Who invented dragons? The real existence of dragons has already been proven by scientists! Stone or gem dragons

If the existence of all sorts of centaurs and unicorns modern science is categorically rejected, then there have been fierce debates around such a mythical beast as a dragon for many years.

Tales of dragons and snakes exist on every continent. The ancient Roman writer Pliny described a forty-meter dragon killed by Regulus during Punic War, whose skin and fangs were on public display in Rome for a long time. The Celts and Vikings spoke about dragons, the Russians composed epics about the battles of heroes with the Serpent Gorynych. The Indian Feathered Serpent Quetzalcoatl is very similar to Slavic god Veles, depicted as a huge serpent and “combining hairiness and scales in his appearance.” In China, legends about dragons go back to ancient times. Moreover, unlike, say, Europe, where a devilish essence was attributed to dragons, in China they still symbolize valor and nobility.

So, did these incredible animals ever live? And if not, what contributed to the emergence of so many legends and myths? Florida State University zoologist Walter Auffenberg, for example, suggests that the first myth about the dragon arose 100 thousand years ago, at a time when primitive man observed snakes crawling out of the ground in the spring - “reborn” after winter. Auffenberg writes that the first evidence that can be accurately defined as “dragon” refers to the Sumerian culture, which arose 5 thousand years ago in the area between the Tigris and Euphrates. Further, according to Auffenberg, around 1500 BC. horse warriors Central Asia brought fragments of the Sumerian myth to the west - to Europe and to the east - to China. Aryan conquerors may have brought the dragon legend with them to India, and then traders may have carried it to Indonesia and Australia, where the myth of the Flying Serpent exists.

Domestic scientists A. Chemokhonenko and Y. Chesnov believe that the dragon once acted as a totem animal. The image of the dragon “emerged in those tribal mysteries where they talked about the unity of people among themselves and with the outside world,” but later “ceased to play its socially unifying and educational role.” However, people could not part with him for a long time, filling him with new features, making him a character in myths and fairy tales.

But such explanations for the appearance of legends about dragons do not satisfy everyone. For example, creationists (opponents of Darwin's theory) claim that dragons really existed. And they were the ancient lizards that we call dinosaurs. According to Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis, St. George actually fought a dinosaur, not a serpent. They say that dragons and legends about them are the memory of our distant ancestors about meetings with the extinct owners of the Earth. Evolutionists rightly object that in those distant times, when the last dinosaur died on our planet, there were no traces of people yet.

Some scientists believe that some of the prehistoric monsters on Earth have survived to this day in unexplored corners of the planet. And since just a few centuries ago these creatures were much more common than now, they could well have been known as dragons among our ancestors. In the 30s of the 20th century, scientific journals collected testimonies from sixty eyewitnesses who claimed that they had seen the underground worm Stollenwurm with their own eyes. All descriptions appearance Stollenwurma coincided: the length of the elongated body is about 90 centimeters, it sharply tapers towards the tail; there is no neck at all, the head is flattened, and there are two huge spherical eyes on it. The beast is covered with scales and emits a snake-like thorn. They said that the Stollenwurm is aggressive, jumping and “capable of killing a person with just its breath.” But, alas, it was not possible to catch or photograph the underground worm. And in the 60s of the last century, reports appeared in the world press about another dragon of our time - Sirrush. Reports of his appearance came from various parts globe: from Scotland and Ireland, Norway and Sweden, Africa and other places. The beginning of this story can be considered in 1887, when the German professor Robert Koldewey, during excavations of Ancient Babylon, found a fragment of an old brick, on one side of which a fragment of an amazing animal was depicted. More than 10 years later, during the second expedition, Kolvedey discovered the gates of Queen Ishtar, which were built from the same bricks. The gate was decorated with repeating images of two animals. One of them resembled an aurochs, and the other looked like a dragon. It is called the Babylonian dragon, in some sources it is referred to as Sirrush. The dragon was depicted as a creature with a narrow long body covered with scales, with long neck, ending with a snake head with a straight horn, and a thin scaly tail. Koldewey, trying to find similarities between Sirrush and any of famous lizards, concluded that the animal, if it existed, should have been classified as an ornipod dinosaur.

There is also an opinion that dragons were a separate species that became extinct due to natural reasons, since they were extremely rare at all times. It was enough small change climate that drove dragons out of their usual habitats, or a reduction in food ration so that the number of individuals sharply decreased and population restoration became impossible.

There are also absolutely fantastic versions. For example, that dragons can be creatures from parallel world, or that these animals were brought to us at one time by aliens from outer space.

Photos from open sources

Many fairy tales, medieval sagas and even Russian epics tell about dragons or flying fire-breathing snakes, distinguished by their enviable invulnerability. The body of these monsters was covered with armor-scales, and instead of severed heads, new ones grew... (website)

The question arises: how true are such legends? Did such monsters really exist or were they created by the rich imagination of our ancestors?.. What do modern scientists think about this?

Legends of dragons are ubiquitous

You will probably agree that the legends of any people are very different from the myths and legends of other ethnic groups. Each epic glorifies its heroes, each of them has its own villains... The exception is dragons, which are told both in the West and in the East...

Photos from open sources

It should be noted that the eastern dragon looks like a giant winged snake (by the way, this is our “home-grown” Serpent Gorynych), while the western one is a fire-breathing evil monster of enormous size that looks more like a dinosaur.

It must be admitted that the descriptions of dragons throughout are quite realistic. It seems that both the ancient Hellenes and the knights of the Middle Ages encountered armored winged reptiles spitting fire. Who did they draw a portrait of?..

The first ones that come to mind are large reptiles Mesozoic era. According to scientists, there were flying species among them. By the way, pterosaurs had a wingspan of ten meters!..

Amazing properties of dragons

Modern aerodynamics researchers doubt that pterosaurs could fly into the air or even glide. However, there is a hypothesis that at that distant time the Earth’s atmosphere was denser than now, and therefore it was easier to fly. However, today’s scientists don’t even know many of the “aerodynamic secrets” of modern insects, let alone dragons!..

Photos from open sources

But the fact that the bodies of these creatures were covered with scales made of bone plates, which were not pierced by either arrows or spears, is very similar to the truth. Remember how fairy-tale heroes, when fighting dragons, tried to hit them in vulnerable places, for example, hitting their relatively thin neck.

But the same tales tell us that severed dragon heads immediately grew back or grew back. Could this be?.. Let's remember lizards (by the way, also reptiles) with their ability to regrow lost tails... Or crabs restoring claws torn off in fights... Or grape snails, in which new heads grow instead of those cut off!.. But among animals there are real record holders for self-healing. So, if earthworm cut into pieces, from each fragment a whole organism will grow. And hydra is able to recover even after being put through a meat grinder!..

Photos from open sources

Based on this, it is not difficult to assume that once on our planet there were organisms that were distinguished by an increased ability to regenerate. It is unlikely, of course, that their severed parts could grow back as quickly as they say in fairy tales. But let this exaggeration remain on the conscience of the warriors themselves, who thus gave greater weight to their own exploits...

Why do dragons need fire breath?

This question is more difficult to answer, although you can also try. Of course, these creatures do not need a fiery jet to fry their prey. As you know, predators feed raw meat. However, let's approach this issue differently. We know that all reptiles are cold-blooded: their body temperature completely depends on the ambient temperature.

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This means that in order for the giant reptile to always remain mobile and strong (like a dragon), it needs an internal stove, a kind of chemical reactor that would warm the body through exothermic reactions.

Let us remember the famous bombardier beetle, which synthesizes and accumulates the initial substances for such a reaction in individual cavities of its body. For a beetle, such a device is an excellent defense against enemies. And the fiery stream would not allow the dragon to become numb. With such autonomous heating, reptiles would become more mobile and smarter, because we sometimes accuse even snakes of cunning and deceit. What can we say about creatures such as dragons?..

Where did dragons come from and where did they go?

Yes, I want, oh how I want to believe that the formidable ones are not a fairy tale at all, but a real exciting reality... But the question arises: where did the dragon skeletons go? The remains of dinosaurs have been found in abundance (although they lived on earth much earlier), and who has ever found the remains of a dragon?..

Photos from open sources

The conclusion suggests itself that the tales of dragons are akin to the stories of Nessie, the elusive Bigfoot and others amazing creatures, which, as many today believe, come to our reality from parallel dimensions. This means that these intelligent monsters could have any qualities and properties.

There is, however, another theory - one that attributes alien origin to dragons. However, neither one nor the other version answers us very well. interesting question: Why are all encounters with dragons left in the past for humanity? For example, Bigfoot still appears in our world, as do aliens from other planets...

It turns out that dragons - mysterious monsters with the body of a snake, the wings of a bird, several heads, fiery breath, endowed with intelligence - still live among us!

Great and terrible

According to one ancient description, dated 600 AD. e., the dragon is “the largest of the snakes and, in general, the largest of all creatures living on Earth. It has a large snout and narrow blowholes through which it breathes and sticks out its tongue.”

Dragons were usually depicted as huge snake-like monsters that terrified people. From their roar, they say, the earth trembled. Moreover, dragons that feed on human flesh always swallowed beautiful maidens whole, which is why both heroes and knights considered it a matter of honor to defeat the monster on the spot.

However, our ancestors were real philosophers. The charter is afraid of fire-breathing monsters, they simply turned them into an ordinary symbol of water and fire. Historians have gone a little further. According to the hypothesis of scientists A. Leroy-Gourhan and V. Ya. Propp, the dragon is a symbol of the unification of the worlds: the upper (as evidenced by its resemblance to a bird) and the lower (snake’s body).

Only these monsters were not so terrible. There are cases when they went in peace to people. Thus, in ancient Chinese mythology, the winged dragon helped the hero Yu, the founder of the Xia dynasty, to lay channels for water supply with his tail. The monster also helped two Slavic blacksmiths. They harnessed the dragon to a plow and with its help dug the riverbed of the Dnieper. And Nikita Kozhemyaka managed to pacify the Serpent Gorynych and plow the land on him. Moreover, dragons often gave people the treasures they protected. True, ungrateful people usually killed them out of fear. Only the flying Snake Poluchato from the Volga subethnos of the Katskari always remained alive, since it brought wealth to those who were not afraid of hard work.

By the way, many of the descendants of the Katskars still place a saucer of milk on the windowsill in order to lure the Snake of good luck.
If we consider that the word is material, and myths always have a basis in reality, we can safely assume that the images of such monsters were hardly created from scratch. This is confirmed by many scientists! Recently, researchers from the International Union of Cryptozoologists made an unexpected and sensational conclusion: on the coat of arms of Moscow, St. George the Victorious pierces a real (!) small winged dragon with a spear, and not a mythical one! In general, ancient Russian icon painting is full of monsters of various stripes - blood-red, with clouds of fire flying out of their mouths, and very tiny ones, which are led on a leash, like a pet dog. Head of the scientific environmental program RICANN (Russian Intellectual Corps of Current scientific directions) Irina Tsareva believes that these animals could well live in Russian forests. Even though the authors of epics, epics and icons slightly exaggerated the images of their works, they still used real stories as a basis. It is quite possible that in the European part of Russia there were bloodthirsty monsters tearing travelers to shreds. In any case, such cases were recorded in documents! Thus, one collection of Russian chronicles contains news from Novgorod from 1582: “...In the summer, the Corcodyles Lutia came out of the river and closed the way, eating many people, and terrifying people and praying to God throughout the whole earth. And she hid again, and beat up others...” Since crocodiles were never found in Russia, scientists assumed that the chronicler meant an ordinary dragon.

However, even today there is a lot of evidence of monsters. Thus, in 1958, geologist, paleontologist and writer Ivan Efremov, in his book “The Road of the Winds,” spoke about his journey to Mongolia, where, according to the descriptions of local residents, there is a monstrous yellow worm, the Olgoi-Khorkhoi, whose poison kills people. There have always been many scientific expeditions in these parts, but no one has been able to give intelligible answers to the question: “What kind of worm is this?” French cryptozoologist Michel Raynal once suggested that the Olgoy-Khorkhoi is a giant reptile that lost its legs during evolution and is capable of spraying poison from a distance...

Russia is also full of eyewitnesses of encounters with dragons. For example, along Lipetsk, Novgorod and Leningrad regions Rumors periodically circulate about encounters with underwater monsters spewing flames from their mouths. Ukraine is also not lagging behind. This is not the first year that rumors about the Black Sea monster at the foot of Karadag have excited the imagination. Dragons and giant snakes supposedly they are regularly found in Africa. The stories of Africans about the ferocious predator “tonpondrano” (“master sea waters") with a body covered with scales, 25 meters long. In the Algerian desert, they also once shot a 20-meter creature. There are frightening legends about the “master of the forests” of Madagascar - a monster with an elongated body and huge claws. In general, stories about modern monsters can be continued for a very long time, but there is still convincing evidence of their existence!

We say dragon, we mean azhdarchid

For example, in Southeast Asia, on several Indonesian islands, lives the Komodo dragon, the largest lizard on Earth. These huge monitor lizards reach a length of three meters and feed on monkeys and goats. Their ancestors lived on Earth 2 million years ago. Their descendants in the same form live well today, not even suspecting that, according to Darwin, they had to undergo some kind of evolutionary changes.

By the way, on these same islands other living fossils (phylogenetic relics) have been preserved, almost completely corresponding to those that went extinct tens or hundreds of millions of years ago. This, for example, is the tuatara, or tuatara, the only living representative of the subclass of beak-headed reptiles. His discovery was big surprise for scientists.

Despite the fact that it is common to consider dragons to be predatory flying reptiles, and modern lizards (monitor lizards, iguanas, agaves, chameleons, etc.) to be their descendants that have shredded and forgotten how to fly, this is absolutely not the case. Of course, paleobiologists consider lizards the most adapted animal species in the planet’s biosphere, and not younger, but older than dinosaurs! True, those lizards that in ancient times lived next to dinosaurs never flew. Unlike pterosaurs, who learned to do this masterfully. Even despite its bulky body (the largest weighed 300 kg, and the wingspan reached 15 m). True, why and how they flew is still a mystery to scientists. However, such creatures really reigned in the skies of our planet for almost 200 million years in a row. And at the same time, scientists have not fully figured out whether they were reptiles.

By the way, when towards the middle Cretaceous period(90 million years ago) pterosaurs disappeared from the face of the Earth, the planet was dominated by the family of azhdarchids - the largest flying lizards in the entire history of the Earth. Giants with long necks glide at speeds of up to 40 km/h, grab unwary game with their powerful mouths and swallow them whole. It is quite possible that the legends about dragons originated from them. Interestingly, paleobiologists call the last azhdarchids Quetzalcoatlus. This is exactly how the Mayan Indians christened their sacred Serpent, which is also associated with many mythological stories. However, according to paleontologists, these mysterious creatures became completely extinct about 65 million years ago. I wonder who the Indians saw, who lived much later than the flying lashers?

Paleontologists have suggested that flying kites were either supplanted by more advanced creatures ideally adapted for flight (birds), or they became extinct due to global cooling that occurred exactly 65 million years ago. Only, according to scientists, some individuals could still survive, which is why they became the prototype of dragons and flying kites in Indian culture. And flying lizards could descend from heaven to earth and go to sedentary lifestyle life. Interestingly, late pterosaurs are surprisingly similar to modern pelicans, which is why the latter are often even called small pterosaurs.

So, according to by and large, don’t be surprised if one day, while picking mushrooms in the forest or swimming in a river, a cute little dragon jumps out to meet you. Science allows this possibility. “The absence of finds does not mean that such animals did not exist and do not exist, but only that it was not possible to detect traces of their presence on the planet,” says Dr. biological sciences Alexander Dubrov (Russia).

In any case, Alexander Gorodnitsky, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, employee of the Institute of Oceanology named after. Shirshov RAS, also admits the possibility that flying lizards really lived in forgotten times, and their relatives could well have survived somewhere: “The monsters described in ancient texts existed and can actually exist.” For example, “the prehistoric lobe-finned fish coelacanth. For a long time it was believed that this species became extinct 200-300 million years ago, but quite by accident in the 1990s the fish was caught off the coast South Africa. It is amazing that over many millions of years it has practically not changed, although it has become smaller. The structure of her skeleton is identical to the skeleton of her ancestors who lived 200 million years ago.”

And yet they were!

But Alexey Rozanov, academician, director of the Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, smashes the version of the real existence of dragons to smithereens: “Dragons are mythological creatures (...) they are similar to lizards and birds at the same time, and this cannot happen simply because lizards "are reptiles, and birds are warm-blooded." Pterosaurs are a different matter. They are “mysterious creatures about which we know very little, but it is clear that their active flight was possible only when they reached sufficient high level metabolism, and this is an argument in favor of their warm-bloodedness. Today, scientists are inclined to conclude that dinosaurs in general - at least their flying species - were not reptiles. It is quite possible that it was warm-bloodedness that killed the flying lizards.” Reptiles, as it turns out, are better adapted to changing living conditions (evidence from living fossil species - cold-blooded lizards and crocodiles). However, in rock paintings primitive people In Australia, the image of a dragon-like creature is often found. Paleontologists confirm: this is megalania, large lizard, similar to a monitor lizard that once lived on the continent. Only cryptozoologists are absolutely sure that this reptile still leads the life of a hermit in the thicket of the Australian bush. Eyewitnesses described Megalania as a 4-6 meter monitor lizard with huge claws and a brown spotted body color. Although the dragon scares Australians, it never behaves aggressively. Or maybe there are simply no witnesses to his bad temper? But the megalania bones remain. They are still found in different places. Although paleontologists have not yet discovered a complete skeleton, they have already collected about 80% of the skeleton of the Australian dragon from fragments.

But astrologers sincerely believe that dragons are real and incredibly powerful! Only they live not in the real, but in astral world! But we are ready to help always and in everything! A friendly dragon will always become a protector of the home, allow you to look into the future and allow you to use its inexhaustible energy. That is why people have come up with many rituals to channel dragon power in the direction they need.

According to D. J. Conway, an American writer, dragons help a person gather his inner strength, successfully resist imposed control, negative psychological programming and get rid of the pressure of people who cause heartache. By the way, followers of the Fairy tradition, a pagan system of myths based on the lunar Celtic calendar of the Beth-Luis-Nyon trees, also speak about the existence and power of dragons.

According to their view, dragons have a body and are found everywhere, literally in every object. Any action may be a consequence of dragon power. However, it is believed that dragons do not interfere in the affairs of people, considering them to be inferior creatures. Only when something terrible threatens a person, only then will the dragon intervene and definitely provide help. By the way, some dragons love to communicate with children, especially those endowed with parapsychological abilities.

And since living dragons have not yet been recorded on any ocean floor, neither in impenetrable jungle, we can assume that they could well be hiding somewhere...

Modern people are skeptics by nature. Maybe it happened because they grew up reading, listening and watching fantasy stories, and then discovered that real life is much more prosaic? Monsters aren't real. Magic does not exist, just like Father Frost, Snow Maiden, Baba Yaga and Brownie. But just because Santa Claus is not some all-powerful magical overlord, it doesn’t mean that in real life there wasn’t a person who wouldn’t selflessly do something good for humanity and wouldn’t leave behind a lot of good things. .

Let's put our skepticism aside for a second and take a look at ten things below (plus a bonus) that are considered mythical but either actually existed or had an equivalent in real world.

10. Dragons

Theories about what exactly inspired people to create stories about dragons rely on lost bones of crocodiles and dinosaurs. However, we cannot name these creatures real dragons because humans have never encountered dinosaurs and crocodiles are too small in size. And that's where Megalania, an ancient relative of komodo dragon who terrorized the Australian Aborigines. It grew up to 8 meters in length and weighed up to 1.9 tons. Her poisonous saliva, containing a substance that prevents blood clotting, caused her victims to bleed to death.

9. Hobbits

During excavations carried out in a limestone cave on the island of Flores in Indonesia, a skeleton approximately 1 meter high was discovered, the skull of which was only one-third the size of the skull. ordinary person- hobbit. Researchers have discovered the remains of nine such individuals, with the youngest skeleton dating back approximately 12,000 years. They also discovered tools and other signs of civilization. There are skeptics who believe that hobbits are simply people who suffered from some kind of growth-suppressing disease, such as microcephaly. However, the common belief among scientists is that hobbits are actually a separate species, just like the species of Neanderthals, who shared a common ancestor with humans. In addition, there are active volcanoes in Indonesia, where, if necessary, you can throw the ring...

8. Kraken

There is an opinion that the image of the Kraken was inspired by a meeting with huge squid. It can't help but be frustrating, can it? With eyes the size of beach volleyballs, the giant squid is truly enormous, but it lacks monstrousness. He doesn't look like the kind of creature we might imagine tearing apart a boat.

However, recently it was discovered in the Southern Ocean Colossal squid. It is believed that its body length reaches fourteen meters, and its beak and eyes are much larger than those of giant squid. What sets it apart from other squids is that in addition to the suckers, its limbs are covered with sharp hooks, some of which are curved inwards and some of which end in three claws. This is truly something that can cause significant damage.

7. Amazons

You've undoubtedly heard of the Amazons, an all-female tribe who were fierce warriors. They are also known from legends about the exploits of Hercules. The Greek historian Herodotus described the fate of the Amazons as follows: he said that they were captured and transported to another territory, then they overthrew their captors, were shipwrecked and ended up on the Eurasian steppe, where they fought with the Scythians. Believing that the Amazons could be strong wives, the Scythian men decided to fight them only in the field of love. Having survived all these ups and downs, the Amazons agreed to marry Scythian men, but only on the condition that they would allow their daughters to continue the proud tradition of their mothers and become warriors.

Herodotus is known for his love of embellishing history, so he should not be believed unless his words are backed up by archaeological evidence. However, they are backed up. Excavations of ancient graves on the Eurasian steppe have shown that a significant proportion of Scythian women had the bone damage associated with battle, and that they were buried with swords, bows, daggers and other weapons of warriors.

6. Dire Wolf

The dire wolf has appeared in many role playing games, and maybe you even just recently read or saw him in Game of Thrones. In real life dire wolves coexisted with early humans in megafauna during the Pleistocene era. They were larger and stronger than a normal wolf, and their teeth were sharper.

However, when the megafauna began to die out, dire wolves lost their main source of food. They were too slow to hunt the kind of prey that modern humans hunt. gray wolves, which forced them to become scavengers - although they were not adapted for this. They eventually became extinct.

5. Scylla and Charybdis

On one of the days of his journey, Odysseus was forced to direct his ships through a narrow cave, on both sides of which he and his crew were waiting terrible monsters. On one shore, Scylla, a multi-headed monster, was waiting for his ship, who dragged part of Odysseus’s crew off the deck. Charybdis was waiting for him on the other side, sea animal, which sucked ships to the bottom using a funnel. Odysseus decided to sail near Scylla, believing that it would be better to lose a few people, but allow everyone else to survive, than to lose the entire ship and all his people.

The Straits of Messina runs between Sicily and mainland Italy. It was here, according to legend, that Skilla and Charybdis lived. Charybdis is actually a funnel, only there is no monster in it and its flow is much calmer than described in the legends. On the other side of the strait there are rocky shallows, which inspired people to create the legend of the heads of Scylla. In fact, Odysseus would have been better off choosing Charybdis.

4. Berserkers

Berserkers are not just heroes taken from screenshots of the game Skyrim - the first mention of them can be found in old Norwegian poems. They were quite fearsome warriors in their time. But how did they get supernatural strength and invulnerability? Surely their legendary madness in battle was nothing more than an embellishment of history? But no, this actually happened. They took drugs before the fight, most likely hallucinogens, which made them fearless, strong and immune to pain and danger. Researchers have found that the drug bufotenine can replicate the effects of their violent anger.

3. Tower of Babel

Unlike the Hanging Gardens, about the construction Tower of Babel evidenced by archaeological finds that were found at the excavation site of Babylon and prove that Nebuchadnezzar II received the right to build it.

However, it was not a place where people talked nonsense that God destroyed. It was a ziggurat called Etemenanki, a temple to the god Marduk, which was later destroyed by Alexander the Great. He wanted to rebuild it as he saw fit, but died before he could do so. After this, many people tried to rebuild the temple according to their own ideas, each time demolishing what had been built before in order to start all over again. But no one managed to finish anything. It turns out that this place, after all, may be a symbol of human inability to work together.

2. Moby Dick and Captain Ahab

Moby Dick was based on stories about a real-life giant white sperm whale. Moreover, the real sperm whale was much cooler than in the book. In fact, his name was Mocha Dick, probably because he lived near Mocha Island. He won battles with hundreds of whaling ships, smashing some of them to pieces and sending them to the bottom. One day he fought three whaling ships at once and won.

The character of Captain Ahab was also based on real person, who lived around the same time as Mocha Dick. Captain Pollard did not seek revenge after the whale destroyed his ship. He and his crew had to resort to cannibalism to survive. But, he went to sea again, as a captain on a new ship...which also sank, this time due to a storm. He spent his remaining years working as a night watchman.

1. Imoogi or Korean Dragon

Korean legends tell about Imuji - huge pythons that were considered young dragons. According to legend, the Imuji lived in water or caves, and had to live on earth for a thousand years before they could ascend to the heavens and become true, fully formed dragons.

Although he lived in South America, and not in Korea, such python gigantic size really existed. He was so huge that we could have mistaken him for a young dragon. Titanoboa was approximately 14 meters long and weighed more than 1 ton. He strangled his victim with a force of 400psi, which is equivalent to the Brooklyn Bridge falling on you, only 1.5 times heavier. Such a python could swallow a person even without its body expanding anywhere as the person's body moved along it. digestive system. They became extinct many years ago, but I would like to think that they ascended and became dragons.

Bonus:
Dwarka - Kingdom of Krishna (Krishna’s City of Dwarka)

According to legend, Krishna (the Hindu equivalent of Jesus) ruled the city of Dwarka until the city was swallowed up by the sea. Find lost city Dwarka would be equivalent to our discovery of the Holy Grail or Noah's Ark.

Archaeologists have indeed discovered a sunken city off the coast of India. The stone reliefs found in this city have not only confirmed that this is actually Dwarka, oldest city in history, but also that it was under the control of Krishna.

Legendary monsters who can fly and burn all living things with fire, keepers of huge treasures and possessors of a sharp mind - this is how dragons appear in legends and fairy tales. There is not a single people whose mythology does not contain stories about these giant monsters. Many people still believe that dragons exist today or lived in the past. The description of these creatures is almost the same among peoples living on different continents. And this fact suggests that our ancestors once saw dragons in person, and the impressions from these meetings were forever preserved in myths, legends and fairy tales. Did dragons exist on Earth? Let's try to figure it out.

Who are they?

WITH precise definition these creatures have complexities. Dragon is a collective name. Every country has individual performances about this mythical animal. Most widespread The image of the dragon appears in mythology and folklore, horoscopes and fantasy.

With the exception of some differences, the appearance of a giant monster looks something like this: the body of a reptile with parts of the bodies of other animals. Often the dragon has wings, can fly and spews deadly flames.

Dragon and serpent

There is confusion between these two mythical animals. A small number of researchers believe that the dragon and the snake are different creatures. The image of a serpent has been found in Slavic texts since the 9th century, in the Bible and in folklore. TO 19th century the word "dragon" became common. The two are now believed to refer to the same being.

Favorite character from myths and fairy tales

Did dragons exist in the distant past? Seeing their diversity in cultures different nations this thought involuntarily arises.

The dragon is an indispensable element of the mythology of any country. He can be an evil and treacherous monster, sowing death and destruction, or appear in the form wise being. A very common myth is about the dragon as the keeper of fairytale treasures and the kidnapper of beautiful girls.

The Serpent Gorynych is one of the brightest characters in Slavic fairy tales and mythology. Here his image is devoid of even a hint of attractiveness or wisdom. He is the most important evil of Slavic myths.

Where it all began

Myths about dragons arose a long time ago. It is believed that this image first appeared among the Sumerians more than five thousand years ago. Then it spread to Egypt, Greece and other countries of Europe and the East. How was this image formed? And did dragons really exist? There is a version that crawling out of the ground in the spring after hibernation snakes led to the appearance of the first myth about unusual creatures among ancient people.

According to another version, these creatures are ancient dinosaurs, the memory of which is preserved in such fairy tale image. Opponents of this theory point out that the first people appeared much later than the time when dinosaurs lived.

There is also an assumption that dragons were once a separate species of animals, but became extinct due to the small size of their population.

Types of dragons

Did dragons really exist? Judging by the abundance of their species, described in various myths and folklore of many countries, it seems that at some time in the past people actually encountered these creatures. It is extremely difficult to classify them. In general, everything regarding this is extremely confusing. Each country has its own description. In addition, sometimes it is not entirely clear which of the mythical animals can be classified as dragons. They are conventionally divided into the following types:

1. Lindworm- a winged snake with two legs and poisonous saliva. This species includes Farfnir, the famous monster from the Scandinavian sagas. He crawled on his belly. There is confusion with this type of dragon, since in some legends lindworms are wingless and may have not two, but four legs.

2. Guivre. He has no paws or wings. The head is massive, horned.

3. Classic or heraldic dragon. Has four legs and wings.

4. Wyvern. Has two legs, wings and a tail with spikes. Fire cannot breathe out.

5. Amphipter- a winged dragon with vestigial limbs that are not used.

6. Dragons eastern countries - Chinese, Japanese, Korean.

Conventionally, dragons include monsters from ancient Greek mythology - the snake Python and

Who studies them?

From time to time there are reports that different parts planets have been seen or even caught mysterious creatures. The science of cryptozoology deals with the search and study of animals that are considered fictional or long extinct. It is not one of the academic disciplines, and official zoology considers it a pseudoscience. For cryptozoologists, the answer to the question of whether dragons existed is simple and clear. They believe that if not today, then in the past, man really lived next to dragons, the memory of which has reached us in fairy tales.

Night fury - fiction or reality?

After the release of the cartoon “How to Train Your Dragon,” many became interested in the question of whether the Night Fury dragon really exists? Unfortunately, this character is a pure invention of the filmmakers. It has memorable features: a dark, almost black color, eight processes on the head that act as ears (therefore, these creatures have very sensitive hearing), and the ability to exhale not just fire, but a clot of blue flame. The night fury has no analogues among mythical dragons.

Do dragons really exist? And where can you see them?

The question of whether dragons exist now can be answered in the affirmative with complete confidence. Of course, in this case we will keep in mind modern animals that have received this honorary title. The closest of the modern fauna to the mythical dragons is Komodo. A predator weighing 150 kilograms and a body length of about 3 meters looks very much like the legendary monsters.

Flying dragons are another member of the agamidae lizard family that wear this famous name. They have leather folds on their sides, with which they can glide in the air. The lizards got their name for this feature.