A dragon is usually represented as a huge, bat-winged, fire-breathing, scaly lizard or snake with a barbed tail. The belief in these creatures apparently arose without the slightest knowledge on the part of the ancients of dinosaurs, which have some remblance to dragons.
The earliest attested dragons all resemble snakes or have snakelike attributes. Jones therefore concludes that dragons appear in nearly all cultures because humans have an innate fear of snakes and other animals that were major predators of humans' primate ancestors.
Description. Dragons generally fit into two categories in European lore: The first has large wings that enable the creature to fly, and it breathes fire from its mouth. The other corresponds more to the image of a giant snake, with no wings but a long, cylindrical body that enables it to slither on the ground.
A dragon can look like a snake with wings or like lizards. A dragon has a tail and a long neck. A dragon has a wide mouth with big and dangerous teeth. A dragon sometimes has horns and hair.
The key difference has been that a wyvern has two legs, whereas a dragon has four. This distinction is not commonly observed in the heraldry of other European countries, where two-legged dragon creatures are simply called dragons.
If you are a “Game Of Thrones” fan, you would have witnessed the growth of the show's three star dragons, Drogon, Viserion and Rhaegal, who are arguably three of the most popular dragons in pop culture today.
They could be a force of good or evil, and live virtually anywhere: in lakes or the sea, in thunderclouds or caves. A common feature of dragons was that they could breathe fire and had enormous power. In many cultures, dragons were seen as the enemy of people.
The first dragon myths appear with the Sumerian legends of the god-mother Tiamat who transforms herself into a legged, horned serpent, and of the snake Zu who steals the law tablets. Dragons appear in Chinese and Indian legends in about 2700 B.C., and in Egypt a creation myth describes the dragon Apep.
Some dragons have wings; others don't.
Fully grown, they are about 85 ft (26m) long from nose to tail, with a wingspan of 40–72 ft (12–22m). That's about as long as an Olympic swimming pool, and as wide as a shipping container. Most the other ancient dragons are about as long as ancient white dragons but have a bigger wingspan.
"Unfortunately, no, we do not have evidence of dragons on this planet. We do have evidence of very cool extinct animals that were kind of similar to dragons, but no fire-breathing six-legged vertebrates, I'm afraid."
A dragon is usually represented as a huge, bat-winged, fire-breathing, scaly lizard or snake with a barbed tail. The belief in these creatures apparently arose without the slightest knowledge on the part of the ancients of dinosaurs, which have some remblance to dragons.
The most fascinating explanation involves an unexpected animal: the human. In his book An Instinct for Dragons, anthropologist David E. Jones argues that belief in dragons is so widespread among ancient cultures because evolution embedded an innate fear of predators in the human mind.
(Inside Science) -- Extinction wiped out their closest family members as well as most of the ancient reptiles of comparable size. But the largest lizards still on the planet, the Komodo dragon, survived due to a lucky combination of mediocre habitat on their home islands and unintended human interventions.
Excavation sites in Inner Mongolia have revealed examples of carved jade dragons dating back to 4500-3000 BCE – long before any written records of the creatures existed. Sumerian mythology has numerous stories and legends, among which is the story of Kur, a dragon that lived in the primal sea.
Australia's 70-plus dragon species cover most of the continent. They laze beside ornamental ponds in eastern cities, cling to the buttressed trunks of rainforest trees, nestle among pebbles on stony plains and perch atop termite mounds in central deserts. One species even wanders around Tasmania and the mainland alps.
The Eastern Bearded Dragon is widespread, found in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Victoria. It's relatively resilient to agricultural development, and occurs in areas now urbanised.
Sunfyre had gleaming gold scales, which shone like beaten gold in the sunlight, and pale pink wing membranes. His flames were golden as well. According to Archmaester Gyldayn, Sunfyre was the most beautiful dragon ever seen in the known world.
In medieval literature, the ichneumon or echinemon was the enemy of the dragon. When it sees a dragon, the ichneumon covers itself with mud, and closing its nostrils with its tail, attacks and kills the dragon.
In Chinese mythology, Longwang (龍王) lords over the seas and is known as the “Dragon King.” He is a fearsome guardian deity who controls all dragons, sea creatures, the oceans, and the weather. Although he has a temper, Longwang is seen as a symbol of good fortune and the mythological embodiment of the concept of yang.