How would or could a creature with a crystalline sail evolve?

I recently came up with a lizard that had a sort of crystal-gem like attachment on its back. The problem was finding a way for such a thing to have evolved to have a largish crystal on its back.

The lizard is around 2 metres long, has a height of around 1 metre tall, probably carnivorous, could stand on 2 legs or 4 legs if it chooses to (there was a dinosaur that did this, I can't remember what it's called).

Now the crystal sail, it should be composed of Euhedral crystals pillars that line its back to form a sort of 'sail'(I'm not sure whether a singular large piece of crystal is better/less fragile or having multiple crystal pillars is better), the crystal itself shouldn't be very clear, I mean, we don't find very clear crystals naturally so it probably won't be clear on an animal. It's like the Dimetrodon or Spinosaurus 'sails' but one made of crystal. The sail peaks at 1 metre tall. How would such a creature have evolved to have crystals growing out of its back?

To clarify a bit, my conclusion has been that the crystals would 'grow' with the lizard during its lifetime due to the inherent problems of having eggs to fit young with a metre-long sail. This means that its diet would consist of meat, more meat and probably the occasional mineral that goes to building the 'sail'? <<< maybe?

The other problem I have is that crystal is usually quite heavy and brittle. Not all crystals of course but there might be more difficulty to have a less brittle crystal like diamond growing from its back. The heaviness part could be hand waved by 'strong' muscles and bones. The brittle part is worrying, I don't think a creature that breaks its sail every time it runs is gonna need it. (It's a good source of income for humans though.)

I haven't decided on a specific crystal yet, but if you need a specific one then go with either ruby, sapphire, obsidian or diamond. Or if none of these work then it's up to the experts.

If this creature couldn't possibly exist then I probably wasted the time you have spent reading this poorly written description.

I'm not sure if answers to this question require the function of a crystal sail but I'll get around to asking that question soon.

If you have no idea what a sail is then it's that really large extension on top of the creature you see down here; replace that with either a large crystal or multiple crystal pillars and voila. Not to be confused with these sails you find on ships

posted about 8 years ago

Skye‭

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