Your take on dragons.

[Kurt_]

Recently, I have had a fixation on whether or not dragons were real. I saw a show that portrayed dragons rather well, having the last one die off in the middle ages, slain by a medieval lord.

Dragons are in lots of cultures. Chinese, Japanese, lots of European (Slavic, Roman, German, British, Celtic, Italian, etc.), even in the bible. These cultures (Ancient China/Japan and Europe) did not have any contact with each other when dragons originated from them, so why did these two wildly different cultures create such a similar creature? Were dragons real?

What's your take on dragons? Where they come from, their ability to breathe fire, how they died off, if they existed in the first place? Anything dragon related.

And yes, I do enjoy topics with no one obtainable answer. They make for good discussion.

Dragon Links to aid discussion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_dragon

For dragon lovers, this is a must see show: (Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real)

http://animal.discovery.com/convergence ... /show.html

[Shadeslayer]

even in the bible

Well I believe dragons were real. I always had a thing for dragons and always loved how people portrayed them in art and movies.

[dman762000]

I look at it like this, for some reason, at about the same time all around the world stories of the same type of creature sprang up, so there must have been something like it in existence, the same goes for vampires and werewolves. Most myths have some truth in them so what caused all the stories in cultures that could not possibly have any contact with each other to spring forth at the same time?

[dragon]

I think they exeisted or still do.

[gamemasterAS]

Even though they are coolio I dunno if they ever existed, and if they did I don't think the still do.

[Twisted Warthog]

I remember hearing somewhere that the last known dragon died at a fair in the 1800's. That it looked like a fat snake with little skinny legs and wings. No bigger than a rattlesnake. But i think they may of just stuck fake wings on a slender lizard. Still that doesn't explain how massive some Dragons were portrayed in art. I want to think that Dragons and other mythical creatures survived, lived, and thrived at one time on Earth but its hard to.

[ZN13]

Well maybe it was a smaller type, like the velociraptor of dragons. Or maybe it was young and died from malnutrition or somethin...

[teraflop122]

Dragons occupy the same niche in my mind as the various lake monsters and bigfoot type animals.

I consider two truths: 1) Animals always leave something to be found, 2) Animals cannot "somehow" avoid all attempts at detection or explanation.

Disregarding the anomolous prevelence of dragons in all cultures, they will not be taken seriously until some kind of hard evidence has been found. I have not seen fossil evidence of dragons- I haven't seen skeletons from recent deaths. Dragons were thought to exist all throughout Europe, China, areas which are now heavily populated- areas in which bround is broken for construction on a regular basis. The chances of the remains of such a large creature going unnoticed in these areas is slim.

That's how I see it.

[Limewater]

Dragons were thought to exist all throughout Europe, China, areas which are now heavily populated- areas in which bround is broken for construction on a regular basis. The chances of the remains of such a large creature going unnoticed in these areas is slim.

What do you mean?

Remains from large, dragon-like creatures are found all the time. There are museums full of them all over the world.

[Twisted Warthog]

Yeah but these "dragon like creatures" 90% of the time are just Dinosaurs. Still did anyone see that one special they had on Animal Planet about a year ago on Dragons and if they were real. It really explained a lot of interesting stuff.

[Limewater]

Yeah but these "dragon like creatures" 90% of the time are just Dinosaurs.

90% of the time? What are they the other 10%?

The word "dinosaur" didn't even really exist until the 1800's. People have been talking about dragons for thousands of years.

[Twisted Warthog]

I know that but still do you know how massive a dragons wings would have to be in able for it to fly? A good sized dragon would have to have wings the size of a small house. Don't you think we would find any remains at all of a dragon with its wings attached? I mean we found flying Dinosaurs that lived millions of years ago with their wings still on. You'd think by now we would have found at least SOME evidence of a dragon like species of animal with its wings attached that only lived thousands of years ago. I'm wasn't saying dragons are not real i just think the sasquatch and nessie have a better chance of probability than dragons.

[Limewater]

I know that but still do you know how massive a dragons wings would have to be in able for it to fly?

That would depend on the size of the dragon, but yes, I could calculate it.

Don't you think we would find any remains at all of a dragon with its wings attached?

We have. You directly reference them in your next sentence.

I mean we found flying Dinosaurs that lived millions of years ago with their wings still on.

See?

You'd think by now we would have found at least SOME evidence of a dragon like species of animal with its wings attached that only lived thousands of years ago.

So you're suggesting that a completely independent type of animal spontaneously generated thousands of years ago and then promptly died out?

I'll assume that you meant to refer to a species of animal that lived up until a few hundred or few thousand years ago.

However, it is not unreasonable at all for there not to be remains available. Assuming that we evolved over the past 4.2 billion years, the relative sparsity of the fossil record clearly indicates that fossil formation occurs only very rarely. Plenty of species would have to have existed for millions of years without ever leaving any fossils that we have discovered yet.

Or, you could approach with the tack that our ideas about the history of the planet prior to the last couple thousand years are incorrect and based upon insufficient observation.

[ganonbanned]

there awesome but fake

[Shadeslayer]

I would get in a huge debate on dragons using the bible but when ever someone does that the thread gets locked!

This thread is to cool.