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.

Crockostripes loves to eat waterbugs. Originally pouncing into water and splashing up a storm that drove off much of her prey, she has since adopted a different technique. She slips quietly into the water, submerging until barely any of her is showing beyond her nose. Then, looking much like a redwood log, she works her way over to where the waterbugs are thickest. She then snaps a mouthful of them to savor while further prey remains close by. In this way, she fills up on food with much less effort than many of her breed.