Dragons

Dragons in American folklore:
- His time as the mascot was so weird.
- They also have the Bad Dragons.
  
  They're pretty interesting. Look one up if you have the time, like during a break at work
- What is the cursed image
- The replies to this

Dragons have 4 legs and 2 separate wings, none of this wyvern shit.
- Wings evolve from legs though, generally speaking. This means that a four legged dragon with wings would have conceivably evolved from a six legged creature. You can get hand-wings or arm-wings, and we’re not entirely sure but think insect wings may have also evolved from legs or some other kind of similar structure.
  But pretty much you can either have wings or legs/arms. You have to trade them in. That’s why the whole angel/demon thing doesn’t work either. The traditional harpies work but they’d be furry and not feathered. I haven’t worked out the wingspan for them but you could probably come up with a reasonable guess. They’d be more bat-people than bird-people, and I suspect that their chest areas would be less generously proportioned than is typically seen in the artwork. I’m not going more into the physics of that one though.
  
  None of these things exist so real life evolutionary biology doesn't really have a place in this discussion, lol. Although you are correct.
  Besides, since they are fictional you could just come up with some reason. Dolphins for instance have no legs, but still have the vestiges of them in the form of very small unconnected bones where their legs would be. They also have a dorsal fin on their backside and tiny little arms. So it stands to reason that, conceivably, wings could have evolved separately in a similar (note 'a similar' not 'the same') way to a dolphin's dorsal fin.
  You could jump from this concept (marrying real world evolutionary biology and fiction) and explain orc, trolls, etc.. as ape descended life much the same as humans. Maybe merfolk evolved in the same way animals in the cetacea infraorder evolved from otter-like creatures. Maybe they have small unconnected bones for legs in much the same way that dolphins do.
  There is a story in this, I can feel it.
  
  IIRC we don't actually know what structure fly wings evolved from. One popular hypothesis is gills.
- Dragons are much cooler than Wyverns, why do they keep getting dunked on like this :(
- Mods, ban this historically ignorant man.
  
  Mods, ban this biped big bat thing.
- I thought dragons had only 2 legs and a beefy arm sticking out the back of their necks?
  
  That's technically a burninator.
  
  Can't forget the spineties!
- How have I never noticed this?!? What the fuck? I'm like middle aged and have liked dragons as long as I can remember, and I never noticed the difference. Dayum dude, don't trust me as a material witness, that's for sure!
  
  Helps that I often saw my countries flag when growing up.

Real European dragon. Smaller than a horse. Basically a scaly dog.
- Tbf medieval pictures aren't exactly known for their great use of perspective and proportions
  
  The size is proportional to the rank/importance of the person depicted
  
  So by that you mean that is some hugeass soldier riding his humongous horse.
  One of their steps scaling an entire country or something?
- Im drunk and this is my ROARRR

I wonder what an Asian person's perspective on this would be
So far I've just seen people that I think are western
- Am asian, am chinese, am amused and chuckled. Because Dragon in chinese is 龙(lóng) and that corgi is definitely long
- If we were to insult your dragons, it's probably about how fat they are
  
  You cant insult my boy Themberchaud
- Not Asian, but the real answer is: they're completely different mythologies, but when Europeans made contact with Asia they decided to use the word "dragon" for the unrelated Asian mythological creature.

Dragons on the intern- Oh someone else did that joke already.