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= Dragon =

Not to be confused with Dragon (legendary creature), Dragon lizard, Draconian, Dracones, or Dragoon.

This article is about the ''species. For other uses, see Dragon (disambiguation).''

The dragon (draconem drákōn ), also commonly called basilisk, drake, hydra, wyvern. They are an apex predator belonging to the animal class Reptilia found all over the world. It is the largest arial animal, reaching confirmed lengths of 150 meters (492.1 ft) with a wingspan of 121 meters (397 ft). Their coloring ranges from dappled green, bleached blue, and rusty bronze depending on their environment. They are master adapters, able to thrive in any ecosystem that they arrive in. Dragons are often pigeon-holed as having reptilian features, such as scales, sharp claws, and a long tail. While it's true these adaptations would aid in defense and mobility, they are not found in all members of this species.

As of 2023, it is the most recent entry to the Reptile Database. In adherence with the modern cladistic classification systems, this species fall between crocodilian and avian clades. Although studies published in 2020 suggest an evolution from the extinct Cephalopoda subclass of mollusk.

Evolution
Alongside the earliest proto-reptiles, dragons are tracked back to an origin around 312 million years ago during the Carboniferous period. Their sighting coincided with the first breakup of the supercontinent Pangea which is hypothesized for the late Ladinian age (230 Ma). This saw a splitting of the landmass from pole to pole resulting in the opening of what we now know as the central Atlantic ocean.

Beginnings
Dragons are incapable of sexually reproducing, which suits their migratory and isolated lifestyle. It is unlikely that they have ever been able to do so as fossils of prehistoric dragon eggs contain the same anatomy as they do today. Instead, we can track their emergence from various seams in the Earth's lithosphere which also explains how they are able to be recorded dwelling in the mangrove swamps of Trinidad and Tobago to the alpine tundra in the South Island of New Zealand. While dragon's are on record of being most abundantly populated near faults or other plate boundaries – due to their biological specialization in mobility, adaptation, and unmatched predation – there isn't a place on Earth they can't inhabit.

Interior Origins
Dragons originate from the Earth’s core; an incredibly hot and dense 644-kilometer-wide (400 mi) ball comprised of an iron-nickel alloy, surrounded by a molten river around 2,200 km (1,367 mi) thick. As the egg forms it bubbles to outward through combination of currents caused by differing density and a freshly formed repellant magnetic field, propelling it all the way to the surface. This repulsive force only magnifies as the creature emerges and ages, they develop a fine control over the gravity acting on their ferromagnetic forms, lessening it so their bodies become “lighter-than-air”.

This technique is also observed in hot air balloons where the bag, called an envelope, is light enough that the grounding pull on the aircraft is negligible. This phenomenon in conjunction with their pressurized internal combustion makes them buoyant enough to rise through the atmosphere, compounded by wing-beats that control speed and direction of flight.

First Form
The sea splitting hosted the first outpouring of from the submarine volcanoes formed from seafloor spreading resulting mid-ocean ridges. It wasn't 60.1 million years later, during the transition from Permian to Triassic geologic period, that these dormant shells felt the spark of life. Marine biologist Jess Auvil states, "This is the first indication mutation that would develop into later evolutions flight ability. Like the jellyfish, these early forms employed a radially disputed nervous systems that are unique to their physiology. The organic matter of the creature occupies the largest chamber of their segmented exoskeleton, confined within a secondary scaled exterior, while the smaller interior space were walled off. Buoyancy is maintained by filling the latter with gas. This perfectly suited their lifestyle, dwelling in the open water of ancient seas, as the pressure would only need to offset the currents.

However, adjusting their position in the water column was a subconscious process. This ability to manipulate ones internal pressure required further fine-tuning once they breached land. The culmination is the dragon's iconic and innate technique of subconsciously adjustments through their diaphragms, releasing gas – amidst a combustible concoction that results in their trademark 'fire-breathing' – to adjust in altitude mid-flight." This primordial presentation was originally miscategorized by Roman naturalist and author, Pliny the elder (d. 79 AD near Pompeii), as a subclass of the Ammonoid marine mollusk, or Ammonites. As a result, the mass hatching post-Permian extinction was incorrectly assigned to the lizard-like Hylonomus, the first known eureptile ("true reptile"). It wasn't the 1950s where geophysicist and researcher Alfred Wegener (d. 1930 Greenland) presented the foundation for the modern-day model of plate tectonics that these proto-dragons were correctly assigned.

Biology
Like their primordial ancestors, dragons maintain a segmented exoskeleton. Said smaller chamber is found in the torso of Dragons, their diaphragms where lungs would be. In order to release pressure they exhale the combustible concoction which their larynx - also used for the traditional swallowing and vocalizations - matches their body composition in high-metal content (coated in iron and flint which is “a hard stone, a form of silica resembling chalcedony but more opaque, less pure, and less lustrous.” “(a piece of) shiny gray or black stone that is like glass”) is able to create a spark that ignites the fluid, creating fire breath (that under the intense pressure of their diaphragm, and composed of highly-combustive + higher-ignition point liquid, is hot enough to melt men in their armor).

Apep
Around 310 BC, the Bremner-Rhind papyrus recorded the first known fully formed dragon. Cheif among them being Apep, or Apophis, who is described as having height equal to that of eight men with a head made of a glassy black substance. His skeleton was found in 1801 in Rifeh, a small village in Egypt that was the capital of the 11th Upper Egyptian province during the time of Apep. His skeleton was originally discarded, unable to be equated to organic decayed material through the technology available at the time, but his remains weren't disturbed. It wasn't until a second expedition in 1973 that the world could concretely and confidently declare his moniker as The First Dragon. While misleading, as draconic remains have been carbon dated as far back as the Middle Triassic period, he is the only proven recorded case by humans.

We owe much of what we know about the anatomy and evolution of dragons to Apep, as well as the birth of the study of Dragon Ethology. To this day, communities with strong scholarly presence hold festivals and fundraising events in his name.