Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. It spends its time pouncing on insects.

And look! It has grown wings! It must be close to maturing. It is also now covered in brightly colored stripes.

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.

"It's not easy being red," says this dragon, and he means it. Born red to parents and grandparents of purest white, his existence has led to a lot of eyebrow raising and claw pointing, everything from suggestions of his mother eating too many tomatoes to rumors of a secret royal crimson lover being thrown about. Yet despite all the chaos surrounding his coloration he's had quite the happy life, his family coming together to deal with the "challenge" and spoiling the little thing with many tasty and often entirely white foods in between their almost affectionate squabbling.