Speed Stinger

The Speed Stinger is a Sharp Class dragon that appeared in Defenders of Berk. They are flightless and hunt in packs and have a leader, the Lead Stinger. It appeared in the episode Frozen, and made it's way to School of Dragons.

Dragon Appearance
The Speed Stinger is a swift, flightless dragon which resembles a theropod Raptor/dinosaur, but with sail-like appendages on its head, back and legs. Though the Speed Stinger does have wings, these are very small and useless. Its name is derived from the barbed stinger at the tip of its tail (rather like a stingray's). All of them have red stingers and red eyes. Their small pupils resemble those of Terrible Terrors. They also have muscular back legs with webbed feet. Average Speed Stingers are green, while the leader has red stripes and highlights, and is slightly bigger than the rest of the pack.



Behavior
The Speed Stinger is described as the Velociraptor of the Dragon World, being extremely intelligent and cunning. These dragons are ravenous scavengers, that will often steal from other dragons and Vikings but they probably also hunt. They live in packs, led by a Lead Stinger, and have a hive-like mindset. They hide under the shadows of the sun. The Lead Stinger decides everything, and the pack follows wherever he goes; without him or her, the pack becomes useless. Speed Stingers are nocturnal, spending the days in caverns in order to avoid predators. When attacking, they leap in the air and use their stinger to paralyze their victims. Any member of a Speed Stinger pack would be very loyal to their pack, and protect them at all costs, even from its own kind, or previous pack.

Abilities
The Speed Stinger lives up to its name. It is the fastest dragon on land, hunts in packs, and can't fly like all the other dragons. However, with its super speed, it can jump higher than any other dragon. It is also shown to be good at stealth and is a highly intelligent dragon. Speed Stingers are nocturnal dragons, but can still be awaken during the day, usually because of an injury. Speed Stingers lack any flame usage. This is because all the internal flame energy goes to its powerful legs, which give it its speed, agility, and the capacity to jump high. Because of their thick hides and large amount of internal energy, Speed Stingers have great stamina for use in an entire night.

Night Vision
Speed Stingers have excellent and powerful night vision where they can see perfectly at night and even through a minor snowstorm.

Adult
The sharp stinger on the end of its barbed tail contains a powerful venom that can paralyze a victim entirely in just one sting. The sting eventually wears off, some in hours, most in days.

Adolescent
An adolescent Speed Stinger's venom is not fully developed as it can't paralyze an entire victim on one sting. Instead, the venom only works around the area of the sting, leaving the rest of the body movable and operational.

Water Walking
Speed Stingers have been shown to have webbed feet that allow them to travel on water for long distances without sinking. With these characteristics, they can travel from island to island, despite being unable to fly. In Defenders of Berk, they did not appear to have any webbed feet. It is most likely that the Speed Stingers had webbing, but found an ice bridge and went across it. As they are much more familiar to land, they can follow the ice to another location. Water-hoping would make the search for an island delayed by a long time, as they didn't know where Berk, or other islands are located. The pack encountered in Race to the Edge, followed the direction that the dragon riders were going to find their location Dragon's Edge.

Training
Speed Stingers were said to be too aggressive to be trained. However, this was later proven wrong by the Speed Stingers' appearance in School of Dragons and The Next Big Sting. In School of Dragons, Speed Stingers have became available to be trained. In The Next Big Sting, Hiccup trained an adolescent Speed Stinger. Though many might argue that they are only trainable from birth or infancy, most likely, they are only easier to be trained while in infancy. Hiccup was able to train Speedy in a short while. So fully grown dragons might be much more difficult, but probably not impossible. If trained, Speed Stingers would stay to protect, even if it means to leave its old pack. Any "friend" of its trainer would be considered as a pack member, and even when a trained Speed Stinger "hates" an individual, for example Speedy to Snotlout, the Speed Stinger would remain to protect the individual if he/she is considered as a pack member.

How To Train Your Dragon
The Speed Stinger is found in the Dragon Manual when Hiccup was searching for information on Night Furies.

In Dragons: Defenders of Berk
In the episode Frozen, the Speed Stinger made its first and so far only appearance. While Hiccup and Toothless were searching for Trader Johann, they could see a pack of these dragons running beneath them, on the frozen sea. It later turned out the Pack had taken over Berk, and paralyzed most of its citizens, including Stoick, Snotlout, and Meatlug. Ultimately, Toothless and Hiccup managed to lure the Stingers away from Berk, by capturing their leader, the Lead Stinger, luring it back along the path and forcing the other Speed Stingers to follow until Hookfang- ridden by Snotlout with Gustav Larson acting as his arms due to his paralysis- was able to melt the path and leave them trapped.

Trivia

 * The Speed Stinger strongly resembles the Stinger Dragons from the How To Train Your Dragon Arena Spectacular. The resemblance and name similarities are notable enough to hint that the dragons may be the same species just in different forms of telling the story of the How To Train Your Dragon Universe.


 * The Speed Stinger's tail resembles a scorpion's stinger, or to be more accurate, a stingray's tail.


 * Although it did appear in the dragon manual in the movie, it did not appear in the short Book of Dragons. The image may have been put in the book to fill in space, but was later embraced in Defenders of Berk.
 * The Speed Stinger is one of the very few dragons that does not to have a horn on its nose or a horn-shaped nose.
 * The Speed Stinger is the first dragon in the series to be flightless.
 * The Speed Stinger makes its first appearance in Frozen.
 * Despite Fishlegs saying one drop of their venom can freeze a human or dragon in an instant, it took six Stingers to paralyze Stoick. This could mean their poison can be counteracted by either sheer adrenaline, body size or both, although this might just mean it took six dragons before one of them could sting him. The latter is most likely the right one. This dragon's venom may act a bit more slowly the bigger the animal or person its acted upon. Such as when Stormfly received a single sting, it took a few seconds to paralyze her completely. Also when the first Speed Stinger attack happened, it took four Speed Stingers to instantly paralyze a Deadly Nadder that they had cornered.
 * Speed Stingers travel in packs with a group leader who leads them.
 * They are nocturnal because they sleep during the day and hunt at night.
 * They are one of the fastest dragons in terms of their overall speed, 13, and are also excellent at stealth.
 * The Speed Stinger's roar uses the same sound effects as the Velociraptors in the Jurassic Park movies. This is most likely due to their resemblances.
 * The Speed Stinger is the 6th Dragon not to be featured in the short Book of Dragons, but to be featured in the show. The others were: Typhoomerang, Fireworm , Smothering Smokebreath , Screaming Death, and the Flightmare.
 * Although this dragon is not the first dragon unable to breath fire, it is the first to have no ranged attack.
 * It looks like a combination between a Velociraptor, a shark, and a scorpion.
 * Like the Stormcutter and Night Fury, Speed Stingers are able to hang themselves or sleep upside down like a bat.
 * It is unknown why only the leader has red, but it might be to show that only he can mate. The leader may release hormones making them unable to mate similar to queen bees or it could just be a rare variation.
 * Their teeth reach further back when compared to other dragons.
 * Speed Stingers are the fastest dragons on land.
 * The Speed Stinger resembles the fictional dinosaur species Acceraptor from the TV Show Terra Nova, since they both have sharp weapons at the edge of their tails.
 * Many fans thought Speed Stingers were trainable, but this is now known to be false since they are too aggressive to be trained.
 * However, in the game School of Dragons, the Speed Stinger was made trainable. Which means that the Speed Stinger is in fact trainable.
 * While clearly based on Raptors, the Stingers forearms resemble those of a T-Rex.
 * The official stats for the Speed Stinger are most likely inaccurate, such as it's speed 30, which most likely means the speed on land (since it only moves on land), although this has never been seen before, it is not as fast as a Night Fury and a few other dragons. Meaning that the speed 13 from the Cartoon Network stats would be it's overall speed.
 * The stealth 30 is also another issue. Even though it has excellent stealth, they have not yet been proven to be better at stealth than a Changewing.
 * Speed Stingers can adapt to live in cold environments such as the Arctic. A pack of Speed Stingers were encountered in Icestorm Island.