>>95941769
malekith is said to have nurtured his first black dragon, sulekh, since it was an egg, right at the start of his plans to take the crown, those plans couldn't have possibly begun before his return to ulthuan from the period of friendship with the dwars in the old world
so we're looking at one year between -2774 (his return to ulthuan) and -2751 (the murder of bel shanaar), for the taking and hatching of the egg, while he is first mentioned in the timeline as riding the dragon in -2735
if we assume that's the actual first time he rides the dragon and that he rode the dragon as soon as it was big enough, then we may be looking at roughly 40 years between hatching and being big enough to ride
sulekh is slain roughly ten years later in -2724, but her children are mentioned, so she must have been sexually mature too, not just large enough to be used as mount

another part of the dark elves armybook says that a clutch of stolen eggs were nurtured with dark magic for a century before they hatched, and that the nobles spent many decades training to ride and fight with the new dragons

so it's fair to say that dragons go from babies to maturity in 25-50 years

>Here are some general size references for the Nile crocodile seen here at Londolozi:
>Hatchlings: Approximately 25-30cm (10-12 inches)
>Juveniles (1-3 years): Around 1-1.5m (3.3-5 ft)
>Sub-adults (4-7 years): About 2-3m (6.5-10ft)
>Adults (8+ years): Males can reach lengths of 4-5.5m (13-18ft), while females are typically smaller, averaging 3-3.5m (10-11.5ft)

hard to graph a rate of growth though