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Draconology, the science of dragons, is a dying specialty - literally. It's one practitioner, Dr. Volodimir Kapusianyk, 98, currently resides in a nursing home in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

For Several years, he has been trying to write the definitive draconology textbook, but ill health has kept from completing more than the foreword. In the hope that someone will take up the torch of draconology from his falling hand, Dr. Kapusianyk has asked to InQuest magazine to print his foreword, reasoning that their readers must include many whom already interested in dragons.

I take personal initiative to put this on my page, knowing that on Internet there are many dragon lovers that, maybe some, will continue his work.

Relegated to myth by many cultures, dragons did, in fact, exist - but now, alas, are extinct, the last having died in captivity in 1911 in a small traveling zoo in Nebraska, where, as a teenager, I saw it. It was pitiful creature, scrawny, barely 8 feet long, not a wisp of smoke coming from it, and, greatest indignity of all, mistakenly labeled a "Rare Winged Garter Snake." But I knew better, and on that fateful day chose to devote my life to the study of these magnificent creatures.

Many critics deride draconology, claiming a creature like a dragon, apparently reptilian yet able to fly and breath fire, is scientifically impossible.

The key, however, is that phrase "apparently reptilian." Yes, dragons looked reptilian - but they were not. They were, in fact, a phylum unto themselves, like no other creature that ever walked the Earth.

This textbook contains all I have learned or theorized about dragons. Chapter 2, for example, deals with flight. To fly, a creature must generate enough lift to counteract the force of gravity exerts on its mass. To fly really well, you must maximize lift and minimize mass. Dragons' huge wings generated plenty of lift, and they minimized their mass in two ways.

First, their bones, like birds', were almost hollow. Second, they were made, not of the usual mixture of calcium and other minerals, but from long chain of hydrocarbon: a natural form of very strong, very light plastic which also formed their incredibly tough scales (Chapter 9).

In fact, their whole bodies were awash in hydrocarbons. They had large internal bladders filled with methane, a natural byproduct of digestion in human, and more so in dragons. Methane is lighter than air, so this bladder, like a giant internal balloon, reduced mass (and enhanced flight) even more.

Methane is also flammable, and dragons evolved a way to spew flaming methane for defensive purposes (Chapter 14). Study of dragon fossils (Chapter 5) reveals that dragons had a specialized organ in the roof of their mouth in which a jagged nugget of iron, coalesced from iron in the dragon's bloodstream, hung suspended with pieces of flint, which the dragon ingested as needed. When the dragon exhaled methane, the iron and flint tumbled around, generating sparks, which ignited the gas.

Dragons' peculiar body chemistry also made their blood highly corrosive (Chapter 10). Essentially, they were walking chemical factories, their bloodstream filled with toxic waste.

Finally, in Chapter 21, we will examine in detail how dragons' growing dependence for food on virgins provided by local villagers made them fat, lazy and easy prey for glory-hungry knights, who drove them into a long, slow decline that ended at last with the death of that poor, bedraggled specimen in Nebraska.

Draconology is a difficult but rewarding field of study. I hope you enjoy your journey through it

Everybody knows what a dragon is: an enormous, fierce, bloodthirsty creature appearing in fairy tales and legends as an accessory whose main function is to set off the bravery of knight challenging him. The dragon is an obscure, mysterious character, described in broad terms, and is little more than foil to enhance the hero's valor.

Dragon is a legendary beast in the folklore of many European and Asian cultures. Legends describe dragons as large, lizardlike creatures that breathe fire and have a long, scaly tail. In Europe, dragons are traditionally portrayed as ferocious beasts that represent the evils fought by human beings. But in Asia, especially in China and Japan, the animals are generally considered friendly creatures that ensure good luck and wealth.

According to some medieval legends, dragons lived in wild, remote regions of the world. The dragons guarded treasures in their dens, and a person who killed one supposedly gained its wealth. The English epic hero Beowulf died in a fight with a treasure-guarding dragon.

In China, the traditional New Year's Day parade includes a group of people who wind through the street wearing a large dragon costume. The dragon's image, according to an ancient Chinese belief, prevents evil spirits from spoiling the new year. Another traditional Chinese belief is that certain dragons have the power to control the rainfall needed for each year's harvest.

However the dragon is something else. He is admirable, intelligent and educated creature, who leads a most interesting life. He has some fascinating characteristics in addition to those occasional glimpses we are given through fairy tail and legends.

In the world of fantastic animals, the dragon is unique. No other creature has appeared in such a rich variety of forms. It is as though there was once a whole family of different dragon species that really existed, before they mysteriously became extinct. Indeed, as recently as the seventeenth century, scholars wrote of dragons as though they were scientific facts, their anatomy and natural history being recorded in painstaking detail.

The naturalist Edward Topsell, for instance, writing in 1608, considered them to be reptilian and closely related to serpents: "There are divers sorts of dragons, distinguished partly by countries, partly by their quantity and magnitude, and partly by the different form of their external parts." Personifications of malevolence of beneficence, paganism or purity, death and devastation, life and fertility, good or evil. All these varied, contradictory concepts are embodied and embedded within that single magical word.

The dragon has always been slandered and misjudged, persecuted and hounded by man, simply because they are different. Like so many other living beings, he has experienced death and persecution in the name of so-called superiority of civilized man.

Perhaps, in the future, man will learn with the death of a single animal or plant species an irreplaceable asset - something more precious than all the wealth in the world - is lost. Only then will the Earth continue to be a brilliant blue jewel in the universe, for in its heart will be locked the priceless treasure of the diversity of the species, and man will have recognized his duty to cherish every single one.

I take many informations from many books of many libraries, if some people think that I put these descriptions here to prove that dragon have existed, sorry you're off target, the question are not if they have existed or not... it is if they are still alive... today in our modern world.

This question will probably be the quest of my life but don't worry somewhere, a person knows the answers... all what I need to do is to find who and where...

The dragon is the largest known flying creature. To maintain his enormous bulk in the air, his physical structure has had to be different from that of other reptiles whom many persons inaccurately associate dragon with these.

His wing bones fit on to broad shoulders which support the powerful wing muscles; these require an extraordinary articulator system unknown in other species. The bones were tougher than reinforced concrete and much lighter.

It is important to note that the bones of a dragon are hollow like bird reducing their mass, scientifically: any creature with the physiology of a dragon can flight well and at great speed.

Image under construction. Please continue your way, there's nothing special to see. Okay guys get back to work!

Picture of a 3D dragon skeleton is Under Construction. Coming soon with maybe a detailed 3D muscular system, we continue work on it.

The dragons muscular system is one of the most fascinating... and one of the most complicate. We can evaluate the power in the bite of a dragon to put to an average of 2 ton per cm cube (in comparison it could easily gnaw steel).

As a matter of fact, dragons are very powerful. Their leg and "arm" can support great charge without much difficulty but this only applies on ground movement because in the air, a dragon could not maintain more than half of is weight for a long period of time.

If you have vision keen you probably notice something at the looking of the muscular picture and the skeleton picture... with the observation of the front and the rear paws, I come to the conclusion that dragons COULD NOT run, their muscles of the leg and arm were not developed for this matter. This doesn't means they could not walk, this only means that they could not reach great speed at ground. (Take in consideration that dragons come in so much variety that it could be possible for a dragon to run but not those who have the similar structure of the picture above).

The dragon's body is completely covered with tough, shiny scales. Dragon usually doesn't have this scaly armor on the neck or stomach, possibly due to his habit of burrowing underground, not all draconologist are agreed about this. To protect his "soft" abdomen (at least weaker than the rest of his body) the dragon often wears jeweled breastplate. Using his saliva, which has powerful adhesive properties, and which he secretes on an empty stomach, the dragon often sticks precious stones on his neck and stomach, for protection as well as adornment.

The scales are pentagonal, and shaped like a teardrop, with two long sides and two shorter ones, and a very short fifth side attached to the skin. The dragon can make them stand on end whenever he likes to preen them. Remember, the dragon is a very clean creature and takes great care always to keep his skin and scales clean and immaculate.

In their normal position, the scales overlap very neatly and, thanks to a tiny cavity in the surface, they fit into each other to allow perfect freedom of movement.

If we study a scale closely, we observe the following characteristics: the innermost part is composed of a compact hairy formation firmly rooted in the epidermis. On the hair follicle there are some tiny glands which secrete a substance that adheres firmly to the skin.

This substance is rich in minerals, which determine the hardness and the color of the dragon's scales. The external surface has a horny, translucent texture, which gives the scales their habitual luster.

CROSS SECTION

The dragon does not need to sloughs off his skin like most other reptiles, as the scales grow, they are renewed automatically, like human nails and hair. They are not shed from the body, except in case of illness.

FRONTAL SECTION

Wings connected at the shoulder

1. The wings are connected near the shoulder.
This is the most improbable type of wing. The surface is small near the body making the flight and even the glidding difficult, moreover the rear of the dragon tends to "fall" toward the ground.
However, this disposition gives good results if the dragon is hovering.

Wings connected as shown on the picture

2. The wings are connected below the chest.
The wings as shown on the complete picture above is somewhat the mix between the situation 1 and 3. There is no real mistake here, except that situation 3 is better.

Wings connected at the thigh

3. The wings are connected near the thighs.
This give a greater surface for the wings than the situation 1 and 2.
The long neck and the tail give balance and enable the dragons to quickly gain or lose altitude.
This is definitively the most probable type of wings.

It is impossible to list the enormous variety of hues that make up the dragon's brilliant coloring, but they can be divided into three broad color groupings:

Blues, ranging from dark blue to silver and mother-of-pearl.
Red, ranging from copper-red to dark red and reddish-black.
Greens, which include every imaginable shade of green and yellow and even dark brown, emerald green and burnished gold.

Although these three principal color groups are not usually mixed, a dragon's coloring is rarely uniform. In general, his scales are several hues from one of the main color categories, with a metallic luster which is hard to define. When the scales have a pale, opaque appearance, it is a sure sign of ill health.

Many dragons are known by their scales, such as Ancalagon the Black, Smaug the Golden and Spars the Green.

I think this point really needed to be cleared up since artistic representations and sciences occasionally do not mix very well. Dragons eyes are usually shown to be reptilian with a vertical slit for the pupil, while somewhere else you will have a round pupil and if you search hard you may even find dragon with insect-like eyes not to mention the "glow-in-the-dark^tm" eyes with no pupil at all.

In all these view about dragons (pun intended), what is possible and what is not, and more importantly: why?

The traditional (vertebrate) dragon eye:

The eyes come in two flavors: with a round pupil or with a vertical slit. This is just a small detail because they both work the same way and they both have much in common with a standard camera. The light first pass through the cornea, the main source of refraction, then it pass through the lens which controls 1/3 of the refraction of light that enters the eye (the cornea, the other 2/3). Located just behind the pupil it allows for changing of focus from distance to near objects by altering its shape. This changing focus is called accommodation. As a person ages the lens hardens and accommodation becomes more difficult. Finally, the lights reach the retina that contains photoreceptors (rods and cones) that change light into sight by converting light into electrical impulses. These electrical messages are sent from the retina to the brain and interpreted as images. Simple heh?

The iris is the colored part of the eye has very fine muscles to control the size of the pupil and thus the intensity of the light (in conjunction with the eyelids). Being able to reduce the pupils to slits rather than tiny circles gives the creature a greater and more accurate control of how much light enters their eyes; this ability is particularly important in bright sunlight. Vertical slits also have an advantage over horizontal slits. When the creature's eyelids close at right angles to the vertical pupil, he can reduce the amount of light even further by bringing its eyelids closer and closer together. This combination of the vertical slits of the pupils and the horizontal slits of the eyelids, allows the creature to make the most delicate adjustments of the light reaching its eye compared to any other animal.

Also, many animals also have an additional structure called the tapetum - a reflective layer that lies under the retina and acts as a mirror, bouncing light back toward the retina a second time. Dogs, cats, horses, and cattle all possess them. This allows them to function under dim lighting better than humans. Cats, for instance, are five times better at detecting light than humans.

This is probably the most plausible situation, while is contain nothing new, this type of eyes has a long history of great functionally and an acceptable field of perception. However, this type of eyes possess only a 0.02 degree of visual range (i.e. there is only a small point in the picture where everything is clear. As you read this line, the paragraph above is blurred and cannot be read until you move the focus of your eyes on it).

Eyes made from a mosaic of lens (insect-like eyes):

As opposite to the vertebrate eyes, the image is in fact many small "independant" units that will together form the image. Each small lens point toward a different direction and thus can view a wide angle. A vertebrate eye has 0.02 degree of visual range (ie where objects appear clear and sharp) but since each lens of the composite eye is relatively large, this eye has a poor visual acuity. The image is crude but still recognizable. However, the main reason why large creatures do not have composite eyes, it is because this type of eyes generally allows only a short range of vision. Flies and mosquitoes are very near-sighted, and can see only a few millimeters in front of them with any degree of resolution. Also, although the insect depth of focus is very short, it is nevertheless very broad. The near-sightedness of insects is so extreme that they see detail where we would need a microscope to see. On the other hand, in the human eye, the fovea, or area of sharpest focus, is only as big as our thumb.

As shown on the picture above, for a creature with composite eyes, the Earth still look like the old planet we still know but the details are poor. For an insect, the important point is probably to distinguish the flowers from the landscape and your hand (or predator) before you hit him. It is simple and well, it does the work for them but seriously, any large creature would be greatly disadvantaged by this type of eyes.

No slit at all; eyes appearing like a crystal ("crystalline" eyes)?

Think about the pernese dragons. How are they able to see something? In fact, the best explanation is there is no retina but instead the light receptors are distributed homogeneously in the eyes. This means a photoreceptor near the surface can see the object far away and you go deeper into the eyes, the photoreceptors are able to view objects that are closer.

This would also means that the eyes are always focused no matter the distance of the object (I admit this could seem very strange for most of us, but imagine a photo where the close objects are as sharp and crisp as the objects far away).

However, this do not give the same precision as a retina since the dragon cannot have a dense quantity of receptors without blocking the light; a dense quantity of cells would block the light for the layers deeper in the eye (to some extant, in fact, cells are almost totally transparent).

As said above, the advantage would be to be to always have the close and far object focused at the same time and having a great deep perception even with a single eye. I explain, for human and some other creatures having a binocular vision, this is extremely useful for evaluating deepness but if your eyes are focussed on every distance all the time and if your brain is able to tell which signals from which "layer" of photoreceptors, then the brain no longer need two eyes to know the "exact" distance between the creature and an object. This would allow the dragon to have his eyes slightly more on the side and have a greater angle of view without sacrificing their ability to determine deepness.

Another advantage would be to increase the angle of the eyes, bird have their eyes on each side and human right in front. We humans with our eyes squarely in the front of our heads, can see about 180 degrees, but we need to direct our eyes into the direction of the object to have a clear picture. The crystalline type of eyes would be focused not only for object of all range but also in all directions, this means once you come into their angle of vision, it is like if the dragon was looking directly at you all the time while we cannot describe very well a person standing in the corner of our vision.

The main disadvantage would be their inability to have one point where all their light receptors can be gathered. Owls for example have a very dense retina and this allow them to see small creatures (such as mice) even if they are very far from them. In a crystalline eye, this situation cannot exist, they can have a good visual acuity but not as high as the animals that are renown for their vision. Does this means a dragon with such eyes cannot have a great vision? Absolutely not, again, we humans have a vision angle of 180 degree and about 140 degrees of binocular overlap. Dragons with crystalline eyes could have an angle of vision around 220 degree (i.e. the eyes slightly on the side) and an overlaps of 110 degree. The object inside the overlapping degrees of both eyes would greatly increase the resolution of the object while the remaining angle of vision would be less defined (but much better defined than the visual acuity of the corner of our eyes). The degree where the vision of the dragon overlap would be equivalent to the area of sharpest focus and would be obviously much greater than our.

Glowing crystalline eyes?

Glowing eyes without slit are nonsense, I have see some trying to explain the phenomena but their explanation contain several flaws that make the theory highly questionable. Let face it, this is often used to show good/bad guys in manga and other cartoon but this remains very unrealistic. In fact, if the creature had an iris, it would be the reflection on the iris that would give the impression of glowing eyes. This is where the idea came from but as you all surely noticed, the "glowing" eyes of a cat in the dark do not really glow; it is just a reflection of the light. Now, imagine now that your pupil would glow, you would literally blind yourself by the light emitted but also by the reflection of this light back to you. The best example I can give is at night when you are inside your house, if you look outside with all the lamp turned on, the glass in the window will acts like mirror. In other words, if you need to look outside, it is easier when there is no light inside. Same thing for the eyes, if you have a light source inside the eye, this would 1) blind you by activating the photoreceptors around the light source, and 2) your own cornea would behave like a mirror and reflect you back the light you emitted thus blinding you even more. In a crystalline eye, the light emitted by the "crystalline" liquid would trigger photoreceptors that are surrounding the light source thus completely blinding the creature in the process.

All this to says, that artistically, this give dragons and fantastic look but scientifically there is so many problems generated by this type of eyes, that it would be a lot of trouble to gain no advantage over the other types of eyes...

Many can wonder in which class the dragons can be categorized. The dragons cannot be considerer as reptiles because they are active and they are warm blooded, and they cannot either be mammals [because they lay eggs (Monotrème like "Echiné à bec droit", are the only exeption to the rule because it are only the mammals to lay eggs) and they do not produce milk ] and even less be birds (because they have scales and six members). However, the dragons have elements of each of these classes (reptiles, birds and mammals):

Birds: hollow bones, lay eggs
Reptiles: lay eggs, have scales
Mammal: four chamber heart, specialized teeth
Unknown: six members (2 pair of legs/arms, one pair or wing)

Thus, the dragons would be categorized in their own class... It would be a mistake to consider them in the current class because they do not answer the physical criteria requiered to belong to one or the other.

For their evolution, I would like first to put something at light: if you believe that the darwinism is only a theory, read this BEFORE contacting me by electronic mail for saying that it is only theory without good grounds.

Their evolution according to the most plausible assumption goes up with the first primitive reptiles, when those divides to follow different paths of evolution as to become the dinosaurs (which became the actual birds), the mammals and other better adapt reptiles. The dragons separate either from the dinosaurs or right before the mammal junction which gave some kind of reptile with mammal appearance (which look strangely close to a dragon without wings). With a few tens of a thousand of years of evolution, some beneficial mutations could have given them wings that have helped them to survive. This new branch in the evolution could explain the evolution of the dragons.

Note of the author: This section is still suject to discussion. Therefore, these informations are subject to change without notice.

The reproductive system of these creatures is internal, it means that at the look of their external physiognomy, it is hard (not to say nearly impossible) to determine if this dragon is a male or a female, only the general behavior and the small change in their color can provide informations about the dragon's gender. Dragons lead egg like reptiles and bird, eggs are protected by a hard shell that with time will weaken to let the new baby dragon break it more easily. The incubation period of these creatures is mostly unknown; some egg will hatch in a year other two and some more than five year. The dragons eggs are rich in calcium and I suppose that the newborn dragons eat is shell to not waste the nutriment in it.

The mating process is known as dragon-slide: the two partners fly high in the sky and after a moment they grab each other and close their wing and make free-fall. Then at less than a hundred feet from the ground they open their wing and land. The dragons so unusual mating process is mainly because dragons love speed and risk, and add these to the pleasure of love... you have a sensation that human could never enjoy. (Too bad, you should have born dragon).

Dragons tend to be loner by nature or by obligation, we can say without a big inaccuracy that dragons are not very populous on Earth, not so many lucky people have seen dragons (see the Activity on Earth page). Dragons pass much of their time alone in their lair, they, during this time, learn about their environment and how to use it wisely. Because they are alone a great deal of time, most of them enjoy company of other dragons and even human as long as they hadn't come in the goal of stealing or conquest. It may be possible that dragons have some sort of council leaded by an elderly dragon but this yet has to be proven.

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Just kidding, dragon are not the alien menace that corrupt our government to enslave everyone, dragon sighting is just a visual contact or, for the lucky one, a social contact with dragon that have nothing to do with conquering Earth or some other stupid things like that.

Many dragon-sighting have been reported in the several past decade, you will probably think these guys are just good enough to go in a nut house but... in China they found a skull with horn that have been mistakenly labeled as one of the rare tyrannosaur with horn, also they found a mysterious carcass on beach at Framboise, N.S., in July, 1976, that was looked as a sea-dragon. If you're not convinced with that go see Encounter incident.

You can see on the map the approximately location of the sighting. Why approximately location when we known at the miles near, the exact place of the sighting... simple, we had prove that they have exist but we are not sure if they are still alive today, so if they exist in this world we ABSOLUTELY NOT want them to be catch by some evil businessmen and use them as main attraction in zoo or other amusement park for make big buck at the detriment of an very intelligent and social creature. Knowing that if we say that a dragon has been seen in the Nevada, you will need luck to find him/her.

Throughout history, water dragons have often been sighted, with the most recent incidents dating back to the beginning of the twentieth century.

The most scientifically reliable description is that of Peter Karl van Esling, the director of The Hague Zoo, who gives an account of a water dragon sighted during a voyage to collect marine species in the Atlantic in 1860:

We saw a gigantic reptile, bright blue and silver in colour. He swam gracefully around the ship before the sailors' eyes, and submerged himself without a splash. His eyes were enormous, with vertical pupils and an intelligent expression. They seemed luminous, but this effect could be due to the reflection from the setting sun.

His head was adorned with bright blue and green crests. Even though he disappeared under water and did not see him again, he appeared to measure some seven meters in length, and on his back we could make out something resembling crest or fins. I think he was serpent-like, but the sailor beside me thought he saw legs and claw.

Sea-serpents seem to be a cosmopolitan breed. They share a marked taste for fine weather, being rarely seen except in warm, sunny weather and calm seas. They prefer to swim in warm ocean currents, spending the summer month in the Northern Hemisphere and migrating in the winter to the Southern Hemisphere.

A great number of sighting of sea-dragon more knows as sea-serpent have been recorded; numbered among witnesses are such personages as scientists, priest and bishops.

In an article he wrote in 1817, the French-American scientist Rafinesque-Schmaltz wrote of a two hundred foot long sea-serpent seen by Mrs. W. Lee, in 1805, near Cape Breton and Newfoundland. She stated: "Its back was dark green and it stood in the water in flexuous hillocks and went through it with impetuous noise."

The first recorded sighting in Canada water was on July 15th, 1825, in Halifax Harbour. It was seen by several people from entirely separate positions. They described it as having "a body as big as a tree trunk... The animal had about eight coils or humps to its body and was about sixty feet long."

A similar creature was seen the next summer by William Warburton, south of Newfoundland.

On May 15th, 1833, in Mahone Bay, forty miles west of Halifax, three officers and two enlisted men of Her Majesty's Navy were relaxing on the deck of a fishing boat when they sighted at a distance of one hundred and fifty to two hundred yards:

. . . the head and the neck of some denizen of the deep, precisely like those of a common snake, in the act of swimming, the head so far elevated and thrown forward by the curve of the neck as to enable us to see the water under and beyond it. The creature rapidly passed, leaving a regular wake, from the commencement of which, to the forepart, which was out of water, we judged its length to be about 80 feet; and this within rather than beyond the mark . . .

It is most difficult to give correctly the dimensions of any object in the water. The head of the creature we set down at about six feet in length, and the portion of the neck which we saw, at the same; the extreme length, as before stated, at between 80 and 100 feet. The neck in thickness equaled the bole of a moderate-sized tree. The head and the neck of a dark brown or nearly black colour, streaked with white in irregular streaks.

The five principal witnesses signed with their names, ranks, and dates on which they received their commissions:
W. SULLIVAN, Captain, Rifle Brigade, June 21, 1831.
A. MACLACHLAN, Lieutenant, ditto, August 5, 1824.
C. P. MALCOLM, Ensign, ditto, August 13, 1830.
B. O'NEAL LYSTER, Lieut. Artillery, June 7, 1816.
HENRY INCE, Ordnance Storekeeper at Halifax.

SEA-SERPENTS (WATER DRAGON) - WEST COAST

As in the case of other Canadian monsters, sea-serpent (or we will call it Sea-Dragon) sightings were often not reported until years later, when, after learning of another report, previous witnesses were prompted to come forward and tell their own stories. Fear of being laughed at is a very strong deterrent to people speaking out.

After learning of Major Langley's report, Mr. F. W. Kemp, an officer of the Provincial Archives, told of his experience the year before. This is his report, as given to the Victoria Daily Times:

On August 10, 1932, I was with my wife and son on Chatham Island in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. My wife called my attention to a mysterious something coming through the channel between Strong Tide Island and Chatham Island. Imagine my astonishment on observing a huge creature with head out of the water traveling about four miles per hour against the tide. Even at that speed a considerable wash was thrown on the rocks, which gave me the impression that it was more reptile than serpent to make so much displacement.

The channel at this point is about 500 yard wide. Swimming to the steep rocks of the Island opposite, the creature shot its head out of water on the rock, and moving its head from side to side, appeared to taking its bearings. Then fold after fold its body came to surface. Towards the tail it appeared serrated with something moving flail-like at the extreme end. The movements were like those of a crocodile. Around the head appeared a sort of mane, which drifted round the body like kelp.

The Thing's presence seemed to change the whole landscape, which make it difficult to describe my experiences. It did not seem to belong to the present scheme of things, but rather to the Long Ago when the world was young. The position it held on the rock was momentary. My wife and sixteen-year-old son ran to a point of land to get a clearer view. I think the sounds they made disturbed the animal. The sea being very calm, it seemed to slip back into deep water; there was a great commotion under the surface and it disappeared like a flash.

In my opinion, its speed must be terrific and it senses of smell, sight and hearing developed to a very high degree. It would be terribly hard to photograph, as its movements are different from anything I have ever seen or heard of. I should say its length to be not less than 80 feet. There were some logs on Strong Tide Island which gave me a good idea as to the size of monster as it passed them. I took a measurement of one the next day which was over 60 feet in length, and the creature overlapped it to a large extent at each end. I put a newspaper on the spot where it rested its head and took an observation from our previous point of vantage. The animal's was very much larger than the double sheet of newspaper. The body must have been at least 5 feet thick, and was of a bluish-green color which shone in the sun like aluminum. I could not determine the shape of the head, but it was much thicker than the body.

I did not report my strange adventure except to one or two trusted friends, for fear of ridicule and unbelief. About a year later, it fell to Major W.H. Langley's lot to see the same or at any rate, a similar monster in the vicinity also of Chatham island.

Within a week of publication of the Langley report, Archie Willis, the news editor of the Victoria Daily times, had "a dozen letters from other people who said they had seen the serpent, but had refrained from saying anything about it for fear of ridicule." One such case was that of "Rusty" Beetle of Port Angeles, Vancouver Island, who had seen the animal some years before. It seemed the sea-serpent appeared close to "Rusty's" boat while he was fishing off Dungeness Spit in Juan de Fuca Strait. The animal was serpentine and had a body at least forty feet long. The head was like that of a camel or horse and there was a mane. It swam slowly round the boat for five to ten minutes. When "Rusted" came ashore he excitedly related the incident to the boat's owner, who replied: "Rusty, it isn't smart to take a bottle along with you when you go out fishing by yourself." Disappointed that the boat owner did not believe him, "Rusty" then told the story to a local journalist he knew, but the response was the same. "Rusty" had then decided to keep quiet about the matter.

In 1937 came the report of the monster seen by Mr. and Mrs. Timeus, at Sunset Beach, twenty-two miles north of Vancouver. This monster turned out to be a Northern Sea-elephant, one of the strangest and largest mammals in the sea. A sea-serpent was seen, however, at Sunset bay later that year by two brothers, acquaintances of the Timeuses, Fred and George Lawrence. The animal had a head like a camel's, a small neck, and a body about the size of a large barrel. It was between fifty and sixty feet long. A similar monster had been seen nearly by several fishermen, who judged its length to be closer to one hundred feet.

It has been said that there is probably no more fascinating creature in the minds of Men than the dragon. Men have been describeing it since the beginning of civilization.
The dragons, a creature ressembling to a reptile with wings and a long neck, was often depicted in stories and picture in Medieval times and much earlier.
Throughtout the second world war, there was a little mention of sea-serpents - it seem everyone was to busy fighting to notice them. We have to wait the late 90' to see sighting, we must admit that the great developpement in science and technology discourage many to move foward to tell their story.

Dragons have been spotted in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta and British Columbia, even if the witness was uncertain about the true size of the creature, she report to have seen a giant creature about fifteen feet tall at the shoulder. After telling to one of her best friend, she merely consider this as a joke. The creature was in a beautiful shade of dark green and could easily blended with trees as he been standing by them but the witness report that he was perched on a rocky outcropping on the side of the mountain.

...He was fanning his wings slightly, looking quite calmly into the valley below. I had been hiking up this mountain, when the movement of his head caught my eye. I had been this way before, and there was a group of trees on the cliff where there had been none before. I did not believe what I had seen at first, but the shape was too obvious, and he was parallel to me, about seven bus lengths away. I was climbing up one rock outface, he was on another.

He was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. His head was long, with a large eye ridge and two smaller bumps with a triceratops-like horn on his nose. At the back of his head were two large horns, jutting out backwards, and two smaller horns below them. They were a greyish-white and caught the light like dull silver. His forelegs were slightly smaller than his hind legs and were gripping the edge of the cliff. He looked as though he were a quadruped. He had slightly darker dorsal ridges running from between the longest horns to about halfway down his tail.

As I stood there, gaping like a fish out of water, the dragon turned and looked at me. He cocked his head to the side, almost like a bird, then spread his enormous wings and vaulted off the cliff. He was absolutely elegant in the air, flapping his wings several times before banking into a glide and dissapearing around the side of the mountain. My legs felt so weak that I had to sit down. I have been camping in those mountains for over ten years, and I have never seen anything to suggest that dragons might actually exist there. But after that encounter I began to think about it. What better place for a dragon to live than in the mountains? There are places in Banff and Jasper that nobody has ever been to, and there are many elk and deer and possibly even bears for it to feed on. Plenty of lakes, and the mountains themselves have many hidden caves and the like. A dragon perching at the very top of the mountain, especially if they camouflage, could never be seen. I can't imagine my luck at actually seeing one so close up and so low down in the alpine country. The place where I saw him lies somewhere in the back country of Banff, beyond The Point, a fairly well-known hike-in campground.

Another sight was reported to be seens the February 17, 1998 at Niagra falls Canada. She was visiting Niagara Falls to try and relax after a trying week at graduate school. ...It was about 8:00 PM and I was with my Fianance who is the only other person who saw it. I have no tangible proof- only and overwhelming feeling of being protected. The next week school went much better and my attitude was much better. The mist rising from the Horseshoe falss was in the shape of a dragon. It was a rather large, winged blue-grey dragon formed by the mist of the falls. A truely rare and beautiful sight.
It seems without doubt that the vast space free from civilization is prefer to dragons since most recent sighting have been reported these kind of condition like in Canada.

I got many case of Sea-Dragon sighting but no much about the traditional Western Dragon, if you have knows of such case or any other dragon related sighting you can E-Mail us and your case will be add to the page. Your E-Mail should contain:

The largest living lizard, the Komodo dragon, live only in the vicinity of the Indonesia, for example, on Komodo island, for which they are named, and on two other tiny island in the Lesser Sundas group of Southeast Asia, the Komodo dragon is the world's largest living lizard, occasionally exceeding 10 feet (3 m) in length. Komodo dragons are carnivorous, feeding on animals as large as small deer and bush pigs. Their long, sharps claws enable them to disembowel large animals, and their jagged teeth aid them in tearing pieces from their prey. Komodo dragons, like other large monitors, can be formidable adversaries, even for humans, if these lizards are actually cornered. Komodo dragons swim well, sometimes swimming to small isles a half kilometer from shore to prey on domestic goats.

Surprisingly, this colossal creature remain unknown to science until as recently as 1912, but the natives of the region were well award of its existence and also its prowess as a man-killer. Heightening its dragonesque appearance is its bright yellow tongue, flickering out of its mouth in faithful facsimile of its mythical, fire-spiting namesakes.

These reptiles are endangered and are under strict protection by the Indonesian government.

La Presse, Montreal, Saturday, August 23, 1997. In section G-13.
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As recently as the mid-1800s, flying snakes of amazing beauty, with ornate feather wings, were believed to inhabit Glamorgan in Wales.

According to one old man who lived at Penllyne in Glamorgan and died early in the twentieth century, the woods around Penllyne Castle contained many of these extraordinary creatures when he was a boy. They were said to be brilliant in colour, as if spangled with sparkling gemstones, and, like the peacock's train, their wings often bore eyes; some also had rainbow-hued crests.

Yet despite their exquisite appearance, the winged serpents were slaughtered by the local people as if they were merely vermin because they preyed upon the farmer poultry. Indeed, the old's man father and uncle has killed several when he was a youngster. Now, they were apparently extinct. Flying serpents were also reported at Penmark Place, where one elderly woman claimed that there had even been a "king" and "queen" of these winged wonders.

If such serpents really did exist, what could they have been? Millions of year ago, Britain was home of Kuehneosaurus, and elongate lizardlike beast, whose ribs were extended to for a pair of membranous winglike structures that may have enabled it to glide through the air. Today, a similar creature still exist in the humid jungles of Southeast Asia, and is aptly knows as draco volans, or "flying dragon". It is not native in Europe, however, and even if some had escaped from captivity into woodlands of Wales, they would not have survived in its climate.

It has been suggested that brightly colored serpents with feathered wings spied in the Vale of Edeyrnion in 1812 may have been cock pheasants, which were unfamiliar there. But this theory does not explain the serpents' liking for poultry, and it is not likely that a pheasant could be mistaken for a flying snake.

There might once have been proof of their existence, for the Penmark woman stated that her grandfather had killed one of these beasts and kept its feathered skin until, after he died, his relatives discarded it. If they had been eager to do so, science may have been unable to unveil the identity of Wales's winged serpents.

We need not mourn morosely the dragons of the past, nor need we look with disappointed eyes on their zoologically uninspiring namesakes of the present.

For there are still bona fide, corporeal dragons, such as the long-neck, sea lizard, serpent whale, artrellia, inkhomi, tatzelworm and others of their cryptic kind to torment and tantalize the staid world of traditional zoology. And these creatures of controversy offers good reason indeed for believing that the future still holds many great surprises and joys in store for the dedicated dracontologist.

Similarly, far from diminishing in appeal as an irrelevant anachronism with the rapid approach of the ultra-scientific twenty-first century, the image of the dragon is experiencing a profound upsurge in international popularity that no human superstar could ever emulate. Today it is stunningly evoked and harnessed by modern technology for every conceivable purpose, including cinema, the toy and fashion industries, CD-ROM and promotional publicity campaigns of breathtaking artistic splendor.

It seems certain, therefore, (St. George notwithstanding) that the dragon -the embodiment of dynamic, uncompromising, irresistible power- will continue to evolve, diversify and populate our planet for a long time to come.

A late 20th-century dragon: this spectacular poster advertises Pirelli's "Dragon GT" motorcycle tyres.