Celebrating Dragons – St David’s Day

In celebration of St David’s Day (St David being the patron saint of Wales, a country with a red dragon on its national flag), Everything Dinosaur team members explored their huge weblog database to see how many of our thousands of articles mention the word “dragon”, a term regarded by many as synonymous with the Dinosauria.

To our surprise, we discovered 155 articles that are associated with “dragon”.  The number of posts has increased recently with the naming of several new, Chinese dinosaur discoveries which tend to use the word “long” rather than “saurus” in their scientific name.  The term “long” means dragon in Chinese, a suffix frequently used to name Chinese dinosaurs whereas the Greek term “saurus” is preferred in the West.

Dragons and the Dinosauria

For example, earlier this year we put together a blog post about the newly named microraptorine Wulong bohaiensis, the genus name translates as “dancing dragon”, a reference to the posture of the preserved specimen.

A Little Dragon for St David’s Day

Wulong bohaiensis fossil specimen.
The beautifully preserved and almost complete W. bohaiensis fossil specimen.  The genus name translates from the Chinese as “dancing dragon” – a reference to the preserved posture of the fossil specimen.  A red dragon is a heraldic symbol used on the national flag of Wales.

Picture credit: Ashley W. Poust (University of California)

To read our article about this little feathered dinosaur: Little Dancing Dragon Sheds Light on how Dinosaurs Grew Up.

Komodo Dragons

Another reason why the Everything Dinosaur blog may have a lot of references to dragons is that back in the autumn of 2019, the eagerly awaited Rebor GrabNGo 1:6 scale Komodo dragon replica came into stock.  This was the first model in the Rebor GrabNGo line and the first commercial model of an extant (not extinct) animal that Rebor had produced.  Measuring nearly half a metre in length, this super-sized replica of a super-sized lizard earned rave reviews from model collectors.

Rebor Komodo Dragon (1:6 Scale Replica)

Megalania or Komodo dragon? Your decide.
Komodo dragon or Megalania?  You decide.  Many collectors used the Komodo dragon replica to represent the extinct Australian Megalania. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The Everything Dinosaur website: Everything Dinosaur.

This popular Rebor figure not only occupies space on our blog, we get lots of emails about this model too.  For instance, an email was received last week from a model maker who wanted to use this figure in a diorama.  Everything Dinosaur was contacted after the purchase was made and we were asked for our advice on how best to depict the figure and what sort of prey items were suitable for including in the intended diorama.

To purchase the Rebor Komodo dragon and the rest of the replicas in the Rebor range: Rebor Dinosaurs and Models.

With the very strong possibility of more Chinese dinosaurs being scientifically described in 2020 and with the ever increasing popularity of Rebor models, team members at Everything Dinosaur are likely to be writing about “dragons” for some time to come.