People seem to undersestimate the powers of Morgoth... he was the most powerful being on Arda (Eru dosen't count as he isnt' on arda
). He has the ability to create, perhaps through a twisted song or chant as the other vala do- without needed anything as a base. There is no evidence of any Dinosaur-like-reptiles (you've such an imagination saucepan man
) and if they existed, the Professor would have at least hinted to them somewhere in all of his works, even if he had abolished the idea at a later time. I would tend to think that Morgoth created the dragons from scratch, or used something as harmless and simple as a gecko and using (dare I say it) his 'magic' corrupted, and mutated the creature/s into what we know as dragons... of course he isn't as good as he used to be so it'd take a few goes. He also had no idea what he really wanted or needed in dragons; the Gondolin crisis really spurred him to need wings on em
However long i ramble for... what i really am in severe doubt about is (soft drum roll) whether or not dragons were able to reproduce!
I would say no. However there is nothing for me to back this up on, there is nothing on the subject. Apart from the fact that dragons slowly diminished, and even with the numbers of those slain, if they were reproducing, the race would still survive somewhere, or even grow. This of course brings the age of Smaug debate back to mind, and it looks like i've caused myself and all you guys to go round in circles on things we've debated over and over again and thought we'd decided on...
I'd go with the fact that Smaug was old... (something once again we can't prove- also due to the fact that i think Tolkien hadn't decided either, or didn't think it'd really matter how old Smaug was.)
Sorry guys, but this topic dosen't leave me with much to go on for putting my theories forth. (and i know this is an old one but!) my books are all still in storage in another hemisphere.
<goes back to the deep>
Ossë