FA+
Shop
Dragon Science
9 years ago
I've been interested in this topic lately when it comes to debating "if dragons existed".
For this breakdown, I'm going to be talking about flight, fire breath and their physiology.
Also, I can be wrong, please point it out if I am!!!
First off, there are no cold blooded organisms that are capable of flight like birds, mammals or even bats which rules out dragons being cold blooded!
To explain this more, the metabolism of a warm blooded organism has more energy to fly than a cold blooded organism. You want to lift a ton? That's unlikely, because the amount of energy you need to expend would probably make your blood boil.
According to James Hinds, an organism weighing around 200 kg and under is capable of flight given the wingspan is 10 meters, meaning my fursona can fly being at 170 kg.
But to give more perspective on this, using the laws of motion of forces having equal and opposite force exerting on a body.
We can deduce that 2 litre bottled water weighs about 2 kg. My wings would have to lift up to 100 2 litre bottles of water, giving me lift of 30 Newtons, given my force is constant. If I wanted to hover, I can just lift 85 2 litre bottles of water.
Question now is: Can dragon bones withstand that weight? Of course they can. A human bone can support 8,626 kg of weight. What's to say a dragon can't?
This is a pretty hard to prove that they can. The first two gasses that comes to mind for flammable gas is hydrogen and methane gas. Animals and humans can produce methane gas, so it's likely that dragons use methane gas which basically narrows our gasses down to methane.
There's a problem. Methane gas does not burn without an ignition. So, how do dragons ignite their methane?
People may argue that dragons put rocks and flints or some mineral in their maw as one answer or that they have an inbuilt iron and flint. However, no creature on earth naturally grows an iron and flint in their mouth, it has to be put there artificially.
Someone else might also argue that they have a chemical that when combined with the flammable gas that ignites it. The problem is that if a dragon dies and decays, there's a chance they may explode from the chemicals mixing together as they die. That just sounds silly. Adding onto that, injuries to the fire breathing organs could cause an explosion.
According to a source, I've discovered an ultrasonic sound can be a source of ignition which makes it the most plausible way of igniting the methane gas! Ultrasonic sounds are vibrations of ultrasonic frequencies that are a capable ignition source.
I'd say it is pretty plausible given three different ways one could ignite the methane gas.
It also helps the fact that you can't hear ultrasonic frequencies as humans.
Other sources of ignition such as electricity or static electricity sounds far too implausible personally.
Well, dragons. This might be the hardest topic to cover. There are no vertebrae recorded that has a frame of 6 limbs. A pair of legs, another pair of legs or pair of arms and a pair of wings. No mammal or avian or reptile can have 6 limbs.
But wyverns, by definition of some people are 4 limbed dragons can possibly exist. Take for instance, a bat.
Sadly, 6 limbed vertebrates do not exist, they are tetrapods and can only have 4 limbs. Basically, dragons are not possible in the realms of organisms that exist on Earth if we were to categorize them as reptiles, avians or mammals. They're most certainly not arthropods.
Sources:
https://www.quora.com/If-dragons-ex.....ow-them-to-fly
http://www.livescience.com/6040-bru.....ans-punch.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25066472
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuFPB7wNL2k
https://www.quora.com/Are-6-limbed-.....agons-possible
Side note: idk why I did this.. lol
For this breakdown, I'm going to be talking about flight, fire breath and their physiology.
Also, I can be wrong, please point it out if I am!!!
FlightFirst off, there are no cold blooded organisms that are capable of flight like birds, mammals or even bats which rules out dragons being cold blooded!
To explain this more, the metabolism of a warm blooded organism has more energy to fly than a cold blooded organism. You want to lift a ton? That's unlikely, because the amount of energy you need to expend would probably make your blood boil.
According to James Hinds, an organism weighing around 200 kg and under is capable of flight given the wingspan is 10 meters, meaning my fursona can fly being at 170 kg.
But to give more perspective on this, using the laws of motion of forces having equal and opposite force exerting on a body.
We can deduce that 2 litre bottled water weighs about 2 kg. My wings would have to lift up to 100 2 litre bottles of water, giving me lift of 30 Newtons, given my force is constant. If I wanted to hover, I can just lift 85 2 litre bottles of water.
Question now is: Can dragon bones withstand that weight? Of course they can. A human bone can support 8,626 kg of weight. What's to say a dragon can't?
Fire BreathThis is a pretty hard to prove that they can. The first two gasses that comes to mind for flammable gas is hydrogen and methane gas. Animals and humans can produce methane gas, so it's likely that dragons use methane gas which basically narrows our gasses down to methane.
There's a problem. Methane gas does not burn without an ignition. So, how do dragons ignite their methane?
People may argue that dragons put rocks and flints or some mineral in their maw as one answer or that they have an inbuilt iron and flint. However, no creature on earth naturally grows an iron and flint in their mouth, it has to be put there artificially.
Someone else might also argue that they have a chemical that when combined with the flammable gas that ignites it. The problem is that if a dragon dies and decays, there's a chance they may explode from the chemicals mixing together as they die. That just sounds silly. Adding onto that, injuries to the fire breathing organs could cause an explosion.
According to a source, I've discovered an ultrasonic sound can be a source of ignition which makes it the most plausible way of igniting the methane gas! Ultrasonic sounds are vibrations of ultrasonic frequencies that are a capable ignition source.
I'd say it is pretty plausible given three different ways one could ignite the methane gas.
It also helps the fact that you can't hear ultrasonic frequencies as humans.
Other sources of ignition such as electricity or static electricity sounds far too implausible personally.
PhysicalWell, dragons. This might be the hardest topic to cover. There are no vertebrae recorded that has a frame of 6 limbs. A pair of legs, another pair of legs or pair of arms and a pair of wings. No mammal or avian or reptile can have 6 limbs.
But wyverns, by definition of some people are 4 limbed dragons can possibly exist. Take for instance, a bat.
Sadly, 6 limbed vertebrates do not exist, they are tetrapods and can only have 4 limbs. Basically, dragons are not possible in the realms of organisms that exist on Earth if we were to categorize them as reptiles, avians or mammals. They're most certainly not arthropods.
Sources:
https://www.quora.com/If-dragons-ex.....ow-them-to-fly
http://www.livescience.com/6040-bru.....ans-punch.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25066472
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuFPB7wNL2k
https://www.quora.com/Are-6-limbed-.....agons-possible
Side note: idk why I did this.. lol
As far as I know, dinosaurs are basically birds today because evolution magic!
Dragons on another planet is a possibility however but that's now on sci fi land because I could say any kind of alien is possible on another planet.
You didn't approve of my idea, you just talked about it and mused about it, I started this and researched it. You didn't add anything that I can credit.
None CAN, just because none have? Bugs have 6 limbs, spiders have 8. Its entirely possible to have more than 4, its just that no larger creature has been found that has more than 4.
As for the breathing fire, I doubt that this is a thing. Its much like an alien race that talks about humans that can read minds, spit fire, and piss acid. Its more likely fire was just added in some guy's tale and future generations told it with the fire thing and eventually it became legend and people thought fire was a real thing rather than just a spiced up story. But, anyway.
Moving onto none just because none had. That's a valid point. I am trying to relate to real animals on Earth just to prove feasibility. Tetrapods shown over evolution not growing another girdle to support a third set of limbs, most changed the front pair of arms into wings instead. Hence why wyverns are more plausible.
However, upon searching more online, it is possible a vertebrate with 3 pairs of limbs to exist through a mutation, a birth defect. If we were to say that mutation eventually grew into wings and incidentally can fly, we could say that's also a plausible case of vertebrates having 6 limbs. Basically, sorry for the cop out at the end, although this case is very unlikely. If I knew more about biology, I'd probably question a what if scenario for the possibility of a vertebrate supporting a third girdle.
As for fire breath, another take on fire breath is probably much like komodo dragon's acid spit. That basically means some guy affected by the acid describes the experience as fire which explains why fire breath is in the mythology. So you do bring up a valid point and a case that holds stronger than dragons simply being able to breathe fire.
If we were to even go as far as to stretch it so: pterosaurs existed. Close enough amirite?
Some sources about Dragon fossils would be nice. I don't know what constitutes a fossil being recognized as a Dragon.
Pterosaurs and pterodactyls and stuff, well, I did say flight is possible for something weighing under 200 kg if that's what you mean. But they'd fall under the category I mentioned earlier as wyverns.
Highly evolved reptiles x3. Makes me think of the Super Mario Bros live action film.
Hard to see that dinosaurs are highly evolved dragons as they became birds and never really got that extra pair of limbs.
To be honest, let's say if dragons did exist instead of being pure imagination.
We would hate dragons like crazy, one reason is religious beliefs, the other is their destruction. Traditional feral animalistic dragons in this case by the way. They'll burn cities and crops, eat live stock, they'll be hunted by the human army until the only ones alive are in places with little civilisations. We'd see probably in modern times shows like Joe, The Dragon Hunter.
If they're anthro, well, either they enslave humans for being much more smart and strong or they are enslaved. Like racism, it'll extend to these kinds. There will be Dragon x Human relationships being controversial. There will be rights movements and such. Eventually in modern times, they'll slowly be better due to the social justice being prevalant. Lastly, I believe there will be less Dragon furries... Because that's a whole world of weird possibly.
If it's our modern furry though, we all would be so loved by this race, we'd probably have a Dragon boyfriend or girlfriend.
Geez.. Sorry for the wall of text, I don't know why I do this XD.
And well, relationships with dragons have changed so much, except in some parts of the world. In the old Celtic world dragons were wise beings who were teachers to Celtic heroes (who were more brave and selfless than say the Ancient Greek heroes). But sadly Christianity came along and made everything non-human in Celtic myths (such as serpents and other mythical beasties) evil, something that's still around to this day.
I admit I wouldn't know what to think about if there was less dragon characters in the fandom. I do love a lot of dragon characters and the people behind them...but recently I had a group of 'friends' with dragon characters turn into a nest of hornets :x