#genetic analysis

In a previous installation I proposed that the cause for different colored coats could be dimorphism. Dimorphism is the natural phenomenon of different looking genders, it is usually the result of $€xu@L selection.

For example: Peahens choose to mate with the male who has the most impressive tail feathers. This trait is linked to the y chromosome (I assume, don't quote me on this one) so every male offspring is guaranteed to have it (unless a genetic mutation occurs) and every female offspring is guaranteed to not have it.

The *nasty word* selection is so prevalent that the natural selection didn't reverse it. The big feathers of peacocks make it really hard to fly away when a predator is after them, so the sexier the peacock the easier it is to murk them. Despite this, peahens couldn't give less of a fuck, they don't like him that much. If he distracts the tiger while everyone else flees that's his problem to deal with!

Usually, in nature, when a male is very colorful and yassified it means that they're competing for female attention (there's exceptions). When the male is a gigachad compared to less gigachad females that's usually because they live in groups where the male specimen aren't as important socially and they're selected (or compete) to be a walking sperm bank, they basically get hella pussy (lion, deer, chicken), or it's simply a result of a coincidence (canids, felines). When the females are bigger that's possibly a coincidence too, but larger females are more efficient when the creatures are monogamous (only one partner. Humans are not monogamous by nature) because if the male is any bigger than it needs to be, that's a waste of resources on such a small scale. Usually bigger females occur in carnivorous animals, more often in birds and therapods. (Eagle, black widow, T-rex)

Alright, I'm not an expert but I think this is enough context. Let's get into it!

...

Tia remarked that her sons grew up to be really tall. (Father is also tall) This might be because she is small because of her phenotype or she's small simply because dragons mature differently and she was young. Let's say she's small because female dragons are smaller than males. That could mean that: a)dragons live in a social structure where one male is protecting his partners and offspring, most likely his adult sons as well. b)It's a coincidence and they live in a social structure like wolves where the oldest members protect and lead the youth. There was once a study that concluded that there's alpha wolves and they lead the pack, but that's simply not the case. In a follow-up study the research concluded that the "alphas" were the parents and grandparents of the pack and they were teaching and raising their pups even after they grew up. This is very similar to how humans function, must be why we get along so well.

I'll assume that the wolfpack theory is the case, since male dominance is kind of icky and young males getting thrown out because their father is scared that they'll fuck their mother is not the vibe. Very small shriveled up penis energy. Also, with this social structure, young males either become loners or stick together because being alone is hard for social animals. The fact that this doesn't go both ways and females can't have more than one male even breathing in their direction, one of them killing the other one might have been inevitable. I really don't get why Erika is so hot to them, she's literally living drywall.

Let's propose that male dragons are yassified like peacocks or deer. That would mean that they're physically bigger than females and they beat each other up to impress females. This would make horns make scientific sense and it would mean that Lance and Valkyon would be fighting each other to the bitter end every year for two weeks straight, but otherwise they'd be civil and they'd be allowed to live with the rest of dragon society.

They might just get groovy and do a little dance to impress their muse, they might sing, or, my favorite option:

They build a nest and fill it with pretty things! Aah, I'm getting the downstairs tingle just thinking about it! My my, what a mating ritual~

...

I headcanon dragons to be social creatures who function much the same way as humans, so they would live in communities with hundreds of individuals, the community contains several smaller groups with 20-30 individuals. Since they're large bodied predators, they'd need to live relatively far from one another to have enough food. That would mean that a community would occupy several hectares of land per mouth to feed, so their numbers are small and they need tight social bonds and complex communication to avoid inbreeding.

In a community, the young ones are raised and taught by all members, much like in humans. The young ones get taught how to socialize, and then to forage and hunt. Contrary to what people might assume, intelligence is not always an advantage. Brains consume a lot of energy and if there's no benefit to thinking, it makes the animal waste resources. Dragons would need to be pretty intelligent to understand social codes, learn from example and then find a way to teach too. Their intelligence benefits them, because it is a lot easier to survive together than alone.

Something that I thought up a while ago: Art separates people from animals and compassion separates monsters from creatures.

Dragons don't need to be like humans to be successful, but since humans are by far the most successful intelligent animal, I would assume we could see eye to eye with them. My favorite animal is a dragon, mostly because they're made up and anyone can imagine them however they think is best.

Let's look at some drawings:

this last drawig I made for a different post but I forgot if I ever used it. Look at it regardless, they're some beautiful specimens! (They're siamese dragons from the post about pigmentation)

@dragons-nest-black-dragon would you look at this, it's finished! (Mostly, I feel like I can add more but I'm tired)

I SUMMON THE COUNCIL!

@losyashkakus @lumen-anima @aide-falls @lunii12

(For your information, there is already something called amber eyes in humans and it's not like Valkyons. It's more of a warm brown. When I'm referring to amber eyes I don't mean that, but I also kind of do. The same pigment can be used to make both eye colors.)

(Also, when I say dominant, I mean it very loosely because every trait you can think of is codominant and it's never that simple)

(Also also have a look at thissss.)

So, I've said before that I think that amber eyes are dominant over blue eyes because if Tia is a homozygote with recessive phenotype and has a son with a recessive phenotype with a father who has a dominant phenotype, that means the father is heterozygote. So he had a recessive blue eye allele and a dominant amber eye allele. (Furthermore, humans can actually have amber colored eyes.)

My parents both have blue eyes and they had me with green eyes. Green eyes can be passed on, but more often they're the result of genetic mutation, like in my case. Green eyes occur when someone has recessive blue eyes but a kind of melanin gets made in small quantities that is amber colored. The blue of the iris and amber pigment at the back of the eye mix together to make green, and that is why I'm so frikin full of myself! I love green it's my favorite color!

However, Valkyons eyes are not green, so he can't have the recessive blue eye trait. He would need to have grey eyes without the melanin. I don't know what exactly the difference between grey and blue eyes is but I googled it and here is the results:

Moreover, amber and blue are literally opposites of each other, which i assume is a metaphor for the brothers being polar opposites. Ugh, if Lance was crazy this whole time I'm pretty sure his only living family would have noticed. Unless this drastic personality change is due to trauma he's experienced after 'dieing' anyway, I assume that this might mean that it's impossible or just highly unlikely that Lance could have blue eyes. Since they both have the same combination of their fathers only recessive grey eye gene and either one of their mothers blue eye gene. Unless, of course blue eyes are dominant over grey eyes, but they're literally the same exact melanin deficiency so it's like putting two turtles in a cage and waiting for them to fight. It's not gonna happen, they're going to chill.

Anyways, I think Lance would look beautiful with grey eyes, but I probably think that because I simply dislike the color blue.

-Lance with grey eyes-

So, if Tia is carrying two recessive blue eye alleles and Khanir is carrying a recessive grey eye allele and a dominant amber eye allele then their kids would have basically no chance at having amber eyes. Most likely 3 out of 4 kids would have grayish blue eyes and 1 out of 4 would have most likely green, perhaps amber eyes.

If blue IS dominant over grey then Tia could have one grey eye allele too and their kids would have an equal chance of having blue, green, amber or grey eyes.

This option allows us to both keep Lance and Valkyon the same, so I'll choose this. But you did see how hard I had to bend my back to come to this conclusion, didn't you?

Okay, that's about eyes. Let's talk about Khanir.

Many of you may know that I'm not only a man of regular science, but also of *speculatory* science. This post should give a good example.

Anyway, what I would like to talk about today is Khanirs genome. (Im not a eugenecist we're talking about literal dragons aight?) He is obviously adapted to enduring cold environments with little sunlight. He's generally big and he has pale skin. Truly a northern man.

I would like to propose that his amber eyes are simmilar to that of Caribou deer. Caribou deer are adapted to survive long, dark arctic winters and slightly less cold summers. When there's sunlight, their eyes appear amber colored, when it's dark for a long time, their eyes turn blue. That's because their eyes change to allow more light to enter and I'm not going to pretend like I completely understand this, this is some insane science shit and I just love nature and animals aaaaaa. Anyway, that would mean that if you put Valkyon in a dark room for a few days, his eyes would adapt and turn blue as well. Nature is awesome.

The silver hair is something I've been thinking about for a lot longer because I've known about the anamoly that's the colour grey for as long as I've used paint. Grey is not a colour, it's all the colors at the same time.

Let me drop my first tidbit of information: Polar bear fur.

Trust me, polar bears are not white. They just pretend to be so the police won't shoot them. (White pigmentation cannot exist, for the record, white is the absence of color)

So I theorize that Khanir is not of a race that needs to be as pale as possible to allow for vitamin D synthesis, but he's suffering from partial albinism that causes melanin production in his skin to get yeeted out of existence (this is a mutation that creates decreased function, so it's recessive). In the arctic, it might be really cold, but the sun is still radioactive and the snow only makes it worse. He needs to have melanin in his skin to avoid sunburn.

That would mean that if Tia is also carrying this genetic defect, 25% of their offspring would be affected by it. If Tia isn't carrying it, then none of their offspring would be affected.

Grey? Grey.

Okay I don't know how to lead into this paragraph, but let's talk about the genetics of this.

Light hair is a recessive trait because it causes decreased function. Grey hair is also a decreased function because the melanin production is blocked. If the grey hair gene isn't influencing the melanin itself by decreasing it, but increasing something else that decreases melanin in the hair, then technically it could be a dominant allele and that gives their offspring a 50-100% chance of having silver hair! *high five*

This way if Tia gives them genes that increase melanin production, that would only influence their skin and eyes, since the melanin in their hair is blocked by some other thing.

(Fuck I'm playing into beemoovs hands at this point. GIVE ME WELL DESIGNED BLACK CHARACTERS OR I SWEAR I'LL DISPROVE ALL MY STATEMENTS AND YOU'LL BE BACK IN NECK DEEP SHIT!!)

So, now that we've conducted so much speculatory research, let's summarize:

Khanir is suffering from partial albinism and his offspring might be carriers

Fire dragons are supposed to be tan

A dragon without melanin is grey because of refraction.

Green eye supremacy

Silver hair COULD be a dominant trait

Valkyons eyes could turn blue but Lance's eyes will never be amber.

The brothers should probably be darker skinned, if my first point is true and in general because they're so whitewashed I didn't even know they weren't supposed to be white.

Also look at these pictures of polar bears I found:

I know I'm weird for liking gore but like.... The drama! It's so dramatic! How am I supposed to be gay and chill out at the same time?