"Run like a hare and fight like a Bear..."

[Ungatt Trunn]

I don't think there were bears where they were, they could have been elsewhere. Legend of them could have come from some travelling beast, or 'bears' could have been made up in Redwall like dragons to us.

A very good theory, Plugg. That sounds like one of the most reasonable answers so far.

[Kitsune]

I don't think there were bears where they were, they could have been elsewhere. Legend of them could have come from some travelling beast, or 'bears' could have been made up in Redwall like dragons to us.

A very good theory, Plugg. That sounds like one of the most reasonable answers so far.

Yay!

[Rusvul]

I know this is irrelevant to the conversation, but I would like to adress it: Are you completely sure that dragons don't exist, and never have? I'm not.

[Romsca]

Me neither

[Kitsune]

It would be awesome if they did exist. I'm pretty sure they don't, though.

[Buzz_Bumble]

Dragons in the sense of fire breathing, flying lizards have never existed. They're mythical, made-up beasts, like unicorns, Pegasus, fairies, leprechauns, Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, and lots of other fantasy creatures. One of the many likely causes is probably someone finding old fossilised dinosaur bones. The stories of dragons tend likely started in China.

[Rusvul]

Dragons in the sense of fire breathing, flying lizards have never existed. They're mythical, made-up beasts, like unicorns, Pegasus, fairies, leprechauns, Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, and lots of other fantasy creatures. One of the many likely causes is probably someone finding old fossilised dinosaur bones. The stories of dragons tend likely started in China.

Fire breathing, very very unlikely. But, a large flying wyvern-type lizard in the prehistoric era is not out of the question. If you take, say, a raptor, and get rid of its arms, and add a pair of wings, what do you have? Perhaps a type of dragons existed at some point while raptors were evolving into birds, but were not very good at surviving for whatever reason, and died out quickly. Also, it's impossible to prove that dragons don't exist. And, every single old, ancient, or tribal culture had some form of dragon. Even those that had no contact with each other, ever. Oriental countries: Benevolent, godlike, Lung dragons. Europe: Horrifying princess-snatching beasts. Central and South America: Quetzalcoatl, other creatures of the like. Native American tribes: Dragon-like totems, if I'm not mistaken, also large brown leathery dragonlike creatures.

Europe had no contact with Native Americans, and by the time they did, dragons were already established. Same goes for Central and South America.

I'm not saying that dragons are real, simply that some form of them could have been, and we will likely never know either way.

[Buzz_Bumble]

Fire breathing, very very unlikely. But, a large flying wyvern-type lizard in the prehistoric era is not out of the question. If you take, say, a raptor, and get rid of its arms, and add a pair of wings, what do you have? Perhaps a type of dragons existed at some point while raptors were evolving into birds,

Various flying dinosaurs definitely existed, and some were huge ... but there weren't any humans around at that time to see them and pass on stories about them, and they certainly weren't "dragons". As above, the discovery of dinosaur fossils in ancient times of such large bones are likely to be a start of many "dragon" stories.

"Dragons" come from made-up stories about things like myterious caves with "odd" sounds coming from them, or a forrest fire started by a lightning stike which nobody saw, etc. Even someone telling lies to get out of being in trouble ("Did you start that fire slave Aramus?" "No, sir, it was the dragon who lives in the cave by the stream.").

Europe had no contact with Native Americans, and by the time they did, dragons were already established. Same goes for Central and South America.

There are LOTS of similarities between the cultures of various native people separated by vast distances. There's also lots of theories of why they're similar - from the rather silly idea of aliens visiting the various tribes (alien spaceships with flaming exhausts are also another suggested idea for some dragon stories) or simply that ancient people travelled much wider distances than we first thought. For example, there's possible evidence that Australia and New Zealand may have been visited by Europeans LONG before the days of Captain Cook, Abel Tasman or even Willem Janszoon (currently thought to be the first person).

Then again, there are also lots of similarities between animal species that evolved on separate island groups, so it's likely that some of it is simply due to people and nature finding the same solution to the same problem.

[Mariel]

If there were dragons in Mossflower they would probaly go to Redwall and eat all the Redwallers.       
Besides , then some villan would go and bribe a dragon to be on their side. The whole of Mossflower would end! 

[Buzz_Bumble]

If there were dragons in Redwall, ALL the beasts in Redwall Abbey wouldn't even make enough for a snack. 

There's an idea for the Redwall Recipe Book ... roasted Abbess / Abbott. 
(Some people around the world do eat squirrel, mouse, etc.)

[The Shade]

Well I don't know about dragons, but there was this kind of dinisour that breathed out fire/acid. It was the one with the horn behind its head, I wish I could remeber its name. In the horn behind its head,  it mixed up chemicals which when blown out and exposed to air ignighted. I remeber reading about it. Thats where dragons came from

[Tam and Martin]

Well, There was a study about dinosaurs. It said that when a dinosaur belches, it breathes out methane gas. When the gas connects with the oxygen in the air...*BOOM* Fire!

[Buzz_Bumble]

Errr .... no. Every animal belches methane (which is why the Climate Change people want to tax farmers for all their cows, etc.), and you don't see lots of explosions happening. 

There's lots of animals that spit acid or poison, but I've never ever heard of any that spit fire (other than crazy human "fireeater" people). A very quick Google search only turns up "fire breathing dinosaurs" on religious-nutter websites and this from the Berkeley University website ... 

There are two subfamilies of hadrosaurs, the Lambeosaurinae, which have a crest on the skull (like the top skull at right), and the Hadrosaurinae, which lacked the crest (like the bottom skull at right). The crest on a lambeosaur's skull contains the nasal passages, which "looped" through the crest and often formed sizeable chambers before passing into the airway. Why the crest? A number of hypotheses have been seriously suggested:

• the crest was a "snorkel" so that lambeosaurs could breathe while under water (but the crest had no opening to the outside, except for the nostrils);
  
• the crest warmed the air that the lambeosaurs were breathing (but lambeosaurs already lived in warm climates);
  
• the crest was an extra reservoir of air for swimming lambeosaurs (but it doesn't hold much air, and lambeosaurs probably didn't swim very much);
  
• the crest enabled lambeosaurs to breathe fire from their nose (but there's no evidence that the delicate bones of the nose were ever exposed to high temperatures regularly).

Note that last bullet point. So it looks like fire-breathing dinosaurs are just a myth as well.

[rachel25]

maybe not dragons could have existed a looonnnnngggggggg time ago there's no proof saying they didn't exist     

[The Shade]

@Buzz_Bumble no offence but you seem VERY eager to put the idea of a fire breathing dinosaur down. Why??