Name: Anonymous 2006-12-17 10:31
I don't say dragons DO exist, I just say they can.
First of all, dragons aren't the huge, flying, firebreathing lizards with six limbs the fantasy genre shows us, because such dragons are as real as flying trees.
Dragons can't be huge.The bigger a flying creature becomes, the bigger wings in proportion to its body it needs. The biggest flying creature that ever existed was a kind of pterosaur with a wingspan of 20 metres. Since pterosaurs are better adapted to fly than dragons, a dragon could be only as big as a dog with a wingspan of about 7 metres and a body length of 3,5 metres.Bigger dragons couldn't fly.
Dragons can't be lizands or even reptiles. The ability of flying reqires many abaptions like being homoiothermic (there wasn't a single flying poikilothermic vertebrate in earth history), having a very efficient heart and lung system and a light frame.Definitely, dragons would evolve from reptiles, but they can't be called reptiles but are an own vertebrate class.
Dragons can't have six limbs, since they are vertebrates. But, nobody says insects have ten limbs, since their wings not evolved from their legs. Most likely the wings of dragons evolved from their ribs. A kind of lizasd called "draco volans" has a gliding device consisting of elongated ribs. when you reorganize the ribs, you will get a wing-like construct and as you know, on medieval dragon pictures they have wings that look like this rib-construct and not like the bat-wings shown on fantasy-pictures. Strangely, the few winged asian dragon-images have the same kind of wings like the medieval dragons.
The fire-breathing thing is just chemistry. Mix two different chemicals which react exothermic or expose a self-inflammable chemical to oxygen and you will get fire. The bombardier beetle produces two different chemicals,which it mixes when threatened and shoots them out as a 100°C hot, stinking liquid on their enemy. Fire-breath works after the same principle with the difference that it is a burning liquid.
As you see, it is possible for a dragon to exist.
First of all, dragons aren't the huge, flying, firebreathing lizards with six limbs the fantasy genre shows us, because such dragons are as real as flying trees.
Dragons can't be huge.The bigger a flying creature becomes, the bigger wings in proportion to its body it needs. The biggest flying creature that ever existed was a kind of pterosaur with a wingspan of 20 metres. Since pterosaurs are better adapted to fly than dragons, a dragon could be only as big as a dog with a wingspan of about 7 metres and a body length of 3,5 metres.Bigger dragons couldn't fly.
Dragons can't be lizands or even reptiles. The ability of flying reqires many abaptions like being homoiothermic (there wasn't a single flying poikilothermic vertebrate in earth history), having a very efficient heart and lung system and a light frame.Definitely, dragons would evolve from reptiles, but they can't be called reptiles but are an own vertebrate class.
Dragons can't have six limbs, since they are vertebrates. But, nobody says insects have ten limbs, since their wings not evolved from their legs. Most likely the wings of dragons evolved from their ribs. A kind of lizasd called "draco volans" has a gliding device consisting of elongated ribs. when you reorganize the ribs, you will get a wing-like construct and as you know, on medieval dragon pictures they have wings that look like this rib-construct and not like the bat-wings shown on fantasy-pictures. Strangely, the few winged asian dragon-images have the same kind of wings like the medieval dragons.
The fire-breathing thing is just chemistry. Mix two different chemicals which react exothermic or expose a self-inflammable chemical to oxygen and you will get fire. The bombardier beetle produces two different chemicals,which it mixes when threatened and shoots them out as a 100°C hot, stinking liquid on their enemy. Fire-breath works after the same principle with the difference that it is a burning liquid.
As you see, it is possible for a dragon to exist.