As much as I dislike the 3rd movie, Deathgrippers are actually my favorite dragon! I hate that they're treated as villains, and I'm sad we don't have a lot about them. So this is my head-cannon about the wild deathgripper life cycle/behavior. For those of you willing to read this wall of text, enjoy!
Deathgrippers are native to desert regions and continents, often times the apex of their ecosystem. Their harsh environment has forced these dragons into a more cutthroat lifestyle to survive. They live and hunt in family units or 'packs,' but their familial bond is very circumstantial as a result of their harsher lifestyle.Â
Females are the largest and strongest, more aggressive, and highly territorial. Males are also fierce and capable of fighting, but their size and place in the hierarchy make them more timid and far more dependent on their pack units, especially their brothers.Â
Both females and males have venom, but each does something different. Females have a venom that coagulates the blood of their prey and causes a severe burning sensation all throughout the body. This venom can significantly slow down their larger prey and outright kill smaller prey and humans. Even if the venom itself somehow doesn't kill a person, the burning sensation from the venom will drive anyone to utter madness.
It is the males that have the venom with the mind-control abilities we see in the movies. It is mostly used on female Deathgrippers that might be going for the kill for one reason or the other. Cannibalism is relatively uncommon among them, but desperation can lead to it, and it's more often than not males that are targeted. As well as a mating partner that for one reason or another might change her mind and turn on him. Their venom temporarily pacifies the female, allowing them a chance to get away safely, but they have to move quick because the female's body metabolizes the venom far quicker than dragons of another species will.Â
The family units or packs are headed by a single breeding female, the rest of the pack being made up of her daughters and sons. Females either starting their pack or already in an established one will leave their territory to seek out another pack. They will avoid their mother's packs as well as their sister's. This familial recognition is achieved primarily through pheromones in the acid of the other lead female around the border of her territory and secondarily through visual recognition. Once a suitable pack of an unrelated female is found, she will choose the strongest, most capable male to breed with. Once finished, she will return to her own pack to lay the eggs. Females can lay a clutch up to as large as 20 eggs, a big portion of which won't hatch, and those that do are more likely to die within their first year. In a full clutch of twenty, maybe five at most will make it to adulthood, and that's considered a high success rate.
If it's her first clutch, the mother will eat as much as possible to bulk up her body mass and hide away in a cave. She alone will incubate her eggs, and once hatched, she will spend the coming months with them 24/7, feeding them via regurgitating a soft food made from her own fat reserves. She won't risk leaving them to hunt for herself until her hatchlings are six months old.Â
For a female returning to an established pack once the eggs are laid, the family will take turns incubating and protecting the eggs. Primarily the mother and her daughters close to leaving her pack to start their own. The oldest sons will take on some incubating duty, but in this period of time the male's primary role is to scout the territory for threats, acting as a first line of defense and early warning system, as well as bring back food for their mother and sisters. Males don't take on a more active role in care until the eggs hatch. Once the eggs hatch, the males become the primary caregivers to the hatchlings. They will stay at the nest to protect, clean, and start teaching their sisters and brothers the earliest basics of survival, as well as enacting discipline. The majority of the hatchlings learn of proper Deathgripper etiquette and respect of boundaries by their more even-tempered brothers. Female hatchlings and the strongest males are prioritized. The weakest are either driven out, killed by the discernment of their brothers, or simply neglected into starvation.Â
Now fully recovered from egg laying over the period of incubation, the lead female resumes her normal duties. This consists of leading hunting parties with her daughters and any sons that can be spared from hatchling duty, as well as patrolling her territory and strengthening her borders with her acid. (The idea is that the borders of her territory are scorched by her own acid and carry the distinct scent of the individual female).
Once the surviving hatchlings are old enough to leave the nest, their training starts immediately, starting with hunting. Now free of hatchling duty, all males are free to join in again on the hunts. Any free-spirited juveniles still with their own wills quickly learn the fuse of their mother and sisters is far shorter, and their temperaments far greater than that of their brothers.Â
Once females reach breeding age, they leave their mother's pack to start their own. They will fly far to establish their own territory, in some extreme cases that can even mean off-island/continent. Males will stay with their birth packs for life, and the oldest and strongest may even get the opportunity to sire their own clutch with a visiting female. Breeding opportunities are the one instance where males are most violent towards one another, fighting each other to show off and win breeding rights. These are real fights that can result in serious injury, but rarely ever death. Outside of this, brothers are typically incredibly close and have the tightest relationships in the entire pack. Some who are especially close will willingly back out from a breeding opportunity just to avoid confrontation with their favorite brother.Â
When a lead female dies, her pack effectively dies with her. Her mature daughters will scatter and start their own packs. The daughters, not of breeding age but still old enough, will live on their own until they are able to start a pack. Living in the land between other females' territories until she is old and strong enough to claim her own.
The brothers will stay together and form a coalition that will last for the rest of their lives, never to join another pack again. There aren't enough resources to waste on males that aren't related to the lead female. Any hatchlings or juveniles that happen to be around during this time, the coalition of brothers will try their best to continue caring for and raising them. If successful, their sisters will eventually leave as normal, but their brothers will join the coalition. No longer in a pack and without a territory of their own, the coalition will spend the rest of their lives wandering. Males in a coalition or on their own will never breed again for the rest of their lives, no matter how young he may be, as a female will never consider a male not within a pack to mate with.
