Common Drake

Disclaimer: The Common Drake is a fictional animal from Keenan Taylor's Tales of Kaimere.

Video on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmM8eCd\_SI&t=121s

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Earth Ancestor: Thescelosaurinae sp.

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Dinosauria

Order: Ornithischia\*

Family: Archetiposauridae

Genus: Hystronyx

Species: H. vulgaris

### Description

  The common drake *Hystronyx vulgaris* is, as its name implies, the nonavian dinosaur most often encountered in the known world. They are thescelosaurs whose ancestors were burrowers, but they now only dig to find food out of desperation. They are generalist omnivores, eating mostly horsetails, ferns, fruit, and nuts, but are known to eat grass, carrion, and small game when their preferred food is not in abundance. When their preferred food is present, however, they readily cohabitate with mammals that specialize in angiosperms, and it is often noted that common drakes tend to provide an element of peace while sharing this space. Common drakes are especially comfortable living with grazing sloths, deer, and kangaroos, but they are less tolerant of other browsers and specialists in ferns and horsetails. In Titan Gardens, where the titanosaurs regularly make fern and grass meadows with their gardening, common drakes and deer are especially successful, and this trio is often considered a hallmark of a healthy forest. Common drakes are proficient swimmers and can make home in a wide range of humidities and temperatures, a key to their widespread success.

   Standing between three and five feet high at the hips and weighing between three hundred pounds up to a ton in the largest bull, there is an extreme range in their size. Robust and overall larger drakes are most common in their southern range, with highland drakes of Pakardia being among the largest, although there’s a high degree of variation.

  In the wild, common drakes are a popular prey item for megafauna specialists. While they sometimes run from danger, being defended by quills and sharp plates to deter rear assault, they usually stand their ground, circling around young and harassing threats with beak and claw. Males can be particularly aggressive, biting and raking their talons and spurs into potential threats. They will chase down and kill threats to their young, which is why most mammal predators flee common drakes and many herbivores run toward them. The Red Panther is the only mammal predator that risks it. Attacking from the side to avoid the quills and biting the back of the neck can result in a reliable takedown, although they usually only attempt this against solitary drakes. Cockatrices are perhaps their most prolific predator, gobbling up drakelings and mobbing adults. The thick hide and fat of male’s throats may be primarily to protect them from each other, but it certainly helps against a predator who’s primary weapon and method of attack is a talon to the throat. Lone Common Cockatrices are known to bring down common drakes many times their size on their own, but drakes are well documented to give back as good as they get, and on numerous occasions a drake and cockatrice are found having shared the same fate: death by the claws of the other, with the drake having ripped open the fell bird, and the cockatrice’s talon pierced in its throat and locked in place.

### Habitat

Most regions of The Known World, Arvel, Ni'Khar, and Kairul.

### Phylogeny

  There is some debate about their cladistics, as the common drake shows a wide range of physical and color morphs. It may be a genus with species that can breed freely, but most consider them to be a single species with high range of morphology.

### Ontogeny

  The common drake lives in small matrilineal troops lead by the eldest female and defended by a few males who defer to the dominant bull, usually the largest of the group. Often several troops will share territory as a herd, foraging in troops but gathering for protection of nests and young. Drakelets hatch after a three-month incubation. Females usually remain with their mother's troop, but sometimes will mingle within the herd and join other troops. Males are driven away at maturity, where they often form bachelor troops and mingle with unrelated herds.

### Human Relations

It seems among the first animals domesticated by the First Children upon arrival to the Pakardiant highlands was the Common Drake. Being social animals that herd without much fear of strange creatures and can eat almost anything, they were a natural candidate for domestication. They are fairly intelligent, and took well to the quiet life of domestication. Although they weren't terribly important as domesticates to the later First Children, who mostly subsisted on enchanted grains and insects, they were kept for meat to feed homunculi.

    Once the First Children collapsed, these domesticated drakes reintegrated with their wild counterparts. This is believed to be the reason for the high degree of variation in wild drakes. Northern drakes tend to be smaller and more gracile, while their temperate cousins have denser feathers and a stockier frame, but there is a great degree of overlap in these traits.

   With feral drakes being a high percentage of many populations, it should come as no surprise that they were quickly domesticated again once settlements were erected to support them. The Age of Demons, Witches, and even the Dark Ages had various independent domestication events. Regular reintegration with wild stock has resulted in good health of the population overall. Most peoples of the known world have common drakes, with breeds specialized for meat, livestock guardianship, labor, and in some cases, mounts for war and sport. Although quills are mostly bred out of domesticates in the breeds that possess them they must be trimmed before being saddled, and the spurs and claws of males coupled with their aggression means they must be regularly groomed, but with a little maintenance they can be quite impressive livestock. Their meat is usually preferred by farmers over beef, since they can grow faster on less food and can pasture in a wider range of terrain, and their meat is highly regarded. As nesters which push to capacity, females can regularly lay a dozen large eggs a week as long as they aren't fertilized and given plenty of food, making them prized producers.