That’s a wyvern, not a dragon! Fake and gay! FAKE AND GAY!
It’s a serious conversation that’s been had amongst historians, anthropologists, archeologists and, of course, paleontologists. It’s entirely possible that the dragon myth comes from ancient civilizations uncovering dinosaurs like the T-Rex and imagining what they believe it looked like when alive. They had no concept that it had been dead for 300 million years and didn’t exist alongside humans.
It really makes sense. Another one is that when they uncovered skulls of ancient mastodons, they though they were the skulls of Cyclops, because the trunk is located over a giant nasal/sinus opening in the skull, that they assumed was a single eye socket. If you had never seen, or even heard of, a creature with a trunk, a Cyclops would be the obvious assumption.
I’ve always thought the same thing
A man of culture, I see
It is weird for them to guess it was a reptile of some kind though. How would they know that? By comparing to other contemporary reptile skeletons? That seems very advanced.
That has always struck me as odd. And humans and dinosaurs have never existed at the same time so it’s not a question of old legends filtering down.
Yes I know birds are technically dinosaurs please don’t comment to correct me on that.
It looks like a giant lizard skull so all they need to make the link is dead lizard skeletons to refer to?
There have been fossils discovered with their skin intack (fossilized). So maybe early people discovered the T-rex with its wings intact, but they didn’t preserve the fossi,l so proof was lost.
Tiny wings~
1st thing I thought of was Dragon Tales lol
The T Rex skelly looks like it’s pondering or shooting some anime pose
I agree, it seems most folk don’t like to talk about the difference between a dragon and a wyvern
Complicated topic, but according to the nerdy Eurocentric definition:
Dragon = 4 limbs + 2 wings (6 total)
Wyvern = 2 legs + 2 wings (4 total)
Wyrm = 0 limbs/wings (Still very large, like the Tremors creatures or Sand Worms)
Technically “dragons” could have anywhere from 0 to hundreds or thousands of limbs/wings, and may or may not have the ability to fly/breathe fire/speak/possess magic/etc. depending on location, culture, and point in time.
Dragonriders of Pern?
More like Wyvernriders. Eat shit, Anne McCaffrey.
Huh? In all her officially sanctioned art they have four limbs and two wings
I thought wyrms were 0 legs 2 wings?
That’s technically an Amphiptere
Edit: Spelling
Again, depends on location, culture, and point in time. Wyrm could also be synonymous with “snake” which famously don’t have any legs or wings.
What if a dragon lost his front limbs in a fight or had a birth defect? Wouldn’t it be ableist of you to call it a Wyvern? They would be very upset to be called one. :(
Wyrms could have any number of legs. Or just be the 4+2 combination because wyrm used to just mean dragon.
eastern dragons dont need wings, they are more serpent like.
But all three fly. Right? right??
I dont care I hunt them both with my gunlance
Not all dragons are wyverns, but all wyverns are dragons (depending on canonical setting, but this is true for historical myth)
Done, conversation over, and too many ignorant nerds had this conversation in the Skyrim days while vomiting out the Monster Hunter definition like it speaks for anything but Monster Hunter.
People “knew” about dinosaurs and giants (for the less obviously-lizardy bones) for thousands of years. A lot of them were not very far from the surface.
The idea of Dinosauria has only been around like three hundred years, so you can see why myths prevail. Personally I think Pterosaurs are much more fascinating than any fictional Dragons, but this post is about dinosaurs.
This image is slop.
Dinosaurs skeletons were thought to have come from dragons until the 1800s
Why would anyone in 1600 think it was a reptile and not a large mammal?
Is the conspiracy theory that the giant wings were eaten, and that an ancient society ate dragon wings like we eat Buffalo wings and that’s why there’s only tiny arms?
other way around. they liked giant thigh, bred the t rexes so their cheeks clap when they walk
I was on the fence because of the missing wings. But, now? Now, I believe.
Who could resist delicious, battered, deep-fried dragon wings? Not I!
Top is slop.
Bot is submissive, and also slop.
Bots on Lemmy?! If these bots are not self-hosted, I’m gonna file a complaint!
alright… lets talk
Why aren’t they called flynosaurs?
Cuz they died
so this is how i find out
noflysaurs
Flynomores
Those are the P-Terrydactyls
Skeletons got a femur in his arm.
The reason I’m not ready for this conversation because I"ve heard too many Young Earth Creationists say “There are dragons in da bible, and dinosaurs kinda look like dragons! Therefore, Dinosarus didn’t die by meteor they died in da flood!”
T-Rex flying around with those tiny arms/wings
It’s kinda like a hummingbird. Those shits flapped at 500bpm. Talk about terrifying huh?
Exactly, if you can do a pull-up you can’t fly
So you’re saying dragons are just big chickens?
Massive, fire-breathing chickens, but yeah.
Behold! A man.
Do you think the thigh and breast muscles would be tough and gamey, or do you think it would scale similarly as chicken to turkey?
There’s probably a timeline where T-Rex was hunted to extinction like the Mammoth, or was domesticated for food like cattle, pigs, and other modern dinosaurs.
Whose domesticating T-Rexes? That seems like a short career.
Johnny Rex
Depends on how tasty they are. Something something mammoths, giant sloths, boars, bovidae, etc. Also see zoo animals in 10mil years (lions, tigers, bears, yum yum)
“I’d like a 20 piece dragon mcnugget with spicy cretaceous sauce please”
Dragon legends predate Colombus.
And are also common to hundreds of separate cultures from around the world
i think lots of those “dragons” are so vastly different, that giving them an umbrella term is nothing but an exercise in categorisation. similar how every culture has demons and gods, even though they are so vastly different.
Yup just more cultural hyperdiffusion to make simple concepts like ‘person with wing stick figure’ or ‘big scary lizard’ seem like they’re only from one source.
I’m explaining badly check out miniminuteman
Occam’s Razor, we have to accept the simplest solution with no evidence to the contrary. Dragons are real
