Blubberwings are deep ocean dragons found far from shore. They used to be somewhat common, but have become an increasingly rare sight, especially around inhabited islands due to excessive hunting.
Unlike many other Sea Dragons, Bluberwings have not adapted gills or other methods to extract oxygen from the water, and so still need to come to the surface to breathe. Though they can hold their breathe for quite a while, often only needing to surface every 4 hours or so, though they can go up to double that without a breath if they're not exerting themselves too much.
Blubberwings were once incredibly friendly, curious dragons, not too dissimilar from Golphins, but due to the extreme hunting they faced from humans for their meat, bones and blubber, most have become incredibly timid.
Various Blubberwing products have become incredibly expensive and in high demand thanks to their newfound scarcity and the fact that most individuals who are hunted are juveniles, not much bigger than a slightly bigger than average riding dragon, who have not yet learned to fear humans and their ships, rather than adults, who can grow to be even larger than viking longships.
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Blubberwings are one of the many, many species who don't get any art pieces or much of a description, just a handful of mentions of their fat being used to keep swimmers warm in cold water, so this was another case where I had pretty much nothing to go off!
I took inspiration from Northern Bottlenose Whales for these guys for a few reasons. One is that I just think Beaked Whales in general are super cool animals that very few people even know about the existence of, so I'll take any opportunity to introduce even a single person to those amazing creatures.
The other, and more specific reason why I chose Bottlenose Whales specifically rather than any other Beaked Whale is the fact that they were heavily hunted in real life! Populations in the North Atlantic were targeted extensively for more than a centaury thanks to the fact that they were particularly friendly and produced a lot more oil than other whales of similar size.
