Fun Facts and Musings - Did fire breathing dragons really exist?

So we've all heard of mythical and fictional creatures, things like werewolves, vampires, and fire breathing dragons.

Now there was never really a surefire way to record history back in the day, other then through word of mouth, and as a result, most of the 'information' you get is twisted in some way or just blown out of proportion.

And who's to say some myths didnt really exist, or at least have some kind of founding behind them in history?

Vampires for instance, draw most of their characteristics from vampire bats, with some exadurations thrown in, who's to say that vampires arent simply some confused story thats been twisted and misinterpreted over the many many years?


How about dragons for instance?

Well there may never have been fire breathing dragons as we know them today, but perhaps sometime in the past there was some form of creature that could indeed breath fire, was quite large, and could fly?

You might be thinking, yeah good one luke, how about you wake up?
well there is already an animal that exists today that is quite similar in alot of ways.

The Bombardier beetle, is a small beetle, which an intresting defense mechanisim.

It has a small tail thing, that can shoot pressurised explosive, boiling hot liquid.
This thing basically has a chemical shotgun.

If your intrested in the specifics you can look it up yourself, but that animal creates this by mixing two different chemicals inside itself, much the same way our modern-day flamethrowers work.

So if this beetle has a heated explosive liquid gun, that works with the same principals behind a flamethrower, how hard is it to draw the dots to an animal actually being able to expel fire in someway or another.

Granted it might not be a massive lizard with wings that defys the laws of aerodynamics, but it may have exsisted in some way or another, died out, and had its story passed on, which would then have become exadurated and quite different from reality.

maybe something more like this?

So, some food for thought for all of you.