The other day, paleontologists had a big holiday; in the south-west of France, a huge thigh bone of a giant herbivorous dinosaur that lived 140 million years ago was discovered.
The bone is 2 meters long and weighs about half a ton, one of its kind inspires awe and awe, it immediately seems HOW big was the dinosaur to which it belonged.
According to paleontologists, such finds are very rare, more often such bones are found split into smaller fragments. However, they do happen from time to time.
Now imagine that such a huge bone was stumbled upon hundreds of years ago. What could people think? That this bone belonged to a huge reptile with scales, claws, sharp teeth, possibly wings and a long tail. That is, the dragon.
So in general, historians believe, convinced that this explanation is the root of all the legends about dragons, with which numerous knights fought. They say that people accidentally dug up large bones of dinosaurs and came up with this monster in a living form.
Indeed, when looking at such remains, you will not think of anything else but REPTILI (sarcasm). Not about huge antediluvian people, not about animals like elephants, bears or tigers, namely reptiles.
In fact, how did people understand that they were reptiles? Even in the later Middle Ages, the remains of dinosaurs were often mistaken for the remains of the biblical cyclops, and legends about dragons or huge snake-like monsters began to take shape much earlier.
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And one more fact. The fact that the dragons did not have fur, but the body was covered with scales, is told in many such legends, but the scales on the bone remains of dinosaurs are not preserved. And there can be only one plausible explanation for such a view, ancient people really faced living huge reptiles.
Officially, it is believed that dinosaurs became extinct about 65 million years ago, after a huge asteroid fell to earth and covered the sun for a long time, which led to the cold and lack of adequate nutrition. True, many other living creatures not only did not die out, but, on the contrary, adapted perfectly and began to multiply and multiply, rejoicing in the absence of giant lizards. Also, snakes, crocodiles and turtles - the same age as dinosaurs - did not become extinct.
So maybe it was with them that people later met, gradually exterminating the largest ones?
British cryptozoologist Richard Freeman, who became interested in the theory of living dinosaurs in modern times when he worked at the zoo, partially believes in this theory, and also believes that in some lost places on our planet, extinct ancient animals still live today.
“I am absolutely certain that ancient dragon legends were based on authentic encounters between humans and ancient lizards. Not all or even most of them, but most likely a few of the very first. I believe that people have seen such reptiles as giant snakes, huge crocodile-like lizards and the Megalania monitor, which was more than 5 meters long,”says Freeman.
Megalania lived on earth only 40 thousand years ago and the first people managed to catch her. True, her remains were found only in Australia, but who knows, maybe in Europe and other places there were analogues of such large lizards.
“Later legends about dragons say that they breathed fire, but earlier ones were closely associated with water. Probably it was in the water that people met huge crocodiles and snakes. The British legend of the Lambton Worm tells of just such a water monster, which was a huge snake or fish. Such legends were then distorted and turned into fairy tales about winged fire-breathing dragons, but they should not divert attention from the original sources."
You can read about the probable surviving dinosaurs that have been seen in Africa, South and North America here, here and here.
Giant ancient crocodiles hunted for dinosaurs and could well have survived to the appearance of humans, as their smaller relatives.