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Description
Day 8: Zahak - A Middle-Eastern dragon, resembling a sort of "transitional stage" between a European dragon and an East Asian dragon, generally wingless and four-legged with an optional trunk-like snout.

While most salamandrae are at least partly amphibious, living in wetland environments or bodies of water, there are a number of species whose adult forms are wholly terrestrial, even though they must still lay their eggs in water and spend their juvenile lives as aquatic creatures. Rare is the luhng (East Asian "dragon") that lives far enough from rivers, lakes, or oceans to be considered a strict land-dweller, but the sister group to the luhngs, the zahaks (family Zahakidae) boast numerous representatives that only return to water to spawn, having been railroaded into a land-lubber existence because competition from both the native predators of eastern Asia and the wyrms of Europe resulted in the group as a whole taking up residence in the Middle East and western Asia sometime during the Miocene, being restricted to dry, desertic climates where there were no significantly large land carnivores to be seen, though some have colonized other biomes as well. Without the ability to keep their skins moist, the zahaks adapted by developing leathery, waterproof hides studded with bony nodules like chainmail, with an additional waxy secretion from the skin to protect them from the sun, though most are still predominantly active at night. The most specialized of the group have developed such adaptations to a point where adults are almost entirely independent of watery environments as a habitat, only visiting such places to drink or lay eggs. Even juveniles can cope with intensive drought, beginning their lives as ectotherms and only gaining the physiology for an endothermic lifestyle upon reaching adulthood - a number of species even form mucus coccoons underground when their birthplaces dry up, and remaining in stasis for years at a time until the waters return.

One of the most adaptable and hardy species of zahak is the Ishtar Sirrush, so named because of its portrayal on the famous Ishtar Gate of Babylon. Although frequently associated with the ancient city, hence its alternate name of "Babylonian sirrush", it is not actually native to the region where Babylon was located. Its actual habitat is the forested steppe of the Zagros Mountains, largely in northwestern Iran, southeastern Turkey, and northeastern Iraq. The body shape of the Ishtar sirrush is strangely reminiscent of large felines such as leopards, but the long legs, neck, and tail suggest the ability to run at speed, suggesting that it evolved from a cursorial species of sirrush more at home in grasslands and desert plains. Its environmental niche is not unlike cougars in the Americas, as an ambush predator capable of feeding on a variety of different animals, usually smaller than itself, and because of its broad diet as carnivores go, it is widespread throughout the Middle East except, ironically, in arid deserts. While capable of sprinting after its victims and even scaling cliffs or trees to reach them, it prefers to find cover, wait for something tasty to pass by, and launch itself at it (sometimes even dropping down from the canopy to land directly on top of it), before using a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth to tear out the throat of its meal. While ungulates are most commonly targeted, not far behind in terms of preferred prey are primates, especially Old World monkeys, which is why it evolved adaptations for climbing trees such as large curved claws like crampons and a prehensile, barbed tail as a sort of fifth limb. This appears to be a common dietary preference for a number of other sirrush species as well, since although most zahaks prefer drier climates, most sirrushes are forest-dwellers, giving them access to a potential choice of prey that few other native creatures can catch.

Even though the Ishtar sirrush can certainly kill an unarmed human, it does not regard people as potential prey, although individuals on hard times or recovering from injury have been known to attack lone travelers who haven't reached shelter by nightfall, similar to accounts of man-eating panthers. Still, the beast was considered sacred by a number of ancient tribes native to Iraq while Babylon was still flourishing, and as an exotic animal with a suitably strange appearance compared to more mundane wildlife, there is no doubt that many royals at the time sought to capture a live specimen or two and transport them back to Babylon. The realization that these creatures are amphibians at their most bizarre, however, never occurred to humanity until the late 19th century, courtesy of comparisons to caecelians, frogs and toads, and the fire-absorbing salamandrae described by the ancient Greeks. As for the residents of Babylon, they instead clung to the archaic belief that the sirrush lineage were chimeras of the three main predators of hominid ancestors (big cats, large snakes, and birds of prey), although as we know nowadays, they are of course not closely related to any of them.

Special thanks to TyrantisTerror on Tumblr for the prompts for this Smoktober art challenge! The link to the challenge is here:

tyrantisterror.tumblr.com/post…

Description
Day 8: Zahak - A Middle-Eastern dragon, resembling a sort of "transitional stage" between a European dragon and an East Asian dragon, generally wingless and four-legged with an optional trunk-like snout.

While most salamandrae are at least partly amphibious, living in wetland environments or bodies of water, there are a number of species whose adult forms are wholly terrestrial, even though they must still lay their eggs in water and spend their juvenile lives as aquatic creatures. Rare is the luhng (East Asian "dragon") that lives far enough from rivers, lakes, or oceans to be considered a strict land-dweller, but the sister group to the luhngs, the zahaks (family Zahakidae) boast numerous representatives that only return to water to spawn, having been railroaded into a land-lubber existence because competition from both the native predators of eastern Asia and the wyrms of Europe resulted in the group as a whole taking up residence in the Middle East and western Asia sometime during the Miocene, being restricted to dry, desertic climates where there were no significantly large land carnivores to be seen, though some have colonized other biomes as well. Without the ability to keep their skins moist, the zahaks adapted by developing leathery, waterproof hides studded with bony nodules like chainmail, with an additional waxy secretion from the skin to protect them from the sun, though most are still predominantly active at night. The most specialized of the group have developed such adaptations to a point where adults are almost entirely independent of watery environments as a habitat, only visiting such places to drink or lay eggs. Even juveniles can cope with intensive drought, beginning their lives as ectotherms and only gaining the physiology for an endothermic lifestyle upon reaching adulthood - a number of species even form mucus coccoons underground when their birthplaces dry up, and remaining in stasis for years at a time until the waters return.

One of the most adaptable and hardy species of zahak is the Ishtar Sirrush, so named because of its portrayal on the famous Ishtar Gate of Babylon. Although frequently associated with the ancient city, hence its alternate name of "Babylonian sirrush", it is not actually native to the region where Babylon was located. Its actual habitat is the forested steppe of the Zagros Mountains, largely in northwestern Iran, southeastern Turkey, and northeastern Iraq. The body shape of the Ishtar sirrush is strangely reminiscent of large felines such as leopards, but the long legs, neck, and tail suggest the ability to run at speed, suggesting that it evolved from a cursorial species of sirrush more at home in grasslands and desert plains. Its environmental niche is not unlike cougars in the Americas, as an ambush predator capable of feeding on a variety of different animals, usually smaller than itself, and because of its broad diet as carnivores go, it is widespread throughout the Middle East except, ironically, in arid deserts. While capable of sprinting after its victims and even scaling cliffs or trees to reach them, it prefers to find cover, wait for something tasty to pass by, and launch itself at it (sometimes even dropping down from the canopy to land directly on top of it), before using a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth to tear out the throat of its meal. While ungulates are most commonly targeted, not far behind in terms of preferred prey are primates, especially Old World monkeys, which is why it evolved adaptations for climbing trees such as large curved claws like crampons and a prehensile, barbed tail as a sort of fifth limb. This appears to be a common dietary preference for a number of other sirrush species as well, since although most zahaks prefer drier climates, most sirrushes are forest-dwellers, giving them access to a potential choice of prey that few other native creatures can catch.

Even though the Ishtar sirrush can certainly kill an unarmed human, it does not regard people as potential prey, although individuals on hard times or recovering from injury have been known to attack lone travelers who haven't reached shelter by nightfall, similar to accounts of man-eating panthers. Still, the beast was considered sacred by a number of ancient tribes native to Iraq while Babylon was still flourishing, and as an exotic animal with a suitably strange appearance compared to more mundane wildlife, there is no doubt that many royals at the time sought to capture a live specimen or two and transport them back to Babylon. The realization that these creatures are amphibians at their most bizarre, however, never occurred to humanity until the late 19th century, courtesy of comparisons to caecelians, frogs and toads, and the fire-absorbing salamandrae described by the ancient Greeks. As for the residents of Babylon, they instead clung to the archaic belief that the sirrush lineage were chimeras of the three main predators of hominid ancestors (big cats, large snakes, and birds of prey), although as we know nowadays, they are of course not closely related to any of them.

Special thanks to TyrantisTerror on Tumblr for the prompts for this Smoktober art challenge! The link to the challenge is here:

tyrantisterror.tumblr.com/post…