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by SG QOTABD RIP SHELLA DARLING on March 26th, 2007

SG QOTABD RIP SHELLA DARLING

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Did dragons realy exist?

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  • by - retroglide - on March 26th, 2007

    - retroglide -

    All of the Oriental dragons were intimately associated with water. Dragons lived in lakes and rivers and seas, even in raindrops. They controlled the tides, floods and rainfall. If they really existed, then a source that immediately comes to mind is the Chinese alligator, Alligator sinensis. They are not as large as their American cousin, ranging from an average two metres in length to sometimes three metres. But they are dangerous, reptilian and water-based - all good reasons for linking them to the Oriental dragon. But only if you haven’t heard of the predecessors of the real-life Komodo dragon …

    Australian monitor lizards all belong to the genus Varanus. They are easily identifiable by their streamlined shape, elongated neck, semi-erect posture, and a forked tongue - which can give the effect of fire-breathing. They all look very similar except for their size differences, which are extreme to say the least. The smallest is the pygmy monitor Varanus brevicauda (20 centimetres long, weighs 8-10 grams). The largest in Australia is the perentie or Varanus giganteus, which can attain a length of two metres.

    Larger still are the Komodo Dragons (Varanus komodoensis) of Indonesia, a country that the ancient Chinese would certainly have visited. They can reach lengths of three metres and weigh 150 kgs, making them the world’s largest lizards. They are formidable predators, like crocodiles that are able to run quickly across land. They were probably the reason that the stegodonts (pygmy elephants) became extinct in this area. They might even have wiped out the 1-metre tall, miniature humans, Homo floresiensis, who lived there up until 12,000 years ago.

    These dragons were previously more widespread, with evidence of them once occurring in Mongolia coming to light. And in Queensland, Australia, only becoming extinct 19,000 years ago (take that date with a pinch of salt), was a bigger lizard still, a cousin of the Komodo dubbed Megalania prisca. Megalania prisca, as we have learned from fossil evidence, grew to be a staggering seven metres in length and weighed 600 kgs . Although it was technically a lizard, it must have had the presence of a dinosaur, and almost certainly ate a few of the humans of that era. But it’s usual meal was more likely to have been rhinoceros-sized wombats. [Strange days indeed with gigantism seeming to be rampant.] These meals are believable when you consider that Komodo dragons have been known to kill water buffalo weighing three times more than themselves.

    Which brings us back to ancient Rome! Pliny, the Roman naturalist, said that the dragon of India was "so enormous a size as easily to envelop the elephant with its folds and encircle with its coils. The contest is equally fatal to both; the elephant, vanquished, falls to the earth and by its weight crushes the dragon which is entwined about it."

    He also mentioned the dragons of Ethiopia, which, with a length of only thirty feet, were too small to kill elephants. Other European myths state that dragons always jumped onto elephants from out of trees. Is this all just fantasy, amazing stories concocted to scare children with? Or is it just as reasonable to suggest that dragons once lived?

    So where are we heading? On the one hand there are myths connecting dragons to global destruction and rebirth. On the other are links to DNA, ancient languages, ancient calendars and the I Ching. And now I am taking a big breath and suggesting that the mythical dragons were rooted in reality, that knights in shining armour actually killed real dragons, and somehow it all makes sense. This is where a new theory of evolution comes in… stay tuned.

    http://survive2012.com/dragon_myths_6.php

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  • by Sgt. Widget will die from finals on March 30th, 2007

    Sgt. Widget will die from finals

    In the mythological sense, it's doubtful. In the sense of some creatures bearing the name, certain. If you're interested in the treatment of mythological dragons as actual, living beings, medieval bestiaries may be of interest to you as might a program put out by BBC/Animal Planet called "Dragon's World: A Fantasy Made Real."

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  • by caramels_mum on March 26th, 2007

    caramels_mum

    if you knew my mother inlaw you would say yes

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  • by Mike777 on March 26th, 2007

    Mike777

    I think most dragon myth stories developed from those who saw dinosaur fossils, which look scary, especially dinosaur fossil heads. Those who found the fossils THOUGHT they were looking at SKELETON bones, but it was really fossils. Those who actually saw them were very convinced they were skeletons, and those who heard the reports of others who had seen them were certainly convinced they had seen the remains of some horrible creature! Naturally, some who saw the fossils, would claim THEY had slain it! This created myths of dragon slaying, etc.

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  • by Wickels on March 26th, 2007

    Wickels

    There is little or no proof of the existance of dragons. But theroies about about how almost every culture has had stories of dragons, or all shapes and sizes over the corse of history leads me to belive that yes, there were.

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  • by Shine_The_Light on March 26th, 2007

    Shine_The_Light

    However, you need to consider that dinosaurs did not breathe fire, and only pterodactyls ever flew, you are talking t-rex size beast flying and breathing fire. It is a pure myth as the science of fire breathing by natural evolution is mind-boggling.

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  • by Chosun One on March 26th, 2007

    Chosun One

    I would think so, they were probably kin to the dinosaurs.. makes sense to me.

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  • by dragonfreak on March 28th, 2007

    dragonfreak

    yes they really did a long time ago because humons kept on killing them.then a dragon was discover in a cave. so yes dragons did exist.

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  • by rockme on March 26th, 2007

    rockme

    yeah, but not in the mythical sence. we have dragons today but they are actually large lizards.

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  • by Taniesha on June 1st, 2009

    Taniesha

    I think there is some historical creature from which this type of mythology arose. In the Arabian Nights, there is a creature called the Roc, a large bird capable of snatching a full grown man away. Though no such bird currently live, who knows....?

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  • by buffalobill67 on May 9th, 2007

    buffalobill67

    Simply, NO.

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  • by Dragongrace on April 23rd, 2007

    Dragongrace

    Dragons come up in cultures all over the world, who never could have met. before you diss this, tell me how they all got the same charicters in their heads?

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  • by Brawl on February 3rd, 2011

    Brawl

    Remains have been found. Dragons would breath fire on their eggs to keep them alive, the heat of the egg would determine their gender. The flame was made by gas produced inside the dragon, naturally the inside of it's mouth were completely flame-proof. They died out because the last female could not find a mare in it's cold environment and it's hatchlings were killed by hunters. I realize it sounds redicilos but my source seems legit.

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  • by researcher for God on May 9th, 2007

    researcher for God

    Sadly no...

    But I did see a cool cable movie that made it look like they had... :-)

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  • by vampicbow on March 26th, 2007

    vampicbow

    if you meet ann robinson you would think so lol

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  • by annas -world on November 19th, 2008

    annas -world

    I read that dragons could exist!
    Why? They have wings(like birds) their body(like big lizards) they breath fire(?????) and they have claws(any animal)!
    No-one knows are they real!
    But...than again....i think that they wore real and that they are!

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  • by denidowi on September 17th, 2009

    denidowi

    Yes; of course they did: Ask Harry PotterLOL!
    I think the Bible speaks in some such manner: so perhaps that's how they were referred back then.

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  • by Bodley_Fludes on February 6th, 2011

    Bodley_Fludes

    We can't say the ancients were not trying to represent some living or once-living creature, and how close they came to the truth.
    I say ANYTHING is possible, and I mean that in the broadest possible sense because we have only our brains and senses to tell us what to believe and we don't (as Prof. G.M.N.Tyrrell pointed out) have direct acquaintance with anything outside ourselves.
    It is certainly interesting that representations of dragons are seen more or less all over the ancient world. Also, they are sufficiently similar to be recognised and confidently categorised as such.
    Maybe the Chinese (in particular) found dinosaur bones and, impressed by their size and strangeness, attempted to represent the living likeness of the creatures in art and sculpture. The first attempt at recreation in plaster of the prehistoric Iguanado, back in in the 19th century, is perfectly laughable now and even the youngest schoolchildren realise it is far wide of the mark.
    In some enduring mysteries, it is the confused or seemingly inexplicable detail that gives one pause. Information that lends no credence to the report, yet is faithfully included as part of the observation.
    Michael Bradley mentions this phenomenon too, how that in widespread reports of encounters with 'dragons' or 'wurms' in the past, is contained persistent comments regarding appendages situated just behind the creatures head, and which are referred to in similar terms, and variously described as, or are assumed to be, 'wing-pods', 'footballs' or vestigial limbs. As Bradley says, these common features are reported religiously as best suited the opinion of the reporter, yet it was at the same time obvious the purpose of these strange appendages was unclear to the observer.
    Personally, I think, like most people, the dragon (excepting the Komodo Dragon and the Bearded Dragon) as portrayed, is a nonsense, but I think there is too much here to dismiss the legend out of hand, and to not give us cause to wonder about the truth of the matter.

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  • by peanut444 on June 1st, 2009

    peanut444

    some scientist blieve that dragons nvr rlly existed, that our imagination just created them as a guideline of wat animals to avoid,the most common example is the european dargon, it has the body of a lion, the neck of a giant snake, and the talons of a bird( keep in mind in caveman days, some birds were so big they could pick u right off the ground with little or no effort)

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  • by JakobA I^_^I the alooney on September 17th, 2009

    JakobA I^_^I the alooney

    In the popular sense (Huge flying animals with wings), it is 99.9999999 % certain dragons never existed.
    The air and gravity of earth severly limit the possible size a flying animal can have and still be viable.

    The flaming breath is even less likely to have ever existed in any animal.

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  • by Ganja_Goddess on September 17th, 2009

    Ganja_Goddess

    Maybe all the ancient stories of dragons were really just ancestors of dinosaurs that hadn't died off yet or something.

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  • by His Lordship... has left on September 17th, 2009

    His Lordship... has left

    Of course they did. We call them dinosaurs. (Rhambphorhynchus) Flying dinos. If you were living back then and found dino remains, what would you think it was?

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  • by Vaporeongirl on September 17th, 2009

    Vaporeongirl

    Some paleantologists actually believe that dragons DID exist during the era of the dinosaurs and the whole fire thing was just exaggeration. I go along with this hypothesis.

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  • by guardian on September 17th, 2009

    guardian

    Yes:if you want more info why you will have to ask.+3

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