Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. Magic seems weaker when it is near.

Young dragons are relatively defenseless. They are born with relatively soft scales, which are shed and replaced with harder ones as the hatchling matures. Once a hatchling’s wings grow in, it typically marks the beginning of maturation. At this point they are often capable of hunting on their own and are usually left alone by their mother.

Plem wants to be a gila monster because those things are cool. He claims he is one and crawls around on his belly and eats eggs. Despite there being no gila monsters in the area and Plem looking and behaving too differently from one, he'll still repeatedly tell other hatchlings he is not a dragon. His parents say this is a phase he's going through.