Dragons Facts

Dungeons and Dragons

The ground quakes, and the air is burning. Powerful hooves drum the earth as a magnificent steed carries an armor clad knight toward his damsel. Suddenly, their foe is before them, neck extended, wings outstretched, and with one flick of its fiery tongue both man and horse perish in an instant. To Hollywood’s dismay, this was never the case. The stories just wouldn't be as interesting if they were about over sized lizards scuttling around in the underdeveloped societies of the nords and sumerians. Although the classic description of dragons was a little ridiculous, we can prove dragons existed because we know they were simply the ancestors of our reptilian friends.

While most dragons are depicted as giant, winged, fire-breathing monsters in European folklore, this was not the common belief during the time period that dragons actually existed on earth. The first descriptions of dragons comes from the ancient greek and sumerian texts, who thought them to be exotic lizards similar to the present day komodo dragon.

Many paleontologists think that ancient people would find dinosaur bones and fill in rest of the animal, so to speak, by making guesses as to what they could have been. For example, a newly identified dinosaur from the South Dakota badlands named Dracorex Hogwartsia possesses dragon like features such as a large mouth, and spiky horns protruding from the back of its head. Dracorex’s uncanny resemblance to a dragon prompted The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis to open an exhibit, "Dragons Unearthed", in 2008. The museum called in Adrienne Mayor to help their new exhibit and establish a link between dragons and dinosaur fossils dug up by ancient people. Mayor studies Classics and History of Science at Stanford, and has written two books on on the subject of dragons and dinosaurs. (shc.stanford.edu, Dinosaurs and Dragons Oh My!, October 2,