Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. Its eyes glow brightly at night, and it enjoys attacking insects and small animals.

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.

Zaq (Zack) is a monster of a dragon hatchling.  His chosen role model is the vampire dragon Skwishie, and Zaq "wants to be just like him when he grows up", much to the dismay of every other dragon of the Bitterwind Valley Clan.  In his efforts, Zak goes around pouncing on hatchling and adult dragons alike, biting on them.  It was cute when he was little, but now that he's bigger it's getting down right dangerous.  As a black warrior dragon, he is already well equipped for a lethal bite, without having delusions of vampirism.  The clan still has hopes that he will grow out of this before something drastic has to be done about him.