Dragons

[ysabetwordsmith]

Could a creature evolve to breathe fire? 

Sure.  Lots of bored scientists and/or speculative fiction writers have described various ways to make it work.

But not all breath weapons are fire.  We have  a dragon and it has  a deadly weapon in its mouth.  The Komodo dragon's bite kills with a deadly bioweapon variously composed of teeth, toxins, and pathogens that develop with super-speed; and like mythical dragons, they're immune to their own weapons.  They are more than capable of killing a human; they can kill a water buffalo.  Really not far off the mark as monsters go.  Dragon = truth in advertising.

Comments

[heron61]

My favorite is still the dragons described in Peter Dickinson's fictive natural history book The Flight of Dragons, where dragons flew using a large hydrogen-filled flying equivalent of a swim bladder, and breathed fire by venting some of this hydrogen through their mouth. For my long ago college AD&D games, I used this and also gave the dragons platinum teeth, since platinum catalyzes hydrogen to burn.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I have seen both hydrogen and helium used for lift in dragons. I favor hydrogen for the reasons given above. Also, it makes an extremely interesting dilemma: the more a dragon breathes fire, the less lift it has. Thus, if you can tease it enough without getting cooked alive, you can ground the thing which makes it (somewhat) easier to kill.

Re: Yes ...

[(Anonymous)]

They did something similar in the Temeraire books, tho it wasn't tied to firebreathing (not all dragons breathed fire and some had other abilities.)

[fianna9]

Discovery had a whole quasi-documentary about this idea back in 2004. Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVhT8alJ0l8

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I remember that! It was so awesome.

[fayanora]

I like the idea of acid breath. In my Ravenstone series, I've got brief mention of basilisks, in their original folklore form as a kind of cross between a chicken and a dragon. Their gaze stuns, and they ooze acid from their skin. If I go more in depth with them, it would make sense for them to have acid breath, too.

[(Anonymous)]

Temeraire had a breed of dragon that spat acid (the Longwing). Since they only took women as dragonrider companions,this allowed the Aerial Corps to induct women...during the reigh of Queen Elizabeth the 1st. The acid-spitting caused drama during the plague in the third book - coughing was a symptom, and they needed special equipment so as to not dissolve anything important while coughing. I think one dragon needed a mercy kill after coughing wrong and melting off half their face.

[fayanora]

Yike! That sucks that they aren't immune to their own acid.

[shipperslist]

Komodo dragons are awesome. Terrifying but awesome.

[fayanora]

You think that's terrifying, I remember that there used to be an even bigger version of the komodo dragon, some critter that was to the Komodo dragon the way the megalodon was to a Great White. And they lived on mainland Australia.

[shipperslist]

I read that with wide eyes until the last sentence and then was like ”...of course in Australia.” 😂

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I'm currently researching extinctions. There used to be alligator like amphibians. Terror Toads! O_O

Re: Well ...

[shipperslist]

That... sounds terrifying. 😬

Re: Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here are some. In certain ways they resembled salamanders, but the body armor makes them sound toadlike. And what if they had the common amphibian defense of exuding toxins from their skin to dissuade larger predators? 0_o

Re: Well ...

[fayanora]

RIBBIT

Re: Well ...

[shipperslist]

Oh wow. 😳

Nature is such a wonderful, creepy, and terrifying thing.

[fayanora]

I also recently read about a marsupial *lion* that used to live in Australia. And it lived up to the name in its appearance, unlike the Tasmanian tiger, which looked more like an elongated wolf than a tiger.

[fianna9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacoleo

Nature's Weirdest Events had a theory that these might be the origin of the drop bear stories in Australia.

[fianna9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalania

Some people think Megalania still exists but there really isn't good evidence from what I've seen.