Dragons!

[Acalewia]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

Not just the wing span would have been enormous, the mass of muscles capable of lifting a few-tonne dinosaur must be outrageous too. But yes well, fantasy creatures don't bother much with physics, do they?

Nope

The pterodactyls don't quite look very convincing as dragons to me. They've got the huge wings, and the claws, but the tail and strong limbs for starters is a bit lacking.

I failed to specify. They are the smaller dragons, silly They haven't found the midsized and large ones yet. Didn't you know dragons came in various sizes?

[me9996]

Well it seems to me that with realy big wings a dragon could fly, most of the mussle in its chest being for wings rather than limbs.

Now why do the limbs not get much mussle? Well they would be small next to the rest of the dragon.
-Excludeing of chorse dragons without wings-

Now the fire breath is a little tricky but there have been many explanations to that.

The popular being it's from sulfer and hydrogen. Why not? Cows make methane!

Hey, quit look at me strange

In conclution: It's all possable. (Allthough as to their intelligence... )

[Acalewia]

Originally Posted by me9996

Hey, quit look at me strange

You are strange

you left yourself open for that one

[me9996]

I did leave myself open to that didn't eye?

Anyway, as this thread is getting rather slow so I'll bring up my ideas as to the intelligence of dragons.

The first part is the most biological idea, we are told that an animals intelligence can be somewhat be figured by the proportions of the brain to the spine.

In which case the larger flying dragons wouldn't be very smart and smaller non-flying dragons (Called drakes by some) would be rather smart as far as animals go.


The second idea is that their mind is somehow disproportonal to their brain and spine which of coarse flings open the door to any ideas of intelligence.

Eather way gold hoarding is not out of the picture. many birds colect shiny things for the sake of them being shiny

[Noble Elf Lord]

Originally Posted by me9996

Eather way gold hoarding is not out of the picture. many birds colect shiny things for the sake of them being shiny

And then again, I remember hearing that shiny CDs scare away birds from vegetable patches... At least in Finland (I know, sounds insane, but I don´t know which country this idea is from.) But for the real question - I´d really like to believe that dragons existed, but I think I´d like some more evidence. It´s like I said about magic in the Welcome Thread, I don´t say no and I don´t say yes. Gee, I feel like an elf...

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

Not just the wing span would have been enormous, the mass of muscles capable of lifting a few-tonne dinosaur must be outrageous too. But yes well, fantasy creatures don't bother much with physics, do they?

The pterodactyls don't quite look very convincing as dragons to me. They've got the huge wings, and the claws, but the tail and strong limbs for starters is a bit lacking.

Not all myths portray dragons in the same way. Chinese dragons, for instance, didn't fly. I've seen a few ancient pictures of dragons that look remarkably like dinosaurs. But you know, if dinosaurs weren't seen by anyone for thousands of years, it would make sense that over time, the dinosaur image would become more dramatic. It would be rather logical that some storytellers over that amount of time would take the different elements of various dinosaurs and blend them together into "superdinosaurs" for the purpose of making a better story.

[elven dragonrider]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

Maybe this should merge with that impossible to find thread about the Discovery channel show that explored the how and why if dragons did exist.

This thread is slightly different though.

I don't think dragons existed, but I love the legends!

Tell me more about that! I haven't seen it, never heard of it actually, but I would love to!!
Of course I believe dragons exist, on some other planet.

[elven dragonrider]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

Spock re. trivia - nobody's asked anything for ages, so I posted a new question there, thanx for mentioning it
Does anyone have any good dragon avatars?

FOr my avatar I just googled for a tiny picture.... kinda nonconventional, but I didn't have to pay for it like some odd people who buy stuff off their cell phones and stuff liek that.....

[elven dragonrider]

By the way, I LOVE this thread!! Lwts keep it going... as long as we ca at least......
The 90 second submit rule and the 8 second search rule need to be diminished.....

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Chinese dragons, for instance, didn't fly.

Er, yes, some did. They didn't fly with the giant wings like their European counterparts, but some chinese dragons, like the weather dragons, do fly.

[me9996]

All the tales seem to keep around flying serpents as one big kind of dragon.

This is my main resons to think that something draconic once existed, let me show you what I mean:

1: In Europe the dragons that have become known as western dragons are usaly thought of as a flying serpent with a big of extra bulk for fighting.

There are also dragons in europian folklore that don't seem to have wings
(Allthough knowing the europians, it could just get left out of the story)


2: In Eastern dragons were thought of as size-changing snakey things and some of them could fly (Again a flying serpent)

Also I've heard that marco polo saw or heard of something called a lindworm which sounds like an eastern dragon from a europian perspective.


3: In america before europians arived the aztecs worshiped a "Feathered serpent god" who supposedly could fly and had a name I realy can't spell.

[The Gaffer]

Quetzalcoatl?

[me9996]

Yeah, that's he.

[faerie_child]

Originally Posted by elven dragonrider

Tell me more about that! I haven't seen it, never heard of it actually, but I would love to!!
Of course I believe dragons exist, on some other planet.

I would love to see that too!

[whatsername]

Well I don't believe dragons could've existed
BUT I must say they're very interesting creatures

[me9996]

Why couldn't dragons exist? Any points against would be helpful.

There is nothing to help a theory like points against it.

[Lotesse]

I think many types and sub-species of dragons have existed throughout the history of life on Earth, but just like lots of species, almost all dragons have gone extinct by now, gone the qway of the Dodo and the Passenger Pigeon and the Sabre-Toothed Tiger and the Wooly Mammoth, and the Pterodactyl which was sort of a dragon, wasn't he? and so many others... Although seriously I have a bloody hard time wrapping my brain around the concept of a dragon using fire as a deadly weapon, from his or her mouth, mind you. That one's a bit far-fetched, even though I did a bunch of research a few years back tryna figure out how it could have been physiologically possible a lot of the sources I came up on seemed most like very well-thought-out wishful thinking, and creative imagining with the aid of the knowledge of chemistry/physics to furthur the fantasy.

Alas, dragons prOBably did not breathe fire. But they flew around, and walked around, and did things, oh yes they did. Dragons were as real as Sabre-Toothed Tigers. Yes, they were.

[Acalewia]

There's acually been several movies with different ways a dragon breathed fire. For example, in Reign of Fire the dragons spit a type of flammable liquid that ignited upon contact with oxigen. Others, there was a sac or something within the body that contracted when they took a really deep breath and out came fire. Although, I'm not sure how those dragons kept from burning the hell out of their throats. The Flammable liquid seems to me to be the more believeble of the two.

[me9996]

Ah, the ol' napalm thing... (I can't spell what I wanted to)

Well the dragons would likely have very heat resistent throats.

And if they use the ol' napalm thing that stuff wouldn't their throats for some reson.

[Tessar]

Oh man, how awesome would it be to have a throat -that- tough?

You could totally sing HOWEVER you wanted, and never have to worry about messing up your throat .