h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've never seen a dragon, and I'm yet to be convinced that they exist. However, this doesn't mean they never existed. The theory that ancient people found dinosaur fossils and interpreted them as evidence that demonic, fire-breathing reptiles once stalked the Earth (and maybe still do) is a plausible one. But can we take it a step further? Is it possible that some dinosaurs genuinely could have behaved like dragons, regardless of whether they're still around today? As Loyd Grossman might say, let's look at the evidence.

Dragons are generally portrayed as large, winged quadrupeds with the capacity for emitting flames from their nostrils. Compared with extant animals, they are morphologically most like reptiles. As far as I am aware, no living reptile has acquired the ability to fly or to incinerate passers-by using nasal expulsion. But from palaeontological evidence, quite a few reptilian forebears were capable of the former.

Pterosaurs, such as Pteranodon and Quetzalcoatlus, began soaring the skies in the Late Triassic, around 200 million years ago, and stuck at it for well over 130 million years. And then a different group of reptiles, the theropods, evolved the ability to fly. Some staggeringly exquisite fossils have been recently dug up in China, shedding new light on the evolution of flight, of birds, and of dinosaurs. One of the interesting discoveries is that the presence of feathers does not mean that animal was either a bird or capable of flight. It is now accepted that many theropods (e.g. Microraptor and its more famous cousin, Velociraptor) had a fluffy or feathery coat, but could not have flown.

But I digress. For millions of years, different types of reptile were flapping, fluttering and gliding their way around the world. Thus, the idea of a dragon as a flying reptile is perfectly reasonable, ignoring the pathetically small wings they normally have depicted. Even a skeleton of balsa wood wouldn't have seen a decent-sized dragon get off the ground. So what about the fire-breathing?

Modern herbivorous mammals such as cows and sheep emit enormous quantities of flammable gas, particularly methane, into the atmosphere. Just imagine the amount of methane generated by some of the colossal herbivorous dinosaurs. Few scientists bother investigating dinosaur flatulence, but it has been suggested that the leviathans indirectly killed themselves by farting so much greenhouse gas that the Earth's climate changed (see e.g. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/855813.stm). Either way, it's clear that reptiles making combustible emissions is another reasonable scenario. And if, like the mythical exploding pigeons, some dinosaurs couldn't fart, perhaps they'd have to belch out their methane instead. One small spark and, hey presto!, a fire-breathing reptile. Give it some wings and we'll call it a dragon. Another mystery solved!

This is a very interesting theory however, in my opinion it is rather inaccurate. Although dinosaurs did learn to fly (which took millions of years of evolution) and some were even able to create warm, fire like explusions due to their diet, this does not prove their existance or non-existance.

Belief in dragons does not nessessarily have to be based on proof, similiar to the christian faith in God. There is no existing proof for God's existance other than the Bible, from which spring forth very convincing arguments for his existance such as the teleological theory, anthropological theory and the God spot theory, just to name a few. Similarily there is no real proof for the existance for dragons except from ancient legends, all of which are based on fact.

I have a theory that there were at a point in recent ancient history where dragons or similar creatures roamed the skys. These creatures were seen and recorded along with the exploits of knights and other peoples. This in turn caused the myths to grow until they became legend, creating the embodiment of the dragon we know today.

I firmly believe that to believe in dragons enables a person to explore their own personal world and gain an insight into the world of the dragon and the void of lost magick which they represent. Some say seeing is believing. I disagree.

Believing is seeing!

I, too, am a believer. There is a great book called "The Flight of the Dragons", which tells all about how dragons could fly and breathe fire and stuff. It is pretty cool.