Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. It always seems to be picking over its scales.

And look! It has grown wings! It must be close to maturing.

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.

This hatchling has made a mosaic mirror out of all of his removed scales. He carefully adds newly damaged scales to the mosaic in a way that hides the scratch marks. The resulting reflective surface is about three-quarters as large as he is.