Mind blowing documentaries thread. Currently watching Nova -

>>17379775
Real life dragons? That's something I can get behind.

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>>17379775
>Megalania

Life back then would've been fucking awesome

>"bye mom, I'm off to school"
>"woooahwtf there's dinosaur in my room!"

>>17379775
Is it a dragon thread or documentary thread?

Explain stegosaurus carving in Cambodian temple /x/

>>17379925
It's a little bit of everything mane

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>>17379947
Forgot pic

>>17379925
Both.
Could be the archaeopteryx Quetzalcoatl?
Plesiosaurus the oriental dragon?

>>17379965
>stegosaurus carving in Cambodian temple

Rhino?

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>>17379947
>>17379965
They've been around for longer and more recently than our "Greatest intellectuals" would lead you to believe. But by saying that, I'm obviously a moron for doubting what the GREAT AND POWERFUL cult leaders tell us to think.

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>>17379965
Makara.

>>17379991
Rhinos don't have those scales on their backs. I mean it's not a realistic depiction but those would seem completely arbitrary.

>>17380027
See
>>17380008
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makara_(Hindu_mythology)

>>17380008
What's that?

>>17380034
A Makara. It's Hindu. Based on the Gar, which do have scales on their back.

>>17380027
That maybe background, not scales. The other carvings have animals set against a landscape background.

Idk, just throwing out ideas.

>>17379916

THAT'S A TINY ASIAN AND I AM A FULL GROWN AMERICAN THAT STUPID DRAGON WOULD TASTE MY HARDENED STEEL AND I WOULD DRINK ITS BLOOD WHILE TURNING ITS HEAD INTO A TROPHY

>>17379775
Not that mind blowing considering Australia still has a 5m long 1500lb reptile as top predator in the area.

>>17379775
>>17380080
it would be far heavier than 1500 hun. A 3.3 m tall elephant=13,330 lb...

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>>17380032
>>17380042
>Hindu mythology
But why does it look so much like a creature that actually walked the earth?
>based on a fish
But the creature is clearly quadruped and terrestrial

>>17380160
sort of looks like. head has spikes, tail not. the "thermal plating" in that bass relief could be decoration. the lack of the other two features? you see what you want to see..

>>17379995
by saying that not leaving it at that, ya you are a moron. you're no better than your great intellectual- they have a fossil record and you have..?

>>17380187
You mean that thing that was pieced together out of thin air way back when? Suuuuure, point me in a direction where I can find a place where the fossil record is actually the same in the ground as it is in the real world, I'd love to see it.

>>17380222
>same in the ground as it is in the real world
I meant in the text books, not the real world.

>>17380222

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

>>17380222
museum, it's called a museum.
have you ever been to a museum? have you ever gone forth and soaked things in by your self? Get your ass out of your mental rut and out the door and live. your vulgar refusal to use your brain makes people listening to your drivel want to kick you in the face, sir

>>17380242
You're right, I shouldn't be arguing with a zealot online, have a nice day.

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>>17380160
>But why does it look so much like a creature that actually walked the earth?
It really doesn't. It looks more like a stylised crocodile. They have spiky scales on their backs too.

>>17380248
you shouldn't mingle with the vast majority of the populace, and thank god you don't. since when does being sound of mind = zealotry? that's fucked up...

>>17380248
>>17380314
that was uncalled for, sorry anon

>>17380124
And a 2m tall man weighs 200lb. A 3m tall bear weighs 1200. They're not the same thing. Also he said long not tall. 7m lizard being 1300lb seems reasonable. The animal I compared it to(5m 1500lb) is more closely related than a elephant.

>>17380567
if you double something in surface area, you don't double internal mass, you exponentially increase mass with every linear increase in surface area. the 2/3 rule. I hope you're not serious. Because you can't be right.

>>17380681
What does that have to do with anything? You said the 7m long lizard would be heavier than 1300lbs based on the fact that a 3.3m elephant weighs 13,330lbs. That reasoning is fucking retarded. All I originally stated was the animal isn't all that mind blowing given the modern day population of larger reptilian predators.

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>>17379775

They were looking to design Smaug after those things, but realised it would be way too bulky to fly. Still, would have been an amazing sight.

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bump for good bread

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OP checking in. I've been digging into other extinct Australian Megafauna.

Pic related is the Quinkana fortirostrum, a 7 meter long land crocodile with long legs. This creature existed from 20 million to 40,000 years ago. Again, overlapping with modern humans.

What I find interesting is that many of these large land predators went extinct right at the same time as humanity experienced a memetic explosion in tool use, around 50,000 years ago. We now find many specialized forms of stone knapped tools, and evidence of improvement of tools between generations. There is also an explosion in art and culture.

If I was a modern human with the newfound capability of clearing my environment of dragons, I would go to down on those lizard bitches. This is why I think an obsession with killing dragons is almost culturally universal. If it took 10,000 years to wipe out these land lizards, there is the possibility of a biological-cultural genetic marker evolving which explains why we hate and fear dragons.

>>17379995
or we've been around for longer than thought, which actually looks to be the case.

>>17379775

https://youtu.be/t7EAlTcZFwY
https://youtu.be/tRV1e5_tB6Y
https://youtu.be/34wtt2EUToo
https://youtu.be/5AUA7XS0TvA

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>>17383926
This is so fucking fascinating. But what about them being depicted with wings and breathing fire? Where/why did that come about? I've always chalked it up to them finding fossils and skeletons of pterodactyls and making up stories surrounding them. To find out they actually lived alongside wingless dragons is so fucking badass.

>>17384345
>Take spooky thing you know about

>Add wings

>Make it deadlier

>Boom

Why do you think people fall for those "New windged spider species found!!!1!! D:" photoshops? Could also be a byproduct of embellishing stories of encounters people had.

"You fought one that could fly? Well, the one I killed breathed fire!"

>>17383926
I agree that this is super fascinating as well. I tend to forget humans existed before 3000 BC or so, what their lives are like, and what kind of crazy shit they had to interact with, going back 50,000 years, like you said.

Anyway, food for thought, pulled from wikipedia
> Aboriginal population split off from the ancestors of the European and Asian populations between 65,000 and 75,000 years ago

So, I dunno if that would explain the myth of dragons in all of humanity. Maybe there are similar animals in different part of the world? It would be cool to make a list of extinct animals known to exist along side humanity and order it by region or something. Thanks a lot for this thread OP, fun to think about

>>17384445
There were though they're more mundane since they're still around. Crocodiles would have been fairly well known to cultures in Egypt or India and the cultures who were in contact with them like the Greeks.

>>17384345
>>17384359
I always theorized that some dude long ago was talking to his mate and described facing off against whatever dragon-like monster, and he described its breath as being 'hot like fire'.

Then his bro goes and passes on the story to his other bros and describes the breath as 'like fire', then those guys retell the story over again to someone else and the thing's breath is just fire now.

>>17381273
tall or long, you stupid fucking dolt. the bigger anything gets, you multiply it's weight exponentially... A 7 meter bird would be heavier than 1300 hun ffs, let alone a reptilian fucking land tank from hell.

>tfw cryptids really existed, they just went extinct
And did Saint George kill the last one?

>>17384661
>Argentavis had an estimated wing span of 7 m (23 ft), a height of circa 1.5 m (4.9 ft), and a mass of approximately 72 kg (159 lb).

>wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentavis

I'm not the guy you're arguing with, but you're wrong.

DMT: The Spirit Molecule

>>17384674
>wing span of 7 m
are you serious? Body Length: 1.26 m (4.1 ft). Are you all children?

>>17384644
Reptilian Land-Tank from Hell

I'd pay to see that flick.

>>17384694
Good god, you must be just awful to deal with in real life.

>>17384843
I'm a fuckin land tank for hell.

>>17384644
Are you fucking retarded? Longer or taller is not bigger. We're only given one dimension, and, for the third time, they are not built the same. Elephants are short and fat. Lizards are long and skinny. Even within the same species you can't determine weight by one dimension. 5'10 human can weigh significantly more than a 6'7 human. Fucking dolt.

>>17383926
Nice research but you have a strong westerner-bias. Billions of people, all chinese, korean, japanese and all south-east asian cultures depict dragon differently and see them as good and beloved creatures. They worship dragons as bringers of health and strength and even as godly assistance in battles.

So, for us dragons are evil lizards. But for a very big portion of humankind dragons are more like nice and helpful flying snakes (with no wings btw!).

Just keep that in mind while theorizing, love your posts though.

>>17379775
A big lizard blew your little mind.

>>17379775
that documentary has some pretty dank memes near the end

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>>17385142
Yeah I went out on a limb for that one. Dragons aren't universally hated and feared.

However, for westerners, some of our oldest culture is about killing dragons. i.e. Beowulf. Granted it was probably people he killed portrayed as dragons, but its weird that there were dragons in a European culture. Maybe some crocs made it that far? I think Europe was warmer by several degrees 1500 years ago, there are reports of Romans growing grapes in England. It would be cool to do some sort of ground-penetrating scan of the German peat bogs, I bet we'd find strange stuff.

>>17384743
Set 50,000 years ago. Dude realizes his new spear point can pierce the dragon's flesh. We no longer have to run from these creatures. "Gather the tribe, tonight we hunt."

>>17384345
>>17384608
The megalania's similarities to the komodo dragon points to a venomous bite (or bacteria bc of a nasty mouth). A large animal's hot breath plus a killer bite - the recipe for fire-breathing dragons.

>>17385977

We still grow grapes in England. However, the more likely explanation for dragons in Europe is:

>humans come from Africa
>encounter crocodiles and snakes
>these creatures inspire ancient Middle-eastern religions to describe scaly monsters
>these tales spread into Europe, along with the spread of Christianity (which connects these monsters with the devil)
>dragons become a symbolic creature in religion, but an actual monster to the commoners

>>17383926
Wasnt that also around the time of a supervolcano eruption in Indonesia?

What's so special about this?
A giant lizard. Never heard of that one before.
But this thread could have been an interesting discussion, if it wasn't for the retarded Dragon pictures.

>>17379965
That looks like a fucking iguana.

>>17385977
North Africa was part of the Old World and travelers could bring back stories about croc sightings. Don't forget about the fossil hypothesis too.

>>17380034

Obi-Wan Kenobi.

>>17387140
I love star trek!

>>17380067
do you know how short humans were 50,000 years ago lol

>>17387184
:^)