Since the Kirin, mythologically speaking, are part dragon, and this is reflected in the Nirik and their scaled shells... I wonder if they eat gems as the dragons do, or perhaps metals or rocks.

6866558
Kirins are not part dragons, Longmas are.

I actually think MLP's Kirin have more in common with the changelings than with the dragons. I somewhat presume Kirin and Changelings probably have a relatively recent common ancestor.

6866566
Kirins are part dragon. Same as Longmas but they have wings and kirins don't.

Typically speaking, anyway. These are mythological creatures, after all. Pretty sure they're from different cultures, too.

6866638
No, kirin and longma are both from Chinese myth. Kirin also spread to Japanese culture, where their most common English name comes from (the Chinese version transliterates as something closer to "qilin"), and also spread to Korea and Thailand, where I think that they're called "girin" and "ghilen", but they're both from the same source culture.

Regardless, I don't know if kirin are explicitly linked to dragons but they're usually given several explicitly draconic features (antlers, scales and whiskers, mainly, all traditional features of Chinese dragons).

MLP Kirin certainly seems to be ridiculously long-lived, same as MLP dragons. The time frame of Autumn Blaze's story-song is unclear, but seems like a lot of time passed. An entire forest had to be regrown, and an entire tree village rebuilt, but AB treats it as a quick thing. Basically a lot of events are compacted into the song which would normally involve a lot of time, but she treats it as something that happened last week.

I wonder if the world is as cardboard to them as it is to MLP dragons.

A speculation - "normal" kirin are infertile, with all the ones we see being Rain Shine's children. (Because of this, the have less of a taboo about sibling incest).

6882704
Well, we certainly didn't see any Kirin stallions prancing about...
Hey maybe it was lucky both Fluttershy and AJ are mares. If they were stallions they would have been "worked" to death by a village of Kirin mares gone Nirik.

7085836
I think the was some word from the producers pointing out very subtle differences - kirin males just look very girly from a pony perspective.