Rare Monsters

Mesopotamia is a collection of some of the oldest civilizations on Earth. Written records date back 6000 years. Because of this some of the earliest examples of dragons can be found here. While the dragons of ancient Sumeria, Acadia, Babylon and Assyria may seam strange today, they were the origin of many of the tropes we associate with dragons even until today; things such as dragons being types of snakes, even though they have legs and wings; being venomous to the point of having poison blood, being winged, having seven heads; and having the limb combination of four legs and a set of wings (at least for one dragon). Although Mesopotamia did not distinguish dragons from other monsters, and would have listed them along side less reptilian beasts, such as giant birds and scorpion men. Because the Mesopotamian civilizations are so old very little information remains on each dragon. Compounding this problem is the fact that Mesopotamia was not one one civilizations but a culturally simila...

  One of the most notable differences of Asian dragons from European dragons is the lack of wings, with Asian dragons having the magical ability to levitate effortlessly into the sky. This is true for most, but Yinglong is consistently depicted with wings, giving him a visually striking difference from other Asian dragons. Yinglong means responding dragon, a fitting name as his role was to respond to the emperor when he had requests to send to the heavens. Yinglong was also a weather deity, responsible for bringing rainfall. A role he shared with many other dragons. Yinglong appears several times in classic Chinese literature. In the Song of Chu , Emperor Yu was tasked with ending the floods destroying China when the previous emperors could not. He called on Yinglong to show him where to dig drainage canals. These canals then became the borders of the nine classical provinces of China. In The Classic of Mountains and Seas Yinglong and the Yellow Emperor's daughter Ba battled aga...

  The Nigerian Fire Spitter was a small cryptid which emerged from a uranium mine in Arlit, Nigeria in 1984. The creature was some sort of dragon like reptile. It had a crocodilian head, long neck. It had a dog like body and stood on erect legs which ended in clawed, reptilian feet. It had a long lizard like tail. There was also a row of spines running down its back. The fire spitter was small, being comparable to a dog in size. The small size made people at the time assume it was only a juvenile. The fire spitter gains its name from its ability to shoot flames from its mouth, much like a flame thrower. Cryptozoologists like to assume that the creature was some sort of relic spinosaurid, even the original email about the creature makes this assumption. However the spines on its back were horn like spikes, and did not have any flesh fin or muscular hump surrounding them. Also there's the whole fire breathing part. But as you will see by the end of this article, there was a reason...

  Peluda, known as La Velue in French, is a dragon from the River Huisne in France. It was known by many names in the Medieval era, including the Shaggy Beast in English, yet today it's best known by it's Spanish name Peluda. Peluda was most well known and feared in the High Middle Ages period and early Renaissance. Peluda had a snake's head and tail, an egg-shaped body that was covered in thick fur. From between the fur was porcupine or hedgehog like quills that were tipped in poison. It stood on four sturdy tortoise like feet. It was the size of a large ox. Peluda was green all over, even it's fur. According to legend Peluda existed from the early days of creation, on the day when God created all the things that swam in the sea and crawled on the Earth. During the flood, Peluda tried to climb on the ark with the other animals being loaded on. Noah and his family fought Peluda off and refused to let it on board, knowing it would devour all the other animals. Yet Peluda...