[ SECRET POST #2861 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2861 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 052 secrets from Secret Submission Post #409.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Warning, incoming neurology/animal physiology dump

[herpymcderp]

You're thinking about this ALL wrong. Brain size in proportion to body mass isn't typically the best predictor of intelligence, since brains often tend to have structural differences between species that are related to what the primary sensory modalities are.

For instance: an animal with a primarily visual modality is going to have a more complex/larger occipital lobe than an animal that is blind and relies on touch or smell to interact with the environment. Intelligence in animals is generally best measured as superior adaptability to an environment, so by all appearances, the dragon brain is perfectly suited for what it's meant to do.

Besides, for all you know the dragon brain may have other forms of neural complexity that humans don't even possess such as highly specialized glial cells, differential myelination of neurons that increases processing speed, a highly invaginated cortex (thus increasing surface area for complex neural processing)...

tl;dr you're wrong.

Re: Warning, incoming neurology/animal physiology dump

[(Anonymous)]

I love this comment! Thank you so much for this input.

/nerdy fan loving some real science (TM) in their fantasy

Re: Warning, incoming neurology/animal physiology dump

[herpymcderp]

No problem. I just get extremely sick of people being reductionist/human-centric about these things.

Take a look at an octopus, for example: able to reason, learn, retain memories of a single instance of stress for over six months, differentiate between human faces (something humans can't even reliably do for non-primate species).... and it doesn't even have a well-developed brain.

Re: Warning, incoming neurology/animal physiology dump

[hands4healing]

Don't forget sneaky and prone to playing tricks. My friend had one who'd squirt him from across the room (about a 10x12 room) because it wanted attention.

Re: Warning, incoming neurology/animal physiology dump

[cakemage]

I do so love a good science smackdown.

Re: Warning, incoming neurology/animal physiology dump

[(Anonymous)]

Disclaimer: I'm not a scientist or nothin', so this is really just vague spitballing.

This is all really cool, and an awesome comment! On the topic, my understanding was that within animal orders brain size can matter - e.g. in primates, with humans having bigger brains proportionally. So, considering that the dragons in HTTYD seem pretty damn clever, you would perhaps assume they larger brains than similar, less smart animals like them - reptiles basically, though you could make arguments for other animals based on the neural specialisations you mentioned above. Based on that I imagine you could look at the dragon's skull shapes based on their character design, estimate their brain size proportional to their body, and see whether they compare favourably to IRL animal brain sizes.

And they probably won't because they're cartoons. But it would be interesting nevertheless. If anyone could be bothered, ha.