Do Dragons exist?

[novoAlias]

lmao@ vertabrat, u had me confused i believe its vertabrates ie with a backbone...

it is interesting that people have figured out what anatomy a dragon has/would have .
also a komodo dragon doesnt fly and isnt very smart/delicate, somewhat lessening the wonder involved

[MonteCristo]

The thing that interests me about this item, is the way that some of the skin/scales are peeling off. This tends to happen with organic matter when kept in formaldehyde. I just think it's interesting that that would happen if it was rubber. I guess what all want to know is: what does it look like under an x-ray?

[Ironbuket]

Named after the island on which it was discovered, the Komodo Dragon has gripped the popular imagination since it was brought to the attention of the world in 1910. Lieutenant van Steyn van Hensbroek, a member of the occupying Dutch colonials, learned rumors of a "land crocodile," a creature purportedly over 20 feet long. In time, van Hensbroek caught and killed a six foot Komodo. Then, in 1926, American W. Douglas Burden went on an expedition to research the creatures, and named them "dragons."

Since they were named dragons in modern times. They cannot be a part of the dragon myth and have the same relevance to the existance of the "mythical dragon" as if I named my pet snake dragon

[Downup]

If they cut it and there is some heart and brain and things like that can i belive..

But now do i only think it is a Realy good hand modell dragon!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[Jenn]

Man! I thought I was jaded but you guys have me beat hands down here.

Where is your sense of wonder and ability to suspend disbelief even if it is for just a fleeting moment? Must imagination always be the casualty of logic and knowledge?

What's life without a little mystery? I for one love this image and it matters not at all if it's real or fake. Because for one brief moment I was transported to a world where anything was possible and away from the communal safety of what is known to be real and possible in this cruel, war torn, disappointing world we live in today.


"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. "
--Albert Einstein

[Daniel]

I dunno, I mean can accept the vision of imagination, and I can appreciate it of course.

But the first thing I always do is look at something in the logical and scientific point of view, I can't help it. I calculate the probabilities and examine the facts. If that's jaded, indeed I am

[dhin]

Don't get me wrong. I love dragons, the myth and fantasy of them. For my 18th birthday my mom bought me like 20 porcelain statues including 3 incense burners that blew smoke ring. I've always had a fascination with them. This picture is really cool and detailed, BUT form a purely biological stand point, this dragon is either (a) a fake, or (b) not originally from this world.

If it is real that rules out (a) but then the question of its origin comes in to play. There is no fossil record of any animal - reptile, amphibian, bird or mammal (I leave out moluscs, insects and arachnids and fish for obvious reason)- with 6 limbs. With the skeletal and muscle structures of earth based animals support for 6 limb is an impossibility, it can't happen. So obliviously then by process or comparison and elimination it cannot have originated upon earth, there are no species that are remotely close to having the traits that this creature has. Therefore if it is real, it could not have originated from a species on earth bring us to (b). Where did it come from?

Terrestrial dragons (or dragon originating on earth) would be what fantasy writes often call Wyvern. They have wings but they are the fore limbs and not a 3rd pair of limbs, this would follow the natural biology of earth based animal. Artistically in europe dragons had only 4 limbs in many early depictions. Four legged dragons with a set of wings where not seen until much latter priods. Asian dragons are wingless and more snake like.

From the biological stand point of the eurpoean dragon though a Wyvern is much more believable, due to the fact it that it is not imposable for a flightless ancestor species to give rise to flying species, dinosaurs are any example. Many believe they didn't all become extinct. They simple continue adapting to they environments and are now what we call bird. There is fossil evidence for this. Bats are an example of a flying mammal. A flying reptile then would flow similarly, and it not an unbelievable thing.

The breathing of fire isn't even a real stretch for a reptile either. Many Snakes and 2 species of Lizards produce venom. Venom is chemically very complex and near imposable to simulate or synthesize. Some of these toxins even have no known cure or antidote due to the complex nature of the chemical compounds. Venom glands within a flying lizard then wouldn't be an unheard of thing, and if the gland became more specialized conceivable it could be used like that of a spitting cobra and propel its venom in streams or jets. Since venom has such a level of complexity it is possible that it could react like a natural form of Napalm that ignites upon contact with air especially if it was high in phosphates.

From a biological stand point its all plausible, Wyverns could or could have existed on earth, even though we have no proof of it right now. This isn't a great leap to make. But introducing a species that had 3 pairs of limbs with out and fossil or living relative that show similar traits like an extra pair of limbs make it very unbelievable, because it is an evolutionary leap. Like saying dolphins evolved form apples for example. No proof and no plausible link. Bringing me back to (b). Is it proof then of extraterrestrial life? How did this creature get here? Do aliens have pet dragon? and did they forget this one by accident?

[MonteCristo]

All good points Dhin, but consider for a moment the Duck-Billed Platypus, an egg laying mammal; one of the most venimous creatures on the planet, with the ar$e of a gopher and the face of a duck:

Can we really rule out anything as impossible? Do we really know everything?

[dhin]

Strange as the Platypus may be it still fits to certian rules, even though it is only one of 2 (or three) mammal that lay eggs and is the only mammal that is poisonous. (And personally I see this lil'bugger as proof that there is a God and he has a since of hummor.)

I think it would be extermly cool if dragons of the kind we are talking about could be proven real. But for now I still hold that it could not be terrestrial, not with out further proofs or evidance at least. It would be just too much of a streatch. But the wings are the only problem I have, the rest is possable.

[Ironbuket]

Yea what dhin is saying is right. You cant jump like that from 4 legs to 4 legs and wings. There has to be a middle stage. If there were other 6 legs lizards then you could say its possible, but there arent. It would be the equivalent of a human being born with fully working wings. You might get a mutal human with 1 or even (at a stretch) 2 extra limbs, but they are unlikely to even funtion correctly. Wings are an evolved form of limbs, you cant jump from none to working wings, it just cant happen...

Where did they come from?

I guess I had always thought there were never any “real” dragons. I had always thought that probably what happened was in ancient times people had come across the bones of prehistoric animals like mammoths and maybe even dinosaur bones. Finding bones of truly humongous animals is bound to spark the imagination.

It was only just now that I thought, well where are these bones now? If it happened that way then surely they should have been on display somewhere for the last 3000 years?

Maybe the church destroyed them. That’s the only thing I can think of

Then you have the sea serpents. Not really sure where that one came from. How does a boat disappearing turn into a myth about monsters in the sea destroying them? Sailors know the sea alone is capable of sinking a boat in bad whether, so why would they make something like that up?

I think there must be something to the Dragon legend, especially when you consider even northern European countries seem to have been writing about them, when they would have been very unlikely to have come across any Dinosaur bones in that geographical location.

The Japanese/Chinese etc dragon myths are a bit of a different case though I think. I believe that stemmed from them trying to explain earthquakes. They made up stories that every time there was a quake it was monsters fighting under the sea and stuff like that.

Could the European dragon stories just be carried across from China? It just seems a bit unlikely to me.

[dhin]

Myths and legends tend to stem for a grain of truth. Dinosaur bones really weren't known about until the mid to late 1800's. One of the 'first' dinosaurs was found on the cliffs of the englands shoreline by a little girl. Before then there really was nothing about them.

Euro-dragons may stem for bones found before that time, or maybe even dino-straggelors (survivior species that are not extenct, but are very rare.) These are possablities but there is know way of knowing for sure.

Asian dragons are very different from the European dragron. In Europe dragons were feared and seen as evil foul beasts, were as in Asia they were revered and reveranced, as great beings of power. European dragons had wings to fly with but Asain dragons didn't have wings, but their bodies were long and thin almost snake like they had small legs and swam though the air like a snake in water. The two are like night and day in their differances and in there cultural possitions.

Sea serpents are a far different story. Probalby steming for giant squid and other as yet undiscovered creatures that like in the depths of the oceans.

The existance of the creatures in ancient writings would imply there was some thing that made these creatures far less at thing of fantasy or fiction and more an actually recongizable animal. These animale may very well have died out, but the memory of them from anceint story percisted.They may have become more and more embelished upon though out the centuries after their disaperance, giving rise to the development of an extra set of limbs are wings and what not. No one really knows.

[MonteCristo]

Pah! Next you'll be telling me that the Flying Baby-Faced Meerkat doesn't exist...

[3Dan]

ROFLMAO Monte!
Yknow that's a good idea for a new comp, what?

[dhin]

Flying Baby-Faced Meerkats are just as real as Jackalopes, but every one knows that they are insects so they don't really fall into this discution.

[Ironbuket]

I wonder where the word dragon (in english anyway) started from. Find that out and you might be on track to find where the idea that they existed came from.

St George did after all slay a dragon, and not just some nameless demon or such.

Off I went to track down the orgins of the word, and I found the answers

I copied this out of this website. Visit if you want to read the whole thing:
http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/galatea2.htm

Yet the origin of the idea of the dragon in the West is quite simple and straightforward. The word dragon itself can be traced to a Greek word meaning "sharp-sighted one," an appropriate epithet for a snake. In Latin, the Greek word was converted to draco, and it came to mean "giant snake." To the Romans the dragon was a giant snake, probably a python from India or Africa.

Other evidence that the dragon was a large snake comes from the early pictorial representations of dragons. They were almost always shown as large snakes. Gesner had noted that the old German word for dragon, Lindwurm, really meant "snake-worm" or just "snake, snake." The old Anglo-Saxon word Wyrm has been translated as meaning equally "dragon," "serpent," or "worm." In Beowolf the dragon is called the Worm, and in old English ballads dragons are called the "laidly (loathly) Worm." Throughout Ireland dragonlike monsters were called "direful Wurms."

A popular English folktale which may date back to the early fifteenth century recounts the fight between Sir John Lambton and "the Worm." It is a traditional knight-versus-dragon story. From the sixteenth century onward, artists showed "the Worm" with legs. But the original legend says nothing about legs.