, it mentions that sometimes eggs don't hatch and that someone (I forget who) says that they've seen the unhatched dragons and it's not very nice. Surely there's been other white dragons that just didn't survive? I'd like to know about other "runt" dragons. After all, in 2500 turns of breeding, Ruth couldn't be the only one? That's a stretch of the imagination, genetically speaking; especially since dragons are not a "natural" animal.

[Bronze-Dragonrider]

Oh I'm sure there have been other albino dragons, but it was custom that no one assist unhatched dragons because they'd probably not survive anyway and would just be a burden. It was only because Jaxom broke the rules that Ruth lived, and many doubted he'd survive long even after he hatched. But some of course would be so badly underdeveloped that they're dead in the egg.

[Brenda]

I forget which book - probably Dragonseye - it's mentioned that the first few times that an egg didn't hatch, they examined it and the hatchling would have been seriously malformed. So they figured, if it can't hatch, it wouldn't live anyway.

[BeckyMildan]

In Dragonseye it did say that early on unhatched eggs had been examined and that in some cases the dragons were deformed but in others they could find no reason why it didn't hatch. For some reason it was decided that unhatched eggs should be disposed of between immediately but no reason was given as to why. As for there being other white dragons, there may or may not have been. Just because Ruth had trouble breaking his shell doesn't mean that the other unhatched eggs contained white dragons or that there weren't other color dragons that weren't smaller (or larger) than usual. There were probably a few of each color who were as big as or bigger than the smallest of the next size up.

[ChrisG]

DragonsBlood delves a little bit into Pernese genetics, and it mentions that any mutations are likely to be fatal immediately. :shrug:

[Bronze-Dragonrider]

Albinos aren't really mutations though, are they? As for Ruth's always knowing when he is, I'm not sure about that...

[Tygress]

the thing is Ruth isn't an albino. Albino's lack pigmentation, where Ruth is white with hints of each of the normal dragon colors.

A true albino I believe is a mutation, but I'm not entirely sure.

[Bronze-Dragonrider]

Oh right, I'd never thought that since of his tinge of every color, that wouldn't make him albino

[Raven]

No, Ruth is not an albino. He is a combination of the other colours, as white light is really all colours of the rainbow mixed. Albinism is not really a mutation so much as it is a lack of melatonin. Does that count as a mutation? Perhaps we need to learn about other dragons that were white, whether they survived or not? A curiosity :roll: