Here be Dragons…
Photo 106371248, (c) wild_wind, licensed under CC-BY 4.0 DEED
Everybody loves dragons.
All around the world there are countless iterations on the idea of the dragon, oftentimes created independently of each other. Almost every culture has a dragon. That or translators and folklorists are a bit over eager to stamp the title of dragon on anything vaguely scaley. Regardless, you have to admit they are cool.
Besides the part where they don’t exist, that bit kinda sucks. It’d also be super dangerous if they did. But let’s be honest, if dragons did exist, knowing humans and our treatment of large fauna *cough*moa/mammoths/haast-eagle*cough*, we’d probably have killed them off already. Either way, probably for the best.
It is true that we have some “dragons” which are mostly glorified lizards (still adorable though) and other miscellanea.
Today is Appreciate a Dragon Day. I have thoughtfully provided a list of dragons for you to pick from all au naturale. And because you lot have been such well-behaved little gremlins, I’ll even share some fun facts on each of these fierce beasties.
A Flying Dragon – Genus Draco
Photo 339511077, (c) Martin Walsh, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-ND)
Because reality is often disappointing, flying dragons, on top of not being dragons, don’t actually fly. What they do is they glide. That said, those wings of theirs are pretty neat expansions of their ribs and can at least pretend to fly. Do your ribs allow you to pretend to fly? Didn’t think so.
Dehling JM (2017) How lizards fly: A novel type of wing in animals. PLoS ONE 12(12): e0189573. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0189573
Central Bearded Dragon
Photo 341430640, (c) Owen Gale, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
The only dragon commonly kept as a pet! Even in New Zealand, the buzzkill that won’t let me have a precious snake as a pet. Some cute behaviour they have is waving their hand to show submission, mostly to show other bearded dragons that they’re chill and not gonna mess with their turf.
Due to them being pets, you can find plentiful adorable images and videos on the internet, so that’s something you can do to fill an afternoon!
Komodo Dragon
Photo 341814950, (c) robert_thibault, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
So there’s something weird with the Komodo’s bite. When komodos attack big prey, like say a buffalo, if they don’t manage to kill the prey the first time, it’ll stalk the prey which eventually dies of infection. The thing is it’s not clear whether this is a purposeful evolutionary thing, because komodo dragons do have venom, or at least something like venom, but scientists don’t know what it really does. Give the topic some research if you want, it’s super interesting.
Boyd’s Forest Dragon
Photo 188207878, (c) Samuel, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
Boyd’s Forest Dragons are great, they spend the majority of their lives just hanging out on tree trunks. Unlike most lizards, they don’t sunbathe, instead letting the air heat them, so they can just stay on their tree trunks. If you bug them by coming close, they will just move to the opposite side of the tree and return to their vibing.
What a mood.
