I totally agree. CLever description by the way. Never thought of using the natural flamethrower hmmmm.....

Yea. I like to spend my time thinking about how a furry world would actually work. Check out some of my short stories if you like that kind of stuff. I tend to write Slice-of-Life stuff that touch on different species dealing with their advantages and disadvantages and interacting with each other.

I'll have to check those out sometime :)

There was a long discussion of it on a forum once.

I thought of the implications canid-level smell would have on privacy, and the idea that anyone working on a hospital ward would be easily identifiable by the damage done to their fur by frequent exposure to harsh antiseptics.

Ooo, I like this because of the wing warmers.. featherless wings having such a huge surface area would be detrimental to any warmblooded ceature, love the idea of having to bundle them up too.

 redpandacase came up with the design.

Cold weather and featherless wings are even harder on us cold-blooded species because we have to actively manage our body temperature. Though on the flip-side, we cold-bloods can get away with keeping our body temperature lower than warm-bloods. This can be dangerous though, let it get too low and your muscles will lock up, leaving you unable to move.

With me, if I let my body temperature get too low, I can still move until I let a particular muscle sit idle for a short period of time, then they lock up. This can be problematic if I don't pay attention to my body temperature, walking outside somewhere in the cold and find when I get to a door that my arms and hands no longer work. Of course if I let myself get even colder than that, they'll lock up even if I'm moving. Thankfully my heart and muscles I use to breathe can work at much lower temperature than my voluntary muscles, so even when I can't move anything else, I'll still be able to breathe.

Some cold-bloods suffer reduced mental capacity when they get too cold, others, like me, remain fully aware. Being like a statue, and yet fully aware of your surroundings, is actually quite relaxing if it's done in a controlled environment. In an uncontrolled environment it's quite terrifying, sitting there helpless, hoping someone finds you. I keep an electronic ear thermometer with me at all times so I can quickly check my temperature and not just rely on my internal senses.

Huh, just thought... would the fire breath somehow be like a survival thing way back in ancient times? You could just set something on fire when you were cold and get warm by it!

In ancient times fire-breath was used for a whole multitude of things. Quickly building a fire was one such use. With fireproof skin, a drake would then either lay on the fire/coals or put a wing over it and increase the blood-flow to that wing.

As for other ways of keeping warm, in my species at least, I can "burn" food in my liver for heat. Only problem is that it's very uncomfortable, It feels like REALLY bad heartburn so I rarely use it even if I probably should. It also needs to be "started" before one gets too cold. If I get to the point where my muscles are locking up, it's often too late to start the process. If you're with another drake they would generally chastise you for letting your body lock up and then use their fire-breath to try and get you warm enough to start it. If they were nice they would take anything that wasn't fireproof off of you first, if they weren't they would just let your clothes and other articles on you burn up.

I bet he made a LOT of money when he was younger.
Twenty bucks, a gallon of diesel and you would clear their driveway.

I tended to focus in taking care of the compacted snow and icy spots that were difficult to get rid of. Lots of people that otherwise shovel or blow their own snow hate chipping away the ice and hard snow and would eagerly pay me to take care of them.

Very cute picture -- and skimming through the comments, I dig the amount of thought you've put into him. That's pretty rare, in my experience.

Thanks. I enjoy thinking about and working out how a furry world would actually work. It can result in some interesting ideas for art, as you can see here.