Behavior and Ecology

Diet

Fisher dragons are an omnivorous species that mostly specializes preying on fish, crustaceans, molluscs. They will supplement their diet with vegetation (both aquatic and terrestrial, fruit, tubers, mushrooms, and occasionally birds and mammals, depending on the subspecies or food scarcity.

Fishers that supplement their diet more heavily with vegetation tend to have flatter molars for griding plant matter. Ones that are more dependent on a completely piscivorous diet have sharper teeth pointed towards the throat to grip prey.

Hunting Strategies

Different fishers employ different strategies for hunting. A common technique is to sit motionless in the water or at a riverbank waiting for prey with their neck retracted back. Once a prey is spotted, the fisher dragon will move its head back and forth to calculate the position of it's prey before striking it's head forth with their jaws open to capture the prey. Other hunting techniques include paired hunting, where mated fishers will work together to flush the fish within range of each other by slapping their wings on the water's surface. Subspecies that hunt in the sea excel at diving and chasing their prey underwater, and have been recorded holding their breath for up to 15 minutes.

Relationships

Courting

Each breeding season Fisher dragons court their chosen mate by presenting them with items of their hoarding preference. If the other dragon accepts, they launch into an elaborate display of flight, water, and fire, twisting in the air then plummeting into the water before launching back into the air again. This display has been called dragon dancing due to its intricacy.

Breeding

Fishers mostly form monogamous pairings, though some subspecies only come together during the breeding season and may choose a different partner each year.

The breeding season is in late winter, and the female will lay a clutch of one to four eggs in the spring. The incubation period is approximately one month before hatchlings emerge.

Sexual Dimorphism

Males are generally larger and more ornate than females, with longer horns, rump, and tailfeathers. Males of all subspecies have long tendrils on each side of their snouts. These are thought to signal good health to potential mates.

Kinships

Fisher dragons are highly intelligent and bond strongly with other fishers. Territories are fluid and their boundaries are not fiercely protected except during the breeding season, when males become significantly more territorial. But for the majority of the year fishers will frequently come into contact with one another to strengthen social bonds and exhibit play behaviors, such as flight and water dances. Bonded fishers may also exhibit resource sharing when food is scarce.

Hoarding

Fisher dragons hoard just as all dragons do. The majority of them hoard typical objects for dragons, including gems, jewels, precious metals and rocks. Some hoard more peculiar objects, and fishers have been recorded to hoard oddly shaped bones, soft ojects such as blankets, and abandoned human trinkets.

Symbiosis with Dragon birds

Dragon birds (also known as dragon preeners or dragon crows) are a species of bird that has evolved symbiotically alongside dragons. Dragon birds eat ticks and small insects that attempt to parasitize dragon fur and scales. They appear to have corvid-level intelligence, and have been documented seeking out hoard items their dragon prefers. In exchange, dragons provide protection and food. Fisher dragons are especially fond of their dragon birds, and will often provide them with their excess food. Fisher dragon fur also makes for exceptional nest material due to its waterproof and fireproof characteristics.

Lifespan

Though it varies slightly by subspecies, Fishers live around 150 years. Hatchlings will remain with both parents until they reach sexual maturity at 10 years, at which point they venture off on their own to establish a territory and begin looking for a mate. A mated pair will forage, hunt, and in some subspecies migrate together. Sexual sterility is reached at about 125 years.

Thermoregulation

Fisher dragons are mesothermic, they can expend energy to maintain their body temperature at the cost of increasing their metabolic rate and burning calories, or reduce their body temperature to their ambient surroundings and enter torpor, a state of inactivity, if it is cold and there is a lack of food.