cactidrake

The wise old Desert Watcher.

Usually appears to humans when he senses they're hallucinating, and leaves them a REAL, small, hole filled with clear water. Eats catctus, sometimes scavenges. Gets to the scraps before the buzzards do.
The newborn are born in small rock caves, and are left there, while the females and males hunt. Young are born without the prickly plant merged in their skin, so they are defenseless if they travel out.
When they eat enough chewed-up cactus, fed to them by the older ones, the plants merge with they're skin, and form a soft grey body, grows a green, lumpy, and prickly skin.
Also from being in a rock cave for a year, and licking the minerals and salt from the cave, they grow rock-like sheild on their backs.

Sometimes they pick cactus right out and fuses it onto their skin.

Here, is the oldest Cactidrake in the world, Suuneth (Soon-eth),(He Who Pierced the Sun) talking to his old friend, Moonface the Owl.
and the other is when they sleep, they blend into their surroundings.

(too lazy to color. maybe next time)