Dragon-like Dinosaurs
I love when archaeology can’t disprove fantasy, but it’s even better when real life uses fantasy to explain reality.
This skull is from a pachycephalosaur category of dinosaurs. Discovered in 2004, and put on display in a museum, visitors named the new species. Because of that, it is now named Dracorex Hogwartsia. Which the translation means Dragon King of Hogwarts.
It’s an actual creature that walked the earth, resembling a dragon. It’s believed that the younger the dinosaur was, the more it resembled dragons depicted in fantasy. While it was young, its head was flat and spiny, the kind that more closely resembled the legends authors, like me, love to write about. Scientists believe it developed a slightly more rounded forehead as it aged.
The articles on the Dracorex (to be sure it was a real life creature and not a fan-fiction for Harry Potter) led me to several other dinosaurs that resembled dragons.
The Thapunngaka shawi was a pterosaur, like a pterodactyl, and described as having a spear-like mouth and hollow bones like a bird.
This quote from Newsround stated, “This thing would have been quite savage. It would have cast a great shadow over some quivering little dinosaur that wouldn’t have heard it until it was too late.” That reminds me of how I’m terrified of owls, hawks, and eagles around Libby. An owl picked up a cat we had once. It dropped her and she survived, albeit with three holes in each of her sides, for a while. She weighed at least twelve pounds – twice as much as my little chihuahua.
I doubt the dinosaur would have bothered hunting Libby-sized meals, but boar, saber-toothed tigers, dire wolves, perhaps?
The dragon/dinosaur I had special fun digging into was from Alberta, Canada, where it gets freezing. They describe this species as the “frozen dragons of the north winds.” Isn’t that an awesome name?
The real-life Cryodrakon boreas (also a cool name), appears more stork-like to me. Its head accounts for more of its size than its body. The depictions make it seem like it could creepily walk on two legs, like a Yeti-stork hybrid dinosaur . . . wouldn’t that be something!
Maybe I think more of that one because in Rune of Secrets I have frost dragons! I hadn’t heard of the Cryodrakon before I developed mine, so it’s even more fun to see their similarities and differences. Mine have a beak-like hook at the end of their snout for breaking ice and hunting sea life in the ocean. They also have feathers over their leathery body and very dainty feet for their size; also bird-like.
After all of this research, I convinced more than ever . . . dragons are real! We just call them dinosaurs now.