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.

Behold, seeker of the dragon lore, Nillnall of the White striped dragons. His story is rather curious but it shows very clearly why he did not grow up. Somehow his egg turned up in a goats stall and accidentally was hatched through the body warmth of the goats. As White Striped hatchlings have a somewhat goatish appearance before they get stripes and wings, and he smelled very goatish as well, he actually was adopted by one of the goats. Even the farmer didn't realize until Nillnall reached the second hatchling stage and he found a winged "goat" in his herd. He also realized that the stalls had never been so clean of insects and saw the hatchling pouncing on them soon afterwards. The farmer's daughter, only three then, gave him the name Nillnall when her father decided to keep him. Nillnall has never learned how to fly and he makes noises like a goat but he seems rather happy with his secluded farm life.