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There are so many arguments and theories revolving around the dragon. Anything from their outward appearance and their ability to fly to their state of awareness and even their name is up for debate by various learned men & women across the globe. The following paragraphs are just my (barely) educated opinion on the dragon

Before I start I feel I must make one thing extremely clear. I do not believe in dragons. I do not believe they exist or have ever existed and therefore any conclusions i make surrounding the dragon are hypothetical at best. This is not to say that i do not think dragons are real. They are! They are as real to you or I as the monster under the bed is to a restless child. They have evolved through our imagination through countless cultures and generations. I believe any creature with as much history as the dragon, be it reality or fantasy, deserves some of our attention.

Therefore I do not setout to prove the existence of dragons as, considering my own beliefs, that would be non-sensical. I would like to end up proving, however, that they are a possibility. Too many people have scorned the dragon due to its "physical impossibility" and although I do not believe they existed, I do not think they are an impossible creature.

Lastly, I was asked once, why I am making this theory if I do not believe in dragons. The answer is simple, because I love the fantasy that is dragons and I love the mythological reality that is dragons. I feel that grants me enough reason to wish to write this essay.

Appearance
Well, I will start this page off by asking a question that, if thought about, is impossible to answer. What does a dragon look like? What our its outward features? I could ask 1000 people and get 1000 varying answers. So how can any answer be taken with any merit?

Well, the only logical choice is to start with the characteristics that we know, the features that 950 of that 1000 would have agreed with. Before I continue I will explain that I am only dealing with the Occidental dragon here. The Ethiopian dragon or the Oriental dragons would require as many pages as the Occidental and so they are a project for a later date.

So what can we all agree on in regards to the western dragons outward appearance? We can assume a dragon is not a small creature, exactly how large is certainly not known but let us assume that a dragons size is at least comparable to a double decker bus. Generally western dragons are depicted as being serpentine in appearance. Long tails attached to a rounded body with a long neck at the front. The visible body is often depicted as being covered with scales though the size of these scales vary from myth to myth. Its face and head are normally not so dissimilar to that of the carnivorous dinosaurs, more specifically the Allosarus or the Archillobator. One thing almost all people agree on is the presence of wings. Large scaly wings with much in common to a Pterodactyl's or a bats. A dragons teeth often resemble an Alligators teeth, sharpe and obviously built for rending flesh from bone. Its claws also were built for hunting as they are razor sharpe. One thing which is quite often up for debate is the amount of limbs a dragon has.

Some people say a dragon has 4 limbs - 2 back legs and 2 wings.
Some people say a dragon has 6 limbs - 4 legs and 2 wings.
I on the other hand disagree with both of these statements which I will of course, explain in detail shortly.

With these basic features we can outline the dragon with our minds eye allowing us to further our study of how such a creature could ever come to be.

Physiology
One of the biggest disagreements amongst mythologists and experts in this field is the actual possibility of a dragons body. The dragon possess many defining characteristics such as flight, fiery breath, a large form, sharp teeth and in some stories, acidic blood. With each defining feature comes another argument against the possibility of the dragons.

There are many arguments against the dragons possible existence and in the following paragraphs I will attempt to rival these arguments with a believable answer. Be aware that i have no proof, and all my answers are purely based on other experts research and of course research of my own. Because of this, and because of the lack of actual dragons to wave in front of the nay sayers eyes, this is all hypothetical.

Some of the main arguments against a dragons physiology are these ...

• A creature of that size and weight could never get the lift needed to fly.
• Even were it to get lift the wings would snap under the strain
• How is it possible that a creature can develop fire breath? When no other creature has!
• Why have we not found any dragon fossils?
• There are no flying creatures with 6 limbs, normally their forearms become wings.
• Why would such a creature evolve in the first place?

As you can see there are plenty of reasons for why a dragon could never have been and I have listed just a few. There are many arguments to counter these but I will argue with one theory, very much based on Peter Dickinson's theory in his book "Flight of Dragons". Of course I have done much of my own research and so hopefully, for fans of Peter Dickinson, you will notice some differences and some parts in which I have expanded his theory. So lets tackle that list of arguments shall we?

Dragon Flight

How does a creature so large fly? Well if we assume that a creature as large as a dragon cannot fly based solely on the strength of its wings then we must find another solution.
For the dragon to fly the lift must be greater than its weight. Now all flying creatures adopt weight saving strategies such as the hollow bones of the birds so for the dragon to fly it too may have evolved some way to make it lighter.

Its often though that a dragon has six limbs. Four to walk upon and two which had evolved into wings. Biologically this is highly unlikely. There are no other creatures outside of the insect world ,that I am aware of, that have the evolved in this way. The dragon would need to alter its chest plate to be able to support this extra pair of limbs and, as I will explain later, I can find no plausible evolutionary reason for any creature to do this. Therefore we must look elsewhere for the wings. Far more likely would be the idea that the wings are in fact made of external ribs. Ribs pushed outside of the body for a reason I will explain shortly. It would then not be so hard for the rubs to grow folds of skin therefore creating wings.

Why then do we depict dragons as being six limbed creatures? Well once again I turned to Peter Dickinson's book who came up with a plausible answer. If one creature were to die out, artists of the future would have nothing but stories about the creature to go on. Therefore, when they draw the picture it may look a little different to how the original live specimen looked. Generations down the line and many of the creatures features would be different and incorrect.

For this theory to be believable I feel that I must demonstrate in all areas where other creatures have evolved in similar ways. Two such creatures are the Dimetrodon (amongst other Pelycosaurs) and the Draco Volans Lizard.

So my argument is if these creatures can evolve their ribs, admittedly for reasons either known or unknown to us, it is therefore not impossible for the proto-dragon to do the same thing. A structure like this would not be very strong. It would, however be very light and would need comparatively less weight of muscle to operate it.

But so far there are two main problems with this idea. Firstly, wings of any natural would snap under the pressure of lifting such a large weight. And secondly, What logical reason would cause ribs to grow outside of the body? Well both of these questions can be answered at the same time.

Lets assume for a moment that the proto-dragon had a need to fly. We will tackle the why of that later on. To this end, during the evolution process it is very possible that the spinal vertebrae may have gone through some significant changes. For instance every alternate vertebrae may have grown larger to be a chamber which eventually would have a honeycombed center of bone. This would be supported by the vertebrae's corresponding ribs to form a row of these chambers. These chambers would be the main part of the dragons body structure.

These cavities would be extreme modifications of the vertebrae of the dragons long spine. Each of the selected or alternate vertebrae becoming a large thin walled urn of bone, closed at the top by a muscular membrane. The membrane, along with any other protective walls, would be covered by a protective mucus. This is actually very typical in digestive systems to prevent the digestion of the body.

The stomach would then produce hydrochloric acid which would start to erode some of the honeycombed bone inside these chambers. This in turn would produce plenty of hydrogen and liquid calcium.

Once again I referred to Peter Dickinson's, Flight of Dragons for the chemical formula. According to him it would look like this. Ca(s) + 2HC1 (aq) -> H2 + CaC1 2(aq)
This means Hydrochloric acid reacts with calcium to produce hydrogen with calcium chloride in aqueers solution as a by product.

For maximum hydrogen production the acid glands would open and the acid would flow down the walls of the cavities reacting with the calcium deposited there from the bone structure. The various cavities would be inter connected by valves. Adjusting the tension of the upper membrane would cause a transfer of gas through out the body, for balance and possibly other purposes.

To make the dragon lighter the membranes would relax and the gas volumes would expand. Because the stomach wouldn't need to take up all of the dragons body, the volume of the dragon could increase while its actual mass would remain the same. This would then cause the dragon to become buoyant in the air.This would act similarly to a fish's swim-bladder. It would be as if the dragon were swimming in the air.

The liquid calcium would need to be dumped, lest it filled the stomach, and so the dragon could excrete the sump through its underbelly. This is what explains the slime trails we hear of in a few dragon tales. The hydrogen, being lighter than air would make the dragon significantly lighter.

To prevent the bones being eroded away altogether by the acid the dragon could eat limestone. This would give the bones the much needed calcium to renew themselves. This would mean the honeycombed bones are permanently renewing themselves.

This could also go some part of the way to explaining why no whole dragon skeletons have ever been found. When the body starts to decompose chemical chain would breakdown meaning the acids would melt the dragons bones without them being able to renew themselves. There are however some bones discovered which aren't exactly the same as dinosaurs bones. We have made assumptions and the likely hood is we are correct in thinking they are dinosaur bones, but it is not impossible for some of these bones to have been dragon bones which escaped the eroding or were captured as prizes by a dragons killer.

The liquid calcium would need to be dumped, lest it filled the stomach, and so the dragon could excrete the sump through its underbelly. This could possibly explain the slime trails we hear of in some of the dragon tales. The hydrogen, being lighter than air would make the dragon significantly lighter.

To prevent the bones being eroded away altogether by the acid the dragon could eat limestone. This would give the bones the needed calcium to renew themselves. This would mean the honeycombed bones are permanently renewing themselves.

As mentioned before, bird's bones are hollow. I see no reason for the dragon not to adopt the same strategy. Therefore its bones could be crisscrossed by thin layers of bone to add strength. This would help to make the dragon lighter than perhaps its appearance suggests. When the dragon was full of hydrogen it would have but to flap its large powerful wings and fly into the sky.

Now we must stop at this point and ask a question. Why Hydrogen? Well the answer is simply that it is the most likely candidate. It is possible that Helium would do the same job due to it also being lighter than air but Helium is a far rarer element, normally only found in our atmosphere.

We can also explain the spines we often hear dragons as having. The spines down the dragons back may have been a protective covering for the expanded membranes. When the dragon was at a minimum buoyancy the spines could be laid flat, but they would raise for flight offering both protection and a warning to any would be attackers.

Although not all of our questions have been answered yet, this covers the basics for how a dragon could have flown. The next question in our list was fiery breath. It is common for us to assume that this would have been some kind of weapon to use against its prey. If we stick to what we have said so far then there is a much better answer.

Fire Breathing

With all that Hydrogen in its body the dragon would need a safe way of expelling it. Were the dragon to merely breath the gas out then any enclosed habitat, such as a cave, would quickly fill with the un breathable gas and become uninhabitable. So the dragon would need to expel the gas safely and without ruining any lairs it might have.

Of course the perfect way of doing this would be to burn the gas up. I initially thought it would do this by having an ignition on the edge of its mouth. When the gas left its mouth the ignition would spark a flame. This is not very plausible however. There are creatures which can make electricity, such as the aptly named Electric eel. But this is an evolutionary specialization in itself.

So I once again turned to Peter Dickinson and he had the answer I was looking for. The dragon already has a complex chemical formula inside of it. So far more likely, the fire was a result of a chemical reaction with the hydrogen. This would then allow the dragon to breath out its hydrogen, burning it away before it ruined any homes. Another use for this technique could be fast descent. Short controlled bursts of flame would allow the dragon to descend much easier.

Another paradox about the dragon is their eggs and what they do with them. If the dragon evolved from a dinosaur or reptile which seem to be the most likely cases scientifically, then it stands to reason that they are cold blooded.
However in almost all tales about dragons they lay eggs with shells on them. Birds do this but reptiles (being cold blooded) tend to live in warm places with plenty of shade as they have no internal body temperature regulation. This then means it is not as crucial to keep their eggs warm as it is for some birds who can stay in colder areas and that is why reptile eggs tend to be made out of a leathery skin instead of shells.

Dragons are spoken of in some of the coldest countries so how could this be explained. Well we already know they can breath fire and often habitat some enclosed areas such as caves and so the fire may also serve to keep their living area warm. Because dragons would have to survive some of the harshest winters and coldest countries their eggs grew a protective shell to keep the unborn dragon warm and protected. This alone would not keep the unborn warm enough and so the dragons parents would lay on the egg (again similar to a bird) to keep it warm.

Other possibilities I have thought of are mating rituals and of course as a weapon.

Now this may seem like a complicated evolutionary advancement but it would not have been the only creature to evolve such a mechanism. The Bombardier Beetle mixes two chemical solutions to create a hot spray which it uses to defend itself.

So although this seems like a complicated step. It is not unreasonable to think that the fire breathing was just a necessary stage in its evolutionary advancement.

I'm sure there are several holes in the theory so far but I have covered the basics of the dragons biology. Of course this is only phase one of the theory so there will be plenty more to come

Evolution
So far we have covered many aspects of the dragons evolutionary stages but we have not yet looked at where the dragon might have come from.

I looked in several areas to find some indication of dragons in history and where they might have come from. It does seem that evolution has an erratic behavior at best. There tends to be, with many species, a stability for a long time and then a sudden change. Often this is just before a species becomes extinct. Some of the Dinosaurs followed this trend. They kept to the simple shapes for ages and then began to change into different shapes and adopt characteristics such as 3 horns, the filled and sail like spinal fins and the ability to fly. Nature, during the evolution process, tends to try everything meaning that the feathers and wings may not have been the only flying attempt.

If we look at mans own history the simplest method of flying is the lighter than air method such as the hot air balloon. So while its peers were evolving in different ways with horns and sails the proto dragon was becoming lighter.

As we know dragons have been seen in countless cultures all across the globe. We hear of stories by various scholars and local tellers from many different points in history. One of these that mentioned the dragon was Edward Topsell. Topsell was a 15th century minister in the church of England and a renowned writer. He was born in 1572 and we think he died in 1638. The dragon was written about in Topsells "The History of Serpents". He describes different types of dragons.

"There are those with which have wings and lack feet, those which have feet and wings and those that lack both"

Topsell states the foods of dragons are actually fruits and herbs and venomous creatures. Perhaps were the dragon to have acid in its body this would explain his statement.

The reason I am describing the information in Topsells book is because he describes the dragon in the same way as he describes many other creatures like snakes, bears and lions. Therefore we can assume from that, that the dragon was regarded as a live creature in the same way that we would view a household cat.

His statement about shapes indicates that as far as the 15th century the dragon may have been in many different shapes and not just the stereotypical one that comes to our minds when we think of them. All of this is merely hypothetical but it does bear thinking about.

We have not yet tackled where the dragon may have come from. There are people who say they came from outer space or they are the start of a long evolutionary chain which has not yet occurred. I personally think both of these are flights of fancy and are not likely. After reading up on the many different varieties of dinosaurs i personally think, were the dragon to have existed it would have evolved from one of them. More specifically from one of the Dromaeosauridae.

One of the better known Dromaeosauridae was the velociraptor. I do not however, think the dragon would have evolved from it for reasons I will explain in a moment.

According to the Dinosauria, several phylonetic studies have found the Dromaeosauridae to be close relatives of the Avialae. They offer a great deal of insight to the Avialan origins. This means that many of these dinosaurs shared many features with the more recent flying dinosaurs.

The trademark of the Dromaeosauridae was their hind limbs. Each supported three toes with the second digit being long and hyper retractable. They also had long three fingered fore limbs that ended with sharp trenchant claws. Evidence shows that at least some of these creatures were covered with feather like integumentary (An organ system that protects the body from damage.) structures and one specimen even shows the presence of feathers of a more modern aspect.

The largest known Dromaeosaurids are the Archillobator and the fragmentary Utahraptor which can reach a length of 490mm and 505mm. It is these that I would say are more likely to have evolved into the dragons. Due to their size it is far more likely that they would have searched for other means of flight. So while the smaller Dromaeosaurids were growing feathers the larger ones may have been developing other means in which to fly.

The Dromaeosaurids lived in a great diversity of habitats from flood plane swamps to avid sandy areas. Their bipedal gait and specialized claws leaves little doubt that these creatures were indeed carnivores. Possibly obvious, but important. A dragon would almost certainly have evolved from a carnivore.

Mathew and Brown were the first to discover that the Dromaeosaurid's braincase was large. They were not, however the last. Colbert and Russell (1969) and Currie (1995) echoed this point.

Just a quick note: it has been suggested that these creatures were warm blooded, but this theory is not popular.

It is suspected that the Dromaeosaurids would use their powerful hind legs to chase their prey, and once with in jumping range, they would pounce on top of the victim and use their large second digit to hook onto it. They could then use their sharp claws and powerful bite to kill the prey.

If we take this theory a step further. Creatures tend to evolve to suit their needs. If the Velociraptor were to jump at its prey, it would benefit from a longer jumping distance. Because its breastbones and back muscles were already suited to supporting wings, it is possible its arms developed folds of skin therefore allowing it to glide and giving it a longer jumping distance.

The Archillobator was too large for this mechanism to work. It is therefore not impossible for it to have evolved another away of gliding. But why?

Of course no one knows for sure what happened to the dinosaurs. We can assume though that food was scarce. Many of the smaller animals took to the air, both for safety and to find another source of food. Is it not then possible that some of the larger creatures managed to find a way as well?

As I said, none of this is proof of the dragons existence and there are still many holes in my theory which I will of course work on shortly. But for now, I hope I have given you just one more theory on how a dragon could have possibly existed.

References