My Little Archosaur Project # 1 · 12:55pm May 13th, 2015
Introduction: I'm currently working on an evolutionary cladogram relating the natural history of the fictitious archosaurs which populate the My Little Pony universe. The most obvious of these are of course Dragons, but there are clearly related groups, such as River Serpents. This is something I might normally do in a few days, but I'm sure this will take longer, as no one is paying me to devise natural histories for fictitious beings, while someone is paying me for telemarketing construction services. So, to explain what I'm doing and its overall structure:
I. Archosaurs: I know there's a good technical definition of an "archosaur" based on anatomy, but the best real-world definition is "the group which includes crocodilians, dinosaurs and birds." Basically, an archosaur is an uber-reptile; it has an improved cardiovascular system and a faster metabolism, allowing it much greater amounts of sustained energy production than a true reptile. Some of this greater energy is applied to powering a bigger and more active brain; archosaurs are more or less intellectually-equivalent to mammals, and some archosaur groups (corvids and psittacidae) contain demonstrably sapient members (New Caledonian Crows and African Grey Parrots, most notably).
II. Why Archosaurs? Why do I assume that Dragons and Serpents are archosaurs? Because they are demonstrate clear archosaurian characteristics. They are reptiloid, but extremely active, capable of immense sustained activity and with sapient-grade brains. Metabolically speaking, putting out the sort of power required to breathe fire hot enough to melt high-quality steel or putting out enough hydrokinetic force to churn a river into foam miles up and down-stream can't be easy, even with magic. They could be their own group (in much the same manner that Aves was originally seen as an independent Class), and it's certainly possible that they are only convergently archosaurian (they are almost certainly of some reptilian stock, though), but the most parsimonious explanation of what we see is that they evolved from other archosaurs.
III. Draconoidimorphidae is my general term for the most inclusive classification of the group including Dragons and the Serpents (whom, please note, are not true serpents -- true serpents are derived from Lepidomorphidae, which are not archosaurians at all!). This includes Dragons, Serpents, Wyverns and any additional such creatures living or extinct. The three extant subgroups are:
A. Wyvernidae: The Wyverns, which are dragon-like creatures with wings attached to the forelimbs but who also employ telekinetic flightfields; they are mostly either venomous or equipped with breath weapons (usually poison clouds). Most are sentient but not sapient. They are generally much weaker than either Dragons or Serpents. Their (extinct) ancestors were terrestrial and close in structure to the basal Draconoids.
B. Vyrmidae: The Worms or Serpents. These are dragon-like creatues characterized by partial or complete limb reduction; often the hind limbs are entirely lost and the forelimbs, if retained, used almost wholly for manipulation. All are sentient and most sapient. The four main groups are the Great Worms (usually burrowing land-dwellers), the River Serpents (like Stephen Magnet) the Sea Serpents and the Air Serpents (sometimes misidentified as Dragons, due to their resemblance to Eastern Dragons). They may or may not have breath weapons or poison; in some cases this ability has been lost. The Vyrmidae are Draconoids but not Draconids.
C. Draconids: The Dragons. These are divided into two main groups by anatomy: the Eastern Dragons and the Western Dragons. Most are winged as adults, and all have breath weapons. Often the wings do not develop until adolescence or adulthood. Eastern Dragons tend to be very long and thin; while Western Dragons are built in a stockier fashion.
IV. Origin: The Draconimorphidae split from basal archosaur stock before the Australian Impact of 251 MYA ended the Permian and wiped out most life on Earth. The Draconoids split from the basal Wyverns in the early Triassic, but long remained a minor group. The Draconids split from the Vymids by the late Triassic, but again remained very structurally-similar for a long time.
The Dragons believe that they were the masters of the Earth until the coming of the Devil's Tail 66.3 MYA. They have been lied to. During the Cretaceous the Draconimorphidae were non-sapient, lacked breath weapons and flightfields, and were a minor suborder, utterly-eclipsed by the Dinosaurs. The Dinosaurs were the first to attain sapience (in the form of the Verridae) and a high technological civilization (the Ver): indeed it was that high civilization that brought down the Devil's Tail in its Final War and ended the Cretaceous.
The true rise of the Draconimorphidae is more humiliating. The fact is that another race, reptilian but not archosaurian, enhanced the Draconimorphidae to use as living weapons. This race was the Serpent Folk, known to later history as the Valusians and Viprallans, who were master biomancers and poisoners. They enhanced the Draconimorophidae with genetic material taken from an entirely different phylum, the Daikaiju. And they ultimately Uplifted most surviving Draconimorphic lines to full sapience.
Millions of years ago, the Draconimorphidae rebelled against and overthrew their Serpent Folk masters, being among the first of their creations to successfully achieve their independence (the Voormis did so only later). They then promptly invented a mythology for themselves in which the Serpent Folk had enslaved originally-free Dragons and Great Serpents, degrading some of them into Wyverns. Only a very few Dragons and Great Serpents know the truth -- and they do not like to let others know of this.
Conclusion: That's as far as I've gotten so far. What do you all think of it?
Fascinating. I love the idea of the Mesozoic-ending asteroid being intentionally called in, and the dragons rewriting the history books is a great touch. Definitely looking forward to further developments in draconoid culture and biology.
I have to wonder whether tatzlwurms are Great Worms. Given the tripartite jaws and triplex tongues, they're either a truly bizarre offshoot or something else entirely.
I really like the way it all hangs together with a minimum of assumptions.
Being that this is Equesteria the presence of magic does not have to be explained as it would already exist. Well done.
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The Tatzlwurm is a remnant species. Descended from large tripartite jawed sand worms brought in to populate the deserts and badlands of Equesteria. These areas were much too wet for the survival of these worms in their original form as their home planet had periods where it might not rain for thousands of years turning it into one large dune. Due to genetic modification and natural evolution they have become as we see them today.*
* Private communication from The Great Dragon! He whose wings shade countries, and who was an “Elder of the Clans” before Celestia and Luna were fillies.
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"Do we have wurmsign?"
"Twilight, we have wurmsign the likes of which Megan has never seen."
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Word play with others who can do the same puts a little spice in all our lives.
Very intriguing. It reminds me of the Discovery faux-documentary "Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real" It had similar ideas in terms of evolutionary but didn't take as much of a magical bent as we can get away with in equestria.
Can we see more please? Perhaps more on the various evolutionary ancestors? Though I'd also be intrigued to know what modern Dragons etc think of their primitive ancestors and how they were sort of bootstrapped to the level of sapience they now possess. Do they feel any kinship or sympathy to them? Or perhaps look on them with disdain?
I wonder if they view them similarly to how humans view the great apes.
3067866 Well, considering that to get humans from Great Apes we were effectively Raised By Wolves...
So these guys? http://mylittlewiki.org/wiki/Cutesaurus
So Jordan, is this article about the archosaurs in the Shadow Wars universe?
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Yes, though it may well be true in vanilla canon as well -- the Dragons they show seem archosaurian more than reptilian, and Spike has a lot of birdlike habits.
Plan on revisiting and continuing this any time soon? You definitely have a fascinating foundation to build off of.
I so hope you write more about the MLP dragons someday. I especially like the idea of them fighting against the Serpent Folk for their freedom. I wonder if the Serpent Folk also put any 'surprises' in draconic DNA that would enable them to control their descendants? Or even just make it easier to bring them under control?
I can imagine a story where Spike and Twilight find this true history out. And then not only do they have to deal with an angry Ember, they have to make sure she doesn't get overthrown by her furious people because they think she betrayed them by sharing this knowledge.