This was made for Smaugust 2025. Please see the relevant journal for more info! ^.=.^

When I first drew this prompt I was thinking about ecology. My bachelor's degree is in Biology and Conservation and I've always been inspired by nature and fantasy as it's meshed into one thing. Speculative biology involving dragons and other fantastical creatures never ceases to delight to me.

So we have the Bristle-backed Drake and a bit of speculative bio info for this one.

Ths particular species of Draciforma lives in the deep cold of eastern Canada and even as far east as Greenland. One of the largest drake species in the Americas the Bristle-back Drake is still relatively elusive during the cold months in their natural habita. In the winter they don deep white coats, in contrast to the strikingly colored and colloquially known "racing stripes" they develop in the spring and summer. As opportunistic carnivores their habits in the winter lead them to seek out herbivores bedding in the tall snow or even other predators waiting for their own meals like bobcats and wolves.

The only other predators that would dare hunt them would be the polar bear or the Newfoundland Wyrm, though the latter are found few and far between.