A Brief History of Dragons.

First, there are dragons that are not dragons, such as...

This one above is "Doc", a komodo dragon at Honolulu Zoo. Komodo dragons are the world's largest lizards, growing to a length of 10 feet (about three metres) and are found in the wild on certain Indonesian islands including one named Komodo. To learn more about this dragon that is not a dragon, see Honolulu Zoo's website:

http://www.honoluluzoo.org/komodo_dragon.htm

There are of course dragon flies:

They are related to butterflies, and -- get this! -- they first appeared in the Devonian period about 380 million years ago. Here's a link:

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~tait/dragonfliesandbutterflies.html

And there are dragon flies you want to have nothing to do with:

This one above is the Cessna A37 Dragonfly, used by the Americans during the Vietnam War. Thankfully, they are mostly extinct by now.

Of course there is the fire-breathing dragon of western mythology, such as:

Oops! This one's a friendly one. But you've seen the fierce ones in the movies. Finally, there is the Chinese Zodiac dragon. You'll be seeing more of this type, 2012 being the Year of the Dragon for the Chinese. Here's a typical fella (from Webweaver;s collection):

So, you would expect to see a "Chinese-looking" dragon on, you know, those calendars we get here in Singapore complete with horse racing dates. But, this picture (below) which I received the other day has a western one prominently displayed and a crouching Chinese dragon!

Is there a hidden meaning to this juxtaposition (ie, apropos my previous posting on the intensifying US-Chinese rivalry?) Nah, I think it's just the calendar designer's lazy way of looking up available clip art pictures.

For the benefit of anyone unfamiliar with this type of calendar -- with race dates prominently marked out, and which once adorned the homes of nearly every Chinese household in the region -- here's a peek:

Thus ends my Short History of Dragons.