- To become a hero, you need to kill a dragon.
That's why we have so few heroes!
- Yeah. And there are no dragons left at all …
Traces of giant flying reptiles are found in the epics of all peoples of the Earth. You can take whatever you like about the veracity of these epics or the reasons why dragons appear in them, but the fact that this phenomenon is present in all legends suggests certain thoughts.
There are several opinions of official science on this matter. According to one of them, dragons are ideal for the embodiment of all human fears of reptiles. Indeed, the first people were very surprised that in such relatively small creatures, like snakes, a force is hidden that, thanks to one insignificant bite, can send a person to another world. However, reptiles of large sizes also pleased mankind little: crocodiles and giant monitor lizards also did not feel love for us. Well, the ability to fly and spew a flame in all cultures referred to the inevitability of "divine punishment" coming from heaven and cleansing everything.
There is also a more prosaic point of view. It implies the contacts of the ancestors of mankind with some dinosaurs that have survived to us, finally extinct not 60 million, but several tens of thousands of years ago.
And about the presence of dragons in all cultures, there is also a very simple explanation: all modern mankind is the descendants of one group of creatures that lived in Central Africa, the oral stories of which have been preserved by all their descendants.
All these theories, if you analyze them carefully, you can find many flaws in logical constructions. Whatever the continuity in the transmission of these ancient stories, it would not have survived if it was not regularly backed up by evidence. Even nowadays, the difference of 2-3 generations has a huge "gulf" in views on the same things. What to say about the case when these generations were several thousand? In addition, as people settled on our planet, each of their groups had more serious factors affecting their survival than the mythical monsters that may have terrorized their distant ancestors. For example, in the myths of the peoples of Africa there is no, and cannot be, Santa Claus or his analogues, for quite understandable, one might say, climatic reasons. But everyone has dragons: both the Papuans and the Eskimos.
Promotional video:
But that's not all. It is one thing when dragons emerge in oral legends, but it is quite another thing when people who have a sufficiently significant authority in the scientific world write about them, on whose works one or another fundamental knowledge is based.
The first scholar to mention dragons was the "father of history" Herodotus of Halicarnassus. Yes, yes, the same author of the first documentary work on the history of the ancient world, "Historion". And this is neither more nor less, but as many as eleven volumes, information from which forms the basis of the history of Ancient Greece, Egypt and Assyria. Among other things, in his work, he describes a flying creature with clawed paws and a huge mouth, several tens of meters long, living on the southern shores of the Scythian kingdom. Why do we, taking the veracity of the "Historion" as fact, doubt other information provided by Herodotus?
Dragons, as representatives of the animal world, are also mentioned in the works of such historians and zoologists of the past as Tacitus, Cassius, Sigfusson, Taronetszi, Hohenstaufen, Mor and many others. Even if we assume that the authors simply promoted a popular trend, and, in the absence of direct evidence, used either the words "eyewitnesses" or the works of their predecessors, it is still striking that there are many references to dragons in serious research.
However, the real "dragon boom" began with the emergence of archeology and paleontology, which has a lot in common with it. Scientists have received many fossils at their disposal, and at first it seemed that the solution to the dragons was close. The first dinosaurs, in fact, were mistaken for dragons. It soon became clear that everything was not so simple, more precisely, it was completely ambiguous!
The fossil record of our planet has not yet been completed. Every now and then in different places they find fossilized remains of a wide variety of living things that do not fit into the generally accepted classification systems for living organisms, the existence of which has been proven in one way or another. About a third of the found fossils of the same dinosaurs do not match any of the previously found species. Scientists in such situations simply shrug their shoulders: how can you restore the appearance of a creature and classify it if only parts of its hind legs are left from it? There are quite scientific judgments about what mythical dragons could be, if they really existed.
What kind of creatures were they, what was their biology? Some scientists put forward their theories on the structure and physiology of organisms that fit the description of dragons. Let's start with their most important feature - the ability to spew fire. Of all the relatively simple ways to do this, only one is suitable - the combustion of a gas-air jet under pressure. Hydrogen or methane was used as a gas.
The production of this gas in the dragon's body could be carried out either by bacteria synthesizing it, or by chemical means. As a chemical method, the reaction of some chemical with the dragon's stomach acid, in which hydrogen is released, can be considered.
Hydrogen, which would be produced in the stomach, or elsewhere, had to be accommodated in special bladders, like the swim bladders in fish. The gas could be ignited with the help of some specific organ that generates a spark. There are also electric rays and catfish that generate voltages up to 1000 volts in their body; moreover, their size is relatively small. Thus, it can be assumed that a sufficient number of "batteries" were located in the dragon's body to create the voltage required for a spark.
And in order to prevent fire from entering the animal's body, its palate was arranged in a special way, but it could change its shape. A similar pharyngeal device is found in some other reptiles, in particular, in crocodiles.
The ability to fly can also extend to reptiles. After all, birds are their distant descendants, therefore, it can be assumed that reptiles already had the ability to fly. And why "allow"? Pterodactyls, pterosaurs and ornitocheiruses, many of whose remains have been found, moved precisely through the air.
Dragons had light and strong tubular bones and a relatively large heart, which were essential for the abundant oxygen supply of the muscles involved in flight. At the same time, the hydrogen and methane generated inside the dragon's body were lighter than air and, stored inside special gas bags, made it possible to somewhat facilitate the flight.
As you can see, from the point of view of zoology, there are no obstacles to the possibility of the existence of such creatures. It remains to answer only two questions: could these creatures survive until the first humans appeared and where did they disappear?
The answer to the first question is obvious: they could very well. With such an arsenal at their disposal, these predators had a huge advantage over other species of animals and they certainly were not threatened with extinction from natural causes. Even if we consider the theory that they needed special environmental conditions, for example, temperature, there are no problems here: if unfavorable conditions appeared in some area, the dragons could simply fly to other, more convenient places for them.
But with the second question, everything is somewhat more complicated. If you follow the logic and laws of survival on our planet, the only reason for the disappearance of dragons could be only one: humanity. Most likely, our ancestors were the ones who put an end to the existence of dragons. It was the Dragon Slayers who were the key heroes of many legends. Perseus, Saint George, Beowulf, Lancelot, Dobrynya Nikitich and others, countless of them. Perhaps we had no other way out, however, all the same, it becomes somehow ashamed of such barbarism of our ancestors.
It is possible that somewhere the last representatives of these giants are still preserved. Despite the almost complete control of our planet by mankind, there are still untouched places of nature, where people rarely enter. In addition, all over the world with regular constancy find the remains of strange creatures, one way or another similar to the mythical flying lizards. Perhaps we can still meet these beautiful creatures. Who knows…