Lizard Lions in the Neck

[Nittanian]

In George's sci-fi series Tuf Voyaging, a lizard-lion is described as "two meters of scaled green reptile with a whiplike tail thrice its own length and the long snout of an Old Earth alligator. Its jaws opened and closed soundlessly, displaying an array of impressive teeth."

[Valyrian Lance]

Zoology is interesting in Planetos. Of course the nature of their length of seasons may certainly play a role in this. With respect to lizard-lions, they certainly resemble crocodiles and alligators but that does not make them the same thing. Though few, reptiles do live north of Florida, Louisiana, the Carolinas and such (Alligators are found in North Carolina as well BTW). Also in history we have found reptile fossils all over the world (think dinosaurs).

The nature of seasons on Planetos raise questions of all living life, not just lizard-lions, which means they cannot be directly compared to any counterparts on Earth. 

[John Suburbs]

22 hours ago, Tucu said:

It is probably warm enough to grow lemons, but that is not the only required factor; soil, decease, humidity, knowledge, etc should be considered. GRRM decided that Dorne is the only place in Westeros with all the right conditions for mass producing lemons; maybe because it doesn't freeze every winter.

True, but wouldn't this make Dorne the least likely place to have significant lemon growth, considering it's mostly desert? My guess is that most Dornish lemons are cultivated along the coasts, most likely near the lower stages of the Greenblood, Torentine and Wyl rivers. But there is far more arable land in the Reach, Westerlands and Riverlands than in Dorne, so if the primary factor is that these regions get too cold for lemons, then it stands to reason that they are too cold for cold-blooded creatures like crocs and gators, no? But if we are to assume that LLs are warm-blooded, then they wouldn't just keep to the Neck, they'd be prowling up and down the Trident, the three forks; heck, they'd be north of the Wall.

[Tucu]

22 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

True, but wouldn't this make Dorne the least likely place to have significant lemon growth, considering it's mostly desert? My guess is that most Dornish lemons are cultivated along the coasts, most likely near the lower stages of the Greenblood, Torentine and Wyl rivers. But there is far more arable land in the Reach, Westerlands and Riverlands than in Dorne, so if the primary factor is that these regions get too cold for lemons, then it stands to reason that they are too cold for cold-blooded creatures like crocs and gators, no? But if we are to assume that LLs are warm-blooded, then they wouldn't just keep to the Neck, they'd be prowling up and down the Trident, the three forks; heck, they'd be north of the Wall.

Dorne uses irrigation for their lemon orchards so that is not a mystery

Quote

Within half a league they were riding over devilgrass and past olive groves. Beyond a line of stony hills the grass grew greener and more lush, and there were lemon orchards watered by a spider's web of old canals. Garin was the first to spy the river glimmering green. He gave a shout and raced ahead.

The survival of the lizard-lions every autumn and winter is a different matter. Maybe they can hibernate? or they can only exist if cared by the crannogmen? a  source of warm water? or GRRM just didn't think it through yet?

[John Suburbs]

22 hours ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

That also assumes that there is no volcanic activity anywhere near the neck. I'd say that a volcanic eruption is at least as likely as the children breaking the neck with magic. WF has hot springs. I have a vague memory of someone/something mentioning the Dreadfort has hot springs too, but I can't find a direct reference to it and it's probably not canon anyway.

Interesting thought. My only conjecture is that if there was enough volcanic activity to keep the Neck warm enough for gators while everything north and south is frozen, somebody would have noticed by now and it would become one of the region's most distinguishing features. People certainly notice that the Winterfell godswood is still wet when everything else is under three feet of snow.

[John Suburbs]

22 hours ago, Faera said:

Well, endemism is a thing and animals don't necessarily need to be stuck on an island like the dodo for it to happen. They might only thrive in the Neck due certain ecological factors unique to that wetland area that they rely on and don't exist elsewhere on the continent. Plus, again, magic might be a factor.

A more likely scenario to me though is that lizard lion numbers, much like many of the other magically-large animals, could have declined due to humans over-hunting them and encroaching on their habitats.  In comparison, the crannogmen are supposed to have grown close to the CotF after all so this value of magical qualities and "working with nature attitude" might mean they consciously don't overhunt the animal populations, meaning they have an overall less destructive impact on the environment compared most societies. So, who's to say the lizard lion wasn't once more widely found in other areas but they have become a threatened species over time like so many other animals in Westeros?

Endemism usually happens on an island or an isolated valley or some other place where there is a hard physical barrier to migration. The Neck has none of that. LLs are water creatures, so there is no reason why they couldn't move down the Green Fork and then up the other forks and the Trident itself over the millennia. Unless we are to think that they evolved in the Neck millions of years ago (and supposedly the place only become marshlike in the Dawn Age), then we have to assume that they migrated to the Neck from some other area -- so if they got in they could get out.

I also have doubts on the over-hunting theory. Nobody ever talks about LL hunts like they do with aurochs and other things. The lions of the westerlands have been hunted to extinction, but these are land animals -- it is much more difficult to do with a water creature. And if, say, the Freys were capturing any and all LLs moving down the Green Fork, they would certainly be tanning the leather (which probably makes kick-ass armor), cooking the meat and exploiting them in other useful ways, not just leaving the bodies to rot. And then someone else would have to be halting their movements on the Saltspear and directly into Ironman's Bay.

But this is really beside the point. To me, the fact that somehow it is warm enough in the Neck for LLs to exist at all, but lemons cannot grow anywhere north of Dorne, is a huge disconnect. The only convincing answer that keeps coming back to me is magic.

[Valyrian Lance]

The real answer is that GRRM did not think of the climate that crocodiles and alligators live in when placing them in the bogs of the neck and simply that they live in swamps. Of course a bog and a swamp are different things and GRRM uses both of them to describe the Neck.

[Clegane'sPup]

On 7/16/2018 at 2:14 PM, John Suburbs said:

This is somewhat of a riff on lemongate, but has more to do with Westeros ecology.

Travelling back from Florida last week it dawned on me that the state has two things in abundance: alligators and citrus fruit. The farther north you go, the smaller and fewer both become until you get to mid-South Carolina or so where they disappear entirely. This is why the disconnect between lemons and lizard lions is so odd: if it is warm enough for LLs, big ones at that, to thrive in the Neck, then there should be lemons, limes, oranges, pomegranates and all other kinds of citrus fruit growing from the Neck on down. And if that were the case then it would be very possible for a lemon tree to be growing outside in Braavos.

The only place we ever hear of lemons growing, however, is in Dorne. So if that is the case, then how can large gators possibly exist as far north as the Neck, particularly when you consider they wouldn't have to hibernate for just a few months but for years at a time?

So, is this a simple mistake, a contrivance, or might there be something else going on?

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I    That was when they lived in Braavos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there, with a lemon tree outside her window.

If that line of text is open to scrutiny I guess lizard lions living in the Neck is too.

Considering the unknowns that are hiding with Howland in the Neck it appears to me that the emphasis on the description of the Neck is that people trying to invade the north from the south isn't going to work. The point is a person does not want to go into the swamp/bog without a guide.

The Commonwealth of Virginia, USA, has the Great Dismal Swamp and no gaters/crocs. It even snows there. I didn't venture from the modern road system into the actual swamp.

I don't know what the collective people of the UK think about bogs/swamps/wetlands. I assume there are no gators there and that people don't wander around willy nilly into those areas.

Lizard lion may be a descriptive word that helps to pull a reader into the environment.

A Game of Thrones - Sansa I     They had been twelve days crossing the Neck, rumbling down a crooked causeway through an endless black bog, and she had hated every moment of it. The air had been damp and clammy, the causeway so narrow they could not even make proper camp at night, they had to stop right on the kingsroad. Dense thickets of half-drowned trees pressed close around them, branches dripping with curtains of pale fungus. Huge flowers bloomed in the mud and floated on pools of stagnant water, but if you were stupid enough to leave the causeway to pluck them, there were quicksands waiting to suck you down, and snakes watching from the trees, and lizard-lions floating half-submerged in the water, like black logs with eyes and teeth.

 

 

[John Suburbs]

1 hour ago, Tucu said:

Dorne uses irrigation for their lemon orchards so that is not a mystery

The survival of the lizard-lions every autumn and winter is a different matter. Maybe they can hibernate? or they can only exist if cared by the crannogmen? a  source of warm water? or GRRM just didn't think it through yet?

Sure, but the practice of irrigation should be known throughout the realm by now, Virtually any crop requires irrigation. Lemons prefer a rather loamy soil, but Brienne sees plenty of sandy terrain north of Maidenpool.

Crocs do hibernate, but alligators brumate -- they slow their metabolic activity but not to the point of full-blown torpor. This is why both species can tolerate a few months of mildly cold weather, but not an actual frozen winter -- and certainly not one that lasts for years at a time.

But, yeah, a simple goof is certainly possible, although this is a pretty glaring one. @Universal Sword Donor suggested above that there might be volcanic activity under the Neck that is warming the region, but this is iffy since it would be pretty unusual for no one throughout the ages to not notice that the Neck stays warm and wet every winter while everything else is frozen.

[John Suburbs]

29 minutes ago, Valyrian Lance said:

The real answer is that GRRM did not think of the climate that crocodiles and alligators live in when placing them in the bogs of the neck and simply that they live in swamps. Of course a bog and a swamp are different things and GRRM uses both of them to describe the Neck.

It will be interesting to see how he manages it if the story were to return to the Neck now that winter is actually here.

In fact, it seems that most of the crannogmen's natural defenses should be fairly well neutralized by a hard winter: no insects, poisonous snakes or lizard lions, the water and quicksand are frozen, much of the vegetation is likely deciduous and will have gone dormant, making it more difficult to hide... Hope they have lots and lots of poisoned arrows.

[Tucu]

An alternative is that the Neck is a massive salt marsh with currents and tides that prevent freezing even in winter.

[John Suburbs]

7 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I    That was when they lived in Braavos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there, with a lemon tree outside her window.

If that line of text is open to scrutiny I guess lizard lions living in the Neck is too.

Considering the unknowns that are hiding with Howland in the Neck it appears to me that the emphasis on the description of the Neck is that people trying to invade the north from the south isn't going to work. The point is a person does not want to go into the swamp/bog without a guide.

The Commonwealth of Virginia, USA, has the Great Dismal Swamp and no gaters/crocs. It even snows there. I didn't venture from the modern road system into the actual swamp.

I don't know what the collective people of the UK think about bogs/swamps/wetlands. I assume there are no gators there and that people don't wander around willy nilly into those areas.

Lizard lion may be a descriptive word that helps to pull a reader into the environment.

A Game of Thrones - Sansa I     They had been twelve days crossing the Neck, rumbling down a crooked causeway through an endless black bog, and she had hated every moment of it. The air had been damp and clammy, the causeway so narrow they could not even make proper camp at night, they had to stop right on the kingsroad. Dense thickets of half-drowned trees pressed close around them, branches dripping with curtains of pale fungus. Huge flowers bloomed in the mud and floated on pools of stagnant water, but if you were stupid enough to leave the causeway to pluck them, there were quicksands waiting to suck you down, and snakes watching from the trees, and lizard-lions floating half-submerged in the water, like black logs with eyes and teeth.

 

 

Well, Dany is, what, all of five when Darry died and they had to leave the house, so it's not inconceivable that her memory is faulty.

Yes, there are many swamps and bogs and colder climates that do not have crocs and gators, but there are no lemons growing in these areas either.

And as I said above, it seems that many of these elements that make the Neck difficult to invade would dissipate in winter: reptiles, insects, thick vegetation -- even the bogs and quicksands will be frozen over. I'll be interested to see what conditions are like there if the story takes us to Greywater Watch.

[Clegane'sPup]

1 minute ago, John Suburbs said:

I'll be interested to see what conditions are like there if the story takes us to Greywater Watch.

Me too. Hell if martin ever reveals the evasive and illusive Howland and what happened to Mormont & Glover I will be happy.

[John Suburbs]

24 minutes ago, Tucu said:

An alternative is that the Neck is a massive salt marsh with currents and tides that prevent freezing even in winter.

But the air would still be too cold. There are salt marshes all up the east coast of the U.S., and even the ones that don't freeze don't have gators.

[John Suburbs]

20 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

Me too. Hell if martin ever reveals the evasive and illusive Howland and what happened to Mormont & Glover I will be happy.

I'd be interested to see if there are still lizard lions and poisonous snakes/insects when everything else is covered in snow.

[Clegane'sPup]

25 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

I'd be interested to see if there are still lizard lions and poisonous snakes/insects when everything else is covered in snow.

Way outta my educational expertise. Sooooo, I'm gonna say the heat generated by the decaying material will allow some wiggle room heat for the creatures.

Seriously, Jon, I don't know where martin is going to take the story.

The Neck may not freeze. I still do not know if the cold brings the Others or the Others bring the cold.

The Wall must collapse for the Others to advance. Unless they go around the Wall -- I have in the past played with the idea water freezes and the Others do a polar bear crawl.

The Others appear (can be seen) as evening bleeds into night. That is when they are active.

That implies to me the long night must happen. How long is the long night, I dunna know.

Thanks for the chat.

[Faera]

11 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

Endemism usually happens on an island or an isolated valley or some other place where there is a hard physical barrier to migration. The Neck has none of that. LLs are water creatures, so there is no reason why they couldn't move down the Green Fork and then up the other forks and the Trident itself over the millennia. Unless we are to think that they evolved in the Neck millions of years ago (and supposedly the place only become marshlike in the Dawn Age), then we have to assume that they migrated to the Neck from some other area -- so if they got in they could get out.

I also have doubts on the over-hunting theory. Nobody ever talks about LL hunts like they do with aurochs and other things. The lions of the westerlands have been hunted to extinction, but these are land animals -- it is much more difficult to do with a water creature. And if, say, the Freys were capturing any and all LLs moving down the Green Fork, they would certainly be tanning the leather (which probably makes kick-ass armor), cooking the meat and exploiting them in other useful ways, not just leaving the bodies to rot. And then someone else would have to be halting their movements on the Saltspear and directly into Ironman's Bay.

But this is really beside the point. To me, the fact that somehow it is warm enough in the Neck for LLs to exist at all, but lemons cannot grow anywhere north of Dorne, is a huge disconnect. The only convincing answer that keeps coming back to me is magic.

I agree that magic is the most likely answer though I still wouldn't be too quick to rule out destruction of habitat and hunting as many of the large magical animals have indeed seem their numbers dwindle and seeming due to human intervention.

But yes there is no doubt in my mind that magic is behind all the wildlife and, basically, the aura of the Neck as a whole. I have always viewed it as this intrinsically magical place as it's creation was supply due to the magic of the CitY's greenseers. I've often felt there is something otherworldly and magical about the crannogmen. Much like how life adapt to nature, it seems reasonable to presume they adapt to an overflow of magic too. 

Honestly, I just want to see Howland Reed and his crannogmen! 

[Lord Varys]

The lemons thing isn't really an issue. Braavos is a damp, foggy, and relatively cold place. Not to mention a Venice-like city where trees could only be cultivated at an enormous expense.

The Neck is 'magically' warm, but that doesn't mean the climate and ground there supports lemon trees, or that anyone has ever tried to plant some there.

But there is no reason to believe that magic cannot make certain things possible in isolated regions that are not possible in nearby places. The Thenn Valley would be another such place, perhaps even Winterfell with its 'magical' hot springs, etc.

[Faera]

I can't imagine oranges or lemons growing well in the Neck even if it has some internal heating due to volcanic activity in the past or hot springs or magic that makes it as warm as Dorne,"for grains do not flourish amidst the fens and swamps and salt marshes of the Neck." Speaking as someone who lives close to marsh and bogland the farmers can't grow anything much even on the mildly soggy fields because there isn't enough drainage; a bit of rain and you'd have yourself a flood-field. In other words, if the crannogmen grow anything at all, they probably only grow hardier berries, herbs and some small vegetables at most while hunting and gathering the rest. 

[John Suburbs]

21 hours ago, Clegane'sPup said:

Way outta my educational expertise. Sooooo, I'm gonna say the heat generated by the decaying material will allow some wiggle room heat for the creatures.

Eh, I dunno about that. That would be a rather weak rationale on Martin's part, considering that's not what happens in the real world.

My best guesses are that it's just a goof and we should all just ignore it, or that since the Neck was supposedly created magically by the CotF in order to stop human encroachment, then it can also magically support LLs even during the long winters, which are also likely due to CotF magic.