Do Dragons exist, or could they have existed before?

By Rita Hossain, 8F

All around the world, different myths and legends shroud the dragon. Sometimes known as enormous winged dinosaurs breathing fire, which are defeated by legendary heroes. Or the Chinese one, with a snake-like body and a lion’s head. Whether they have several deadly heads, live underwater, live as peaceful giants, or as terrifying beasts, they are everywhere. And many ask the question, “Do they exist?”

Let’s first see if dragons could have actually existed in the past. There are countless types of dragons out there; the enormous monsters, sometimes kilometres tall, would not have survived due to gravity and would be either crushed by their own weight, or never find enough food to sustain themselves. Medium-sized dragons a few metres tall would have some trouble flying, as well as other problems. But to be fair, the largest flying creature to exist, the Quetzalcoatlus northropi, was a pterosaur with the wingspan of a small aeroplane. Now extinct (sadly), it had eleven metre long wings. They existed in the balance of huge wings but small bodies, and maybe that could be true of the dragon as well. Little dragons, though, could have existed, theoretically, they were small and could fly, and could have fed themselves, unlike their larger counterparts.

However, some say, the most important aspect of a dragon is its fire. In fact fire breathing is a lot more complicated than it sounds. Aside from being a very impractical weapon, it’s very hard to control: a strong wind and your blast could come back straight at you, although with evolution they could have developed fire-resistant scales. And for a dragon that was hunting, let’s say, in the forest, one blast of the fire to kill its prey would have set fire to the entire forest. Imagine – a few fire-breathing dragons and there won’t be any life on earth …

Apart from that the fire-breathing would actually be possible since there is already a creature that can do something similar: the bombardier beetle. The beetle has various chemicals mixing inside it to create a spray of gas that can go up to 100 degrees celsius. The dragons could have also possibly had chemicals that reacted together to create the fire. They could have a chemical that reacts in air, but is harmless within them. For example, instead of farting, they could produce methane from their mouths and find a way to create a spark and in effect ignite it, for example by eating stones to create minerals in their mouth.

So to answer the question if it was possible for dragons to exist, YES IT WAS POSSIBLE, in theory, but maybe not exactly as we know them; they would be small, for one, and definitely have wings, unlike the Chinese dragon. They would perhaps breathe fire, though evolution might have taken it away from them due to it being an impractical weapon. But what about the question, “Do they exist now?”, To be honest, no one knows. This question is moot. Some people believe they don’t exist, while others believe they’re out there somewhere, maybe invisible, or on another planet in space, just waiting for the right moment to appear…