The Dragonfly Life Cycle

[DaZoul]

I love dwelling deep into the biology of creatures and monsters in videogames. I especially love colony building creatures, like Aliens, or the Mants of Don’t Starve Hamlet. But there is one creature that I really like: The Dragonfly. So now, I will be dwelling deep into the life cycle of this Giant.

 

First, let’s adress the obvious things. The Dragonfly spawns Lavae during the battle. These Lavae die after a short while. If the Dragonfly dies while there are still some Lavae alive, they will slide back into the magma. This means that the Lavae need the heat to survive.

 

Next, let’s talk about the Extra-Adorable Lavae. The Dragonfly has a 33% chance to drop the Lavae Egg when defeated. This egg can be hatched if it is dropped near fire for 2 days sraight. Then, it’ll hatch. And it no longer needs the heat to survive. Now, this makes me assume that the Lavae that Dfly spits up are immature lavae, only sent out to help with the battle. What solidifies this, is the fact that the Lavae Egg was likely inside Dfly when she died. This means that to spit up Lavae, she cracks the egg inside of her, making the Lavae immature.

 

But let’s continue on with the journey of the Extra-Adorable Lavae. This ”pet” needs to be fed with Ash, or it’ll start burning things around it. This suggests that when Lavae in the wild are hungry, they burn stuff around them to produce Ash. This makes extra sense as the Dragonfly in singleplayer does the same. Now, if you strike the Extra-Adorable Lavae with an Ice Staff a couple of times, it’ll freeze into the Chilled Lavae. This item then can be used alongside Spicy Chili to adopt the Broodling pet. This actually makes a lot of sense, since the prefab name for the Chilled Lavae is ’’lavae_cocoon’’, meaning that the Broodling is an almost fully grown Dragonfly. And the reason the Cocoon burts is because of the heat produced by none other than the Spicy Chili. We can easily assume the Broodling can also burn stuff for Ash, but it chooses not to, as it is older than the Lavae it once was, and is well-behaved.

 

Now that we have covered the player-assisted life cycle of the Dragonfly, how does it happen in the wild? First and foremost, the mama Dragonfly spits up the Lavae Egg inside of one of her Magma. There, it’ll hatch in no-less than 2 days, after which the Lavae goes around, burning stuff, eating Ash, and growing, until it is ready for metamorphosis. In the wild, the Ice Staff we use to turn the Lavae into a Cocoon is of course Winter. And the Spicy Chili we use to burst the cocoon is none other than Summer. after that, the Broodling will slowly grow into a mature Dragonfly. So let’s go over the life cycle one more time, this time with seasons involved. Dragonfly mating will be discussed later. Egg is spat up in Autumn, lavae turns into cocoon in winter, is metamorphosising through Spring and bursts open in Summer.

 

Now, we still have a few things to go over. Firstly, the Broodling’s eyes. They are red, while the mama Dragonfly’s are black. But we do actually see a red-eyed Dragonfly in 2 other places. The first one is in the Reign of Giants Summer Teaser trailer. The actual release trailer has a black eyed version. The second one is in the Credits animation in Don’t Starve Together. Now, I believe that this red-eyed but mature appearing Dragonfly is a young adult, almost mature. In a technical point of view, it is probably just an older design, BUT WE AIN’T ABOUT THAT LOGIC! In the Credits appearance of this young adult, we see its hands on fire, but it is not enraged, as its scales are green, and it doesn’t appear Angry. This makes me think that as the Broodling/Dfly grows up, it slowly gets the ability to enrage. The Broodling cannot enrage. The Teen can only engulf its hands in flames. The mature Dragonfly can fully enrage.

 

And finally, the mating. first let’s go over the main point over the theory, then explain it: The Dragonfly we see in DST is female, while the one we see in singleplayer is male. Let me explain. the female Dfly only stays in one place, near some Magma so she can raise her Lavae. The male one flies around, searching for a female Dfly. They probably mate in Summer, as that is when the male Dfly is searching, and accidentally bumps into you. Their main difference is the fact that males enrage as soon as something disturbs them, while females only enrage if their babies die. Also, the male is smaller than the female, which is pretty common in these kinds of animals (e. g. Spiders). So, we have went over everything. And these are the final notes:

1.     Dragonflies find each other, and mate in Summer

2.    Mama spits up the egg in Autumn

3.    Lavae turns into cocoon in Winter

4.    Metamorphosising through Spring

5.    Cocoon bursts into Broodling in Summer

6.    Broodling slowly grows up, while slowly gaining the ability to enrage

7.    Repeat

 

And that was my theory on the Life Cycle of the Dragonfly. Hope ya like it.

[BezKa]

This post makes my lore addiction happy. Thank you

[Maxposting]

Now I just wonder how does the 20-day respawn time fit into this...

[Pine G]

Considering the DS dragonfly as male and the DST dragonfly as female is a fantasic idea that makes a lot of sense, but have you considered that the dragonfly species reproduces asexually, much like beefalo/any other reproducing species in the game? 

[ShadowDuelist]

42 minutes ago, __IvoCZE__ said:

Now I just wonder how does the 20-day respawn time fit into this...

Its probably not respawn, but the time it takes for a small dragonfly to fully mature, and go back to the nesting area from the wild.

[DaZoul]

9 minutes ago, Pinegrove said:

Considering the DS dragonfly as male and the DST dragonfly as female is a fantasic idea that makes a lot of sense, but have you considered that the dragonfly species reproduces asexually, much like beefalo/any other reproducing species in the game? 

Sure I did. But then I made my theory of the singleplayer one being male, and it made a lotta sense to me

Just now, ShadowDuelist said:

Its probably not respawn, but the time it takes for a small dragonfly to fully mature, and go back to the nesting area from the wild.

yup. 20 days for a Broodling to mature. 

[minespatch]

Would love a qol that involves a feral broodling having similar mechanics to baby beefalo.

[wigfrids hat]

16 hours ago, DaZoul said:

Sure I did. But then I made my theory of the singleplayer one being male, and it made a lotta sense to me

 

some insects can produce both ways, like ants ^^