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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Could dragons really exist?

162 replies

ThatBrightHelper · 19/11/2024 07:42

I am friends with someone of viking descent, and she told me that her ancestors were friends with dragons, just like How To Train Your Dragon! I find that really cool that dragons might not be that imaginary.

OP posts:
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CollisionCourse · 19/11/2024 14:39

I've got a mate who talks shite too. Good fun though.

🐉

downwindofyou · 19/11/2024 14:48

SpanThatWorld · 19/11/2024 07:51

Probably most people in England are of viking descent. Thousands of them colonised northern England. There were viking settlements around Dublin. Some of their descendents will have moved to England in the intervening millennium. More vikings colonised northern France and these people's descendents invaded England as the Normans.

One viking a thousand years ago probably has thousands of modern descendents. I have zero idea what my antecedents were doing in 973AD but it probably involved digging in soil and dying of unpleasant diseases.

DNA tests suggest you are wrong. Most British people do not have Viking/nordic ancestors

WiddlinDiddlin · 19/11/2024 14:53

Could dragons that look exactly like some of the art we see today exist, with wings and four legs and so on...

No.

Could dragons as a concept have come about as misunderstood re-tellings of stories about real creatures and also fossil remains ... yes absolutely.

Humans have an inherent need to tell stories, to pass information in that form, which is why we still go to see plays (even plays we've seen before or read and know the whole story) and watch dramas on tv and read books and watch films..

Its why forums exist, we're all telling stories, some truer than others.

When those stories can only be passed on by telling and listening rather than writing down and then later, by poorly translating loose written language, those stories change, details are fudged..

Humans also like to embellish. Its got to be bigger and better and more ferocious and terrifying, we like to add detail that may not be strictly necessary, or accurate.

Historically, when we've depicted anything with images, we've embellished it, from Lord Thingies cows and horses that were far taller or fatter or more magnificent than their real life counter parts, to Joe the Sailors sea-monster, which swelled to 100s of feet longer and bigger and more vicious than the stinking remains of the collossal squid he saw washed up on a beach...

It isn't hard to see how stories grow and details are mixed with misunderstandings.

One person describes a huge reptile, explains that you don't want to get the animals saliva on you as it burns when it gets into an open wound (which you naturally have if you wrestled it to the ground)... becomes another persons 'it breathes fire'..

And like every angler who ever caught a tiddler that became a whale by the time he got home... all these things were significantly larger in the retelling of the tale.

TheGoddessFreyja · 19/11/2024 14:56

I believe that myths and legends there is always some truth to them

ElleneAsanto · 19/11/2024 15:02

Shakeoffyourchains · 19/11/2024 13:41

In short, no, dragons (with four legs and two wings) couldn't exist from a biological standpoint. All terrestrial vertebrates evolved from a lobed-finned fish with four limbs. For a creature to spontaneously evolved another pair of limbs would be a huge evolutionary jump that we have never seen.

Wyverns (two legs and two wings), on the other hand, are more plausible. Creatures like Quetzalcoatlus show that large, winged vertebrates existed. However, a real wyvern wouldn’t resemble the traditional fantasy depiction. It would need to be much smaller and lighter to achieve flight.

Completely agree would have to be four limbs, so wings are adapted forelegs (like bats). But an adapted digestive system storing gas could overcome the size/mass problem - similar to swim bladders in fish.

(You’ve all probably guessed I’m a science nerd, for which I refuse to apologise!)

YellowAsteroid · 19/11/2024 15:24

Gosh, is it a full moon? There are several totally bonkers threads on here atm.

Hoppinggreen · 19/11/2024 15:30

YellowAsteroid · 19/11/2024 15:24

Gosh, is it a full moon? There are several totally bonkers threads on here atm.

Fun sponge 😁

WiddlinDiddlin · 19/11/2024 15:42

I can hear my mother now... 'we haven't time for idle conjecture!'... (assume a very cold, snotty tone there...).

I'm off down a rabbit hole of sea-monsters, trying to work out if any of them are based on anything other than giant/collossal squid, as it seems most are.

ErrolTheDragon · 19/11/2024 15:50

But an adapted digestive system storing gas could overcome the size/mass problem - similar to swim bladders in fish.

Hm... the gas would presumably be methane (afaik there aren't biochemical processes which liberate lots of hydrogen).
So we're looking at a herbivore which burps rather than farts (excepting my namesake, obviouslyGrin).

SoupDragon · 19/11/2024 15:52

YellowAsteroid · 19/11/2024 15:24

Gosh, is it a full moon? There are several totally bonkers threads on here atm.

Are you new to MN?

Shakeoffyourchains · 19/11/2024 16:16

ElleneAsanto · 19/11/2024 15:02

Completely agree would have to be four limbs, so wings are adapted forelegs (like bats). But an adapted digestive system storing gas could overcome the size/mass problem - similar to swim bladders in fish.

(You’ve all probably guessed I’m a science nerd, for which I refuse to apologise!)

A nice idea but I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with you on this one. The swim bladder of a fish usually contains oxygen, nitrogen or carbon dioxide which they obtain from water. These are all less dense than water so can provide buoyancy.

On land oxygen and carbon dioxide are both denser than air and nitrogen only slightly lighter so couldn't be used to provide lift.

Methane could be a candidate but it's only about half as dense as air so you'd need a lot of it, while Helium and hydrogen could also be used, but are only present in minute quantities. Even if it could produce one of those gases itself, it would have to have a huge storage organ.

I found the below chart that calculates dragon weight based on length (nice to see we're not the only one's this interested in the subject). A 32ft dragon weighing 5.8t would need to hold 5300 m³ of hydrogen, 5700m3 of helium or 11,200m3 of methane to gain lift. Even if it only needed a half of that to achieve flight it would still need a storage organ at least the the size of a hot air balloon. Even a small 8ft, 90kg dragon would need to store over 80m3.

Never thought I'd be going this in-depth on a dragons ability to fly, but makes a lovely change from the usual AIBUs.

Could dragons really exist?
CamelTail · 19/11/2024 16:22

I am loving this thread!

WiddlinDiddlin · 19/11/2024 16:44

So the flighted dragon would really need to be a tiny dragon with an enormous bulbous gas 'balloon' ... a huge balloon with a tiny head/limbs/wings... fetches pen and paper....

ErrolTheDragon · 19/11/2024 16:58

WiddlinDiddlin · 19/11/2024 16:44

So the flighted dragon would really need to be a tiny dragon with an enormous bulbous gas 'balloon' ... a huge balloon with a tiny head/limbs/wings... fetches pen and paper....

Or obviously a small but aerodynamic dragon which has a very large amount of compressed gas storage which is expelled rearwards, allowing heavier than air flight even with small wings.
(Yes, they're very liable to explode)

WiddlinDiddlin · 19/11/2024 17:01

Invent your own scale here... mm. I think this dirigible-dragon would probably be quite likely to explode too.

Perhaps in the case of dragons, the size wasn't exaggerated upward... but, down. To make them less inflateable looking and comedic.

(I've chosen to obscure the image lest it trigger someone.)

Sensitive content
Could dragons really exist?
SinnerBoy · 19/11/2024 17:11

TheWonderhorse · Today 07:58

Of course there are dragons. All Welsh people know that!

Where do they live, now that trains don't have fireboxes?

Hoppinggreen · 19/11/2024 17:22

I think the thing to remember here is that we are applying OUR laws of Physics to Dragons. Dragons may have their own laws of physics and so may not be subject to ours

WiddlinDiddlin · 19/11/2024 17:29

Like cats @Hoppinggreen ? Not subject to the normally understood laws of gravity, able to alter their density and volume at will... mm!

CamelTail · 19/11/2024 17:39

WiddlinDiddlin · 19/11/2024 17:01

Invent your own scale here... mm. I think this dirigible-dragon would probably be quite likely to explode too.

Perhaps in the case of dragons, the size wasn't exaggerated upward... but, down. To make them less inflateable looking and comedic.

(I've chosen to obscure the image lest it trigger someone.)

Edited

That's.

I propose this to be a part of MN logo or something. 😂
Mumsnet chicken, move over. Mumsnet possibly physics accurate dragon, take the charge😂

Hoppinggreen · 19/11/2024 18:12

CamelTail · 19/11/2024 17:39

That's.

I propose this to be a part of MN logo or something. 😂
Mumsnet chicken, move over. Mumsnet possibly physics accurate dragon, take the charge😂

I'll buy the scarf with it on!

CamelTail · 19/11/2024 18:18

Hoppinggreen · 19/11/2024 18:12

I'll buy the scarf with it on!

Oooh I preorder too please!

SpanThatWorld · 20/11/2024 14:27

downwindofyou · 19/11/2024 14:48

DNA tests suggest you are wrong. Most British people do not have Viking/nordic ancestors

You're right. I've had a bit of a Google and this is interesting:

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2020/september/viking-dna.html

6% of people in the UK have viking DNA - and it's only 10% in Sweden.

It seems that even 1000 years ago, people who were accepted as viking and followed viking ritual didn't necessarily have viking DNA.

I stand by my belief that 1000 years ago, my ancestors were digging in dirt and dying of various unpleasant infections, as were those of OP's friend. Not playing with non-existent dragons.

World’s largest ever DNA sequencing of Viking skeletons reveals they weren’t all Scandinavian

Invaders, pirates, warriors – the history books taught us Vikings were brutal predators who travelled by sea from Scandinavia to pillage and raid their way across Europe and beyond.

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2020/september/viking-dna.html

PippaKing · 20/11/2024 14:27

Yes they do. The dragon I know comes in the form of my boss.

Tallisker · 21/11/2024 00:36

That is the most excellent depiction of a dirigible dragon!

Not a sentence I thought I'd be typing at this time of night 🤣

WiddlinDiddlin · 21/11/2024 04:37

Beware the Dirigible Dragon... no naked flames please (I mean, if we're supposing such dragons were floating around rather randomly at a time when all was lit fires, candles, flaming torches and what-not... they really would be something to avoid no matter what the dimensions!)