Published 09/2019-updated 09/18/2026
Ancient and medieval literature contains numerous accounts of enormous serpents, dragons, and other unusual reptile-like animals. Some were recorded by historians and travelers as descriptions of animals believed to exist in the natural world, rather than being presented simply as mythical creatures.
This does not prove that every dragon story describes a dinosaur. Legends can be embellished, mistranslated, or transmitted for centuries before being written down. Nevertheless, some of these accounts contain surprisingly specific anatomical and behavioral descriptions.
This raises an interesting historical question:
Why did people living centuries before the science of paleontology describe enormous reptile-like creatures that, in some cases, bear striking similarities to animals we now know from the fossil record?
ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND THE GIANT SERPENT
One remarkable account concerns Alexander the Great’s campaign in India. The story survives in On the Characteristics of Animals by the Roman writer Claudius Aelian, who lived centuries after Alexander and was therefore recording an earlier tradition rather than giving his own eyewitness testimony.¹
Aelian describes a huge serpent living in a cave that the local people regarded as sacred. They reportedly pleaded with Alexander not to disturb it, and Alexander agreed.
According to Aelian:
“Now as the army passed by the cavern and caused a noise, the Serpent was aware of it… And it hissed and snorted so violently that all were terrified and confounded.”
Aelian reports that the animal was said to measure seventy cubits long, although the soldiers reportedly did not see its entire body. He further states that its eyes were said to be approximately the size of a large Macedonian shield.¹
Whatever animal or tradition lay behind this extraordinary account, Aelian presented it within a work about animals and described Alexander’s army encountering what was understood to be an actual living creature.
Alexander the Great: “In 330 BC, after Alexander the Great invaded India, he brought back reports of seeing a great hissing dragon living in a cave, which people were worshiping as gods. One of Alexander the Great’s lieutenants named Onesicritus stated that the Indian king Abisarus kept serpents that were 120 and 210 feet long. Subsequent Greek rulers are said to have brought dragons back alive from Ethiopia….When Alexander threw some parts of India into a commotion and took possession of others he encountered among many other animals a Serpent which lived in a cavern and was regarded as sacred by the Indians who paid it great and superstitious reverence. Accordingly Indians went to all lengths imploring Alexander to permit nobody to attack the Serpent; and he assented to their wish. Now as the army passed by the cavern and caused a noise, the Serpent was aware of it. (It has, you know, the sharpest hearing and the keenest sight of all animals.) And it hissed and snorted so violently that all were terrified and confounded. It was reported to measure 70 cubits although it was not visible in all its length, for it only put its head out. At any rate its eyes are said to have been the size of a large, round Macedonian shield.”
Aelianus, Claudius, On Animals, Book #XV, Chapter 19-23, c.210-230.
MARCO POLO’S GIANT REPTILES
An even more intriguing description appears in accounts attributed to the thirteenth-century traveler Marco Polo.
While describing the province of “Karazan,” generally associated with southwestern China, Polo reports enormous serpent-like creatures reaching approximately ten paces in length. But his description includes an unusual anatomical feature:
“At the fore part, near the head, they have two short legs, having three claws like those of a tiger.”
Polo continues:
“The jaws are wide enough to swallow a man, the teeth are large and sharp, and their whole appearance is so formidable, that neither man, nor any kind of animal can approach them without terror.”²
The account goes beyond simply describing the animal’s appearance. Polo describes its behavior, tracks, feeding habits, method of capture, and even its use as food.
According to the account, the animals hid during the heat of the day, emerged at night, and traveled to bodies of water after feeding. Their weight supposedly produced conspicuous tracks in the ground. Hunters were said to use these trails to trap them with concealed iron spikes.
Most interestingly, Polo reports:
“The flesh also of the animal is sold at a dear rate, being thought to have a higher flavor than other kinds of meat, and by all persons it is esteemed a delicacy.”²
What exactly was Marco Polo describing?
A giant snake might explain some characteristics, but snakes do not possess two short legs with three tiger-like claws. The description does not prove that Polo encountered a surviving dinosaur, but it deserves consideration as an unusual historical account of a large reptile-like animal.
“Leaving the city of Yachi, and traveling ten days in a westerly direction, you reach the province of Karazan, which is also the name of the chief city….Here are seen huge serpents, ten paces in length (about 30 feet), and ten spans (about 8 feet) girt of the body. At the fore part, near the head, they have two short legs, having three claws like those of a tiger, with eyes larger than a forepenny loaf (pane da quattro denari) and very glaring. “The jaws are wide enough to swallow a man, the teeth are large and sharp, and their whole appearance is so formidable, that neither man, nor any kind of animal can approach them without terror. Others are met with of a smaller size, being eight, six, or 5 paces long; and the following method is used for taking them. In the day-time, by reason of great heat, they lurk in caverns, from whence, at night, they issue to seek their food, and whatever beast they meet with and can lay hold of, whether tiger, wolf, or any other, they devour;” After which they drag themselves towards some lake, spring of water, or river, in order to drink. By their motion in this way along the shore, and their vast weight, they make a deep impression, as if a heavy beam had been drawn along the sands. Those whose employment is to hunt them observe the track by which they are most frequently accustomed to go, and fix into the ground several pieces of wood, armed with sharp iron spikes, which they cover with sand in such a manner as not to be perceptible. The Travels of Marco Polo, © 1948,Book 2, Chapter XL, pg. 185-186 http://historysevidenceofdinosaursandmen.weebly.com/written.html
SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON
Perhaps the most famous European dragon account is Saint George and the Dragon.
Here an important historical distinction must be made. Saint George was an early Christian martyr, but the surviving dragon story appears centuries after his lifetime. The earliest surviving versions of the dragon tradition date to the medieval period, and the story became enormously popular through Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend in the thirteenth century.³
In the Golden Legend, George encounters a dangerous dragon living near the city of Silene. The population was said to provide animals and eventually human victims to the creature until George confronted and subdued it.-3
The story subsequently became one of Europe’s most recognizable dragon traditions, appearing in manuscripts, paintings, sculptures, coats of arms, churches, and monuments.
Because of the large chronological gap between Saint George and the surviving written dragon accounts, the Saint George story should be regarded as a medieval tradition rather than a contemporary eyewitness report. Nevertheless, its widespread acceptance demonstrates how seriously dragon traditions were embedded within medieval European culture.
The famous account of a dragon slaying is the story of Saint George and the Dragon, which was included in Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda Aurea (or Golden Legend), a collection of Saints’ lives compiled around the year 1260 and translated into English and published by William Caxton in 1483. Cathedrals have been built in recognition of and named after St. George in Ontario, Canada (1828), Perth, Australia (1888), and London, England (1848). There are also several in the United States. These cathedrals all proudly display a painting or relic somewhere depicting the slaying of the dragon by St. George. -3
GAIUS JULIUS SOLINUS AND THE DRAGONS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
The Roman writer Gaius Julius Solinus, writing around the third century A.D., discussed dragons as actual animals in his work Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium (Collection of Remarkable Things).
Solinus does not merely mention the word “dragon.” He describes their anatomy and behavior and even distinguishes what he calls “true dragons.” He writes:
“True dragons have small mouths, not opening wide for biting, but narrow passages through which they breathe and extend their tongues. Their strength is not in their teeth, but in their tails, and they injure more by striking than by biting.”-6
Elsewhere, Solinus describes an ongoing conflict between elephants and dragons. He claims the dragons concealed themselves near paths used by elephants, attacked the animals from behind, and wrapped themselves around their legs.³
Whatever creatures Solinus had in mind, the significance of his account is clear: he presented dragons as part of the animal world, alongside elephants, serpents, and other creatures, rather than simply introducing them as imaginary monsters of mythology.
This does not establish that Solinus was describing dinosaurs. His “dragons” may have represented enormous serpents, embellished travelers’ reports, or animals described inaccurately through repeated transmission. Nevertheless, his writings demonstrate that an ancient natural-history writer could discuss dracones as real animals possessing specific anatomical features and behaviors.
FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS AND THE FLYING SERPENTS
The first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus also recorded remarkable accounts of unusual serpents.
In Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus describes Moses leading an Egyptian army against Ethiopia. According to Josephus, the overland route was extremely dangerous because the region contained enormous numbers of serpents, including varieties unlike those found elsewhere.
Josephus writes that some were:
“worse than others in power and mischief, and an unusual fierceness of sight.”-7
Even more remarkably, he states that some of these serpents could:
“fly in the air, and so come upon men at unawares, and do them a mischief.”-7
Josephus says Moses carried baskets filled with ibises because the birds were enemies of serpents. When the army reached the infested region, the ibises were released ahead of the soldiers to drive the serpents away.
Josephus also uses dragon terminology elsewhere in Antiquities. In William Whiston’s translation of his account of Moses before Pharaoh, Josephus says Moses’ serpent consumed the rods of the Egyptians, “which seemed to be dragons.”-7
Josephus was not claiming to have personally witnessed these creatures. He was recording traditions concerning events that he believed occurred many centuries before his own lifetime. Nevertheless, his writings provide another example of an ancient historian describing extraordinary serpentine creatures as part of historical narratives rather than simply as characters in a fictional dragon tale.
DRAGONS AND EXTINCT REPTILES
The resemblance between traditional dragons and extinct reptiles has long been noticed.
Likewise, a 1949 Encyclopaedia Britannica article reportedly described dinosaurs as “astonishingly dragonlike.”⁵
The World Book Encyclopedia observed:
“The dragons of legend are strangely like actual creatures that have lived in the past. They are much like the great reptiles which inhabited the earth long before man is supposed to have appeared on earth.”-5
“The dragons of legend are strangely like actual creatures that have lived in the past. They are much like the great reptiles which inhabited the earth long before man is supposed to have appeared on earth. Dragons were generally evil and destructive. Every country had them in its mythology.” (Knox, Wilson, “Dragon”)-5
The World Book Encyclopedia, vol. 5, 1973, p. 265.
The article on dragons in the Encyclopedia Britannica (1949 edition) noted that dinosaurs were “astonishingly dragonlike,” even though its author assumed that those ancients who believed in dragons did so “without the slightest knowledge” of dinosaurs. -5
https://www.genesispark.com/exhibits/evidence/historical/dragons/
Of course, resemblance alone does not establish that ancient dragon accounts describe dinosaurs. Giant snakes, crocodilians, monitor lizards, exaggeration, folklore, and the transmission of stories can potentially explain at least some dragon traditions. But the historical question remains fascinating. Ancient people did not possess modern dinosaur books, museum reconstructions, paleontology textbooks, or Hollywood movies. Yet cultures separated by enormous distances repeatedly described enormous reptilian creatures, sometimes supplying anatomical and behavioral details. Perhaps the most interesting question is not simply
“Why did ancient people believe in dragons?”
It is:
What did they see that caused so many of them to describe such creatures in the first place?
Sources
¹ Claudius Aelian, On the Characteristics of Animals, Book XV, account of Alexander’s Indian serpent.
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Aelian/de_Natura_Animalium/15*.html
² Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, Book II, Chapter XL, description of the great serpents of Karazan.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10636
³ Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, “Saint George.” The dragon tradition was popularized in the thirteenth century, substantially later than the lifetime traditionally attributed to Saint George.
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/goldenlegend/
⁴ Wilson Knox, “Dragon,” The World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 5, 1973, p. 265.
⁵ Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1949 edition, article on “Dragon.” The wording should be checked against the original edition before being presented as a direct quotation.
6 Gaius Julius Solinus, Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium, descriptions of dragons and their encounters with elephants.
https://www.ancienttexts.org/library/latinlibrary/solinus3a.html
7 Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book II, §§245–247, account of unusual and flying serpents encountered during Moses’ campaign toward Ethiopia.
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/ant-2.html
8 Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book II, §287, William Whiston translation.
https://lexundria.com/j_aj/2.287/wst
