User blog comment:Lord Loss/Monster Hunter Theory... Blog/@comment-174.52.196.175-20130607044208

I have a theory about the biological functions of Dire Miralis.

The ancestors of Dire Miralis' species were elder dragons that ate more rocks and minerals similar to how an Uragaan eats. Uragaan eats enough rocks and minerals that its outer shell and parts of its chin have a very high mineral content. Dire Miralis took this to the extreme, so much that most of its body, including much of its internal anatomy are more like organic minerals than flesh and bones. Dire Miralis' eyes and the inside of its mouth seem more flesh-like, but they could be partly crystaline, like how some artificially made materials are flexible, pliable, even flesh-like despite having a high mineral content.

Why would an animal evolve to do this? An obvious advantage would be that it is much easier to find food because it is all around you. Another advantage of having most of your body made of mineral, is that the minerals you eat get absorbed faster into you body because they are mineral too. Uragaan is mostly flesh and bone, so it is hard to convert minerals to a usable state, which probably why the ecology book says this process takes a while and produces gases as a side effect. Dire Miralis has it easier, because it is essentially composed of living minerals, all it has to do is eat rocks and minerals, or even just absorb minerals from seawater.

However this might come with a troublesome side-effect. Notice those swirling currents in the lines on Dire Miralis' body? Those currents probably function like a nutrient distributing circulatory system, sending absorbed minerals to needed parts of its body. The minerals within it needs to be molten in order to flow through its body, otherwise the currents would harden if they got too cool. This might apply to its whole body, with its whole body needing to be hot enough to be molten to allow movement. This is risky, because if it stays somewhere cool too long its body would harden, and it would die. On the other end, if it gets too hot, the minerals in its body that keep its shape wouldn't be able to stay solid, and Dire Miralis' body would melt into a giant puddle of molten minerals.

This might be why Dire Miralis enters and exits the water, keeping itself cool enough to stay solid, and leaving the water to prevent itself from hardening. Also note that if you kill Dire Miralis it turns solid grey as if it has hardened into rock. Another interesting point is the "Armor Mode" it goes into. Maybe if it takes enough damage and "bleeds" enough molten minerals, the outer layers of its "skin" harden from lack of molten minerals, with additional protection as a side effect. This could help protect its body long enough to prevent more "blood" from leaking, so it can repenish it later after the battle.

So there's my idea. Any extra thoughts?