Consigned as I am to live in ‘Winterfell’, and as a dracophile, I clearly want to mark ten years of the real House of Dragons.
No, not Daenerys Targaryen, who as my own Queen of Dragons reliably informs me is also to be feared.
But the real House of Dragons as those keen-eyed among you will have noted is Postojna Cave in Slovenia.
Which is, of course, one of the world’s best-known karst caves.
Where we only got to watch the development of the olm in real time.
From the first eggs, embryos and larvae hatching to their transformation into playful little baby olms.
Aw, they do grow up so fast
This year, ‘the baby dragons’ from the 2016 olm brood are turning ten.
And our Postojna pals are giving us an insight into how they live today and the interesting developmental stage
they are about to enter…
And whether dragon adolescence is anything like ours.
The very first olm was discovered right enough, in Postojna, in 1797.
The shy olms had, in truth, probably been around for 14 million years ago moving from the surface into the permanent darkness of subterranean waters.
Now instead of vision, which is unnecessary in darkness, the olm has developed a range of highly specialised senses.
Food for thought
It has an excellent sense of smell, taste and hearing, and can detect vibrations in the water.
And sense weak electric fields produced by other animals and orient itself using the Earth’s magnetic field.
And therefore locate its prey, such as small crustaceans, snails, worms and insects.
Its survival strategy in an environment where food is very scarce includes an extremely slow
metabolism, a low heart rate, and minimal movement.
And doesn’t that sound the life?
This one’s got legs
And there’s more…
The olm can live for more than 100 years and can reproduce even at an advanced age.
And because of its slow metabolism it can survive for several years without food, maybe not like a human adolescent then.
While here’s where it gets even more interesting.
They can regenerate damaged limbs and organs, blood vessels, the heart and even parts of
the brain.
And how do we know? Well, here’s where little Viktor comes in, handy,
Viktor like most kids likes a scrap and hurt and lost part of his leg in a fight with two other olms.
But like the Monty Python knight, he shook it off as a flesh wound.
Because he knew that within just a year he would have grown back a fully functional limb.
Now if you think all of this is dragon on a bit and you want to see Viktor for yourself.
We found round-trip flights for random dates in October to Ljubljna from under £200 with EasyJet because unlike dragons, we can’t fly for ourselves.
