hi this is who Leon from minute Earth
dragons don't exist but if they did
which would be pretty cool they need to
conform to Earth's biological and
physical rules so we figured we'd make a
fun video about which of these famous
fantasy dragons would have the best shot
at being more than just fantasy to rank
these dragons believability we'll start
with the most egregiously unnatural
characteristic of dragons and move up
from there look obviously dragons
breathe fire but we looked into it and
the only thing that even comes close to
that in nature is the bombardier beetle
which fires boiling hot liquid from its
butt to burn its enemies not exactly
fire-breathing so let's just move on to
the issue of limbs most Western
depictions of dragons like on the Welsh
flag have four legs and two wings for a
total of six limbs but Albany creatures
on land or in the air evolved from a
four limb fish whose body is a blueprint
for every other bony creature including
a hypothetical dragon clearly a bony
creature this would make it very
unlikely for a six limb dragon to have
evolved on earth that's why some fantasy
writers filmmakers and game designers
have used real bats birds and pterosaurs
as models for their four limb dragons so
we're placing all these six limb dragons
in the bottom tier including the smog
from the theatrical release of the first
Hobbit film the smog from the second
film however gets to move on since the
filmmakers removed his front legs not
because they particularly cared about
Earth's evolutionary history but because
they thought it would make for a more
expressive performance a wingless
four-legged dragon would be accurate too
but without magical flight like in
eastern depictions of dragons that's
basically just the lizard so let's talk
about wings animals need them in order
to fly which means they need big chest
muscles to flap their wings which means
they need a tall Ridge on their
specially modified sternums called a
keel for the muscles to attach to a
dragon without a keel could it have the
muscles needed to power fast enough
light to keep its massive body in the
air that means it's the end of the line
for these smooth chests of beauties but
a keel alone is not enough to fly any
creature that wants to fly also needs
the right combination of weight wing
size and flight speed the more a
creature weighs the bigger its wings
need to be or the faster it needs to fly
to generate the necessary lift to keep
it afloat for example penguin
which do have a keel could in principle
fly despite their comically small wings
but they would have to go nearly as fast
as a commercial airliner and deal with
ludicrous forces on their wings the
Quetzalcoatlus pterosaur thought to be
the largest flying animal to have ever
existed had a 12 meter wingspan which
kept its 250 kilograms aloft at a
reasonable 80 kilometer per hour speed
naturally we painstakingly calculated
the weights and wing sizes of all our
remaining dragon contenders and found
they all had wings too small for their
weight meaning they need to fly at
ridiculously fast speeds in order to
sustain flight and the forces involved
would destroy any flesh and bone based
wings weight so nobody wins
well among our remaining candidates the
most realistic has to be the one with
the biggest wings in relation to their
weight and the winner is
the hungarian horntail from Harry Potter
and the Goblet of Fire it has four limbs
keel to hold its muscles and the biggest
wings in relation to its weight now
whether or not you could ride it we
could get into that but we don't want
this video to drag on
did I just hear a clawsome pun hey Matt
what brings you over to minute herbs
from the extra-credit side of the
internet well who Leonia got me thinking
if the existence of these fantastical
beasts are scientifically improbable at
best
then how did a ton of cultures around
the world each come up with dragon myths
before ever having contact with one
another good question say you wouldn't
happen to you
well I don't know have any idea where
one could find a YouTube video
discussing that very topic would you you
know I just might if you're fired up
about dragons like I am then come fly by
the Xtra mythology campfire where we'll
talk about dragon myths from various
cultures human psychology dinosaurs and
even the politics of dragons political
dragons huh hope they can let bygones be
bygones did we just become best friends