Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for us), dragons do not exist. I know that that’s very surprising, but the fact of the matter is that they are imaginary. However, dinosaurs did exist (once upon a time) and since they are the closest thing we have to dragons, let’s look at the most dragon-like dinosaur ever discovered.
Yi qi was discovered by a farmer (the one and the only specimen) in a quarry in Hebei Province. It was sold to a nearby museum in 2007, where scientists realized that there were a lot of weird features about it. Since it was mainly excavated by scientists, the museum was sure that the specimen was authentic and not a hoax. This was further proved by a CAT scan.
Yi qi belongs to a family of theropods called the scansoriopterygids, which were extremely birdlike and were very small. Scansoriopterygids were adapted for climbing and gliding and are among the smallest dinosaurs ever. Yi qi, however, was strange in that it was the first dino to be discovered that had bat like wings. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s an explanation.
Bird wings (and by extension most dinosaurs) have wing feathers attached to their arms. Pterosaurs had a membrane stretching across the arm and one huge finger with the rest of the hand peeking out in the middle of the wing. However, bats have short arms and most of their wing is supported by their whole hand, with the long fingers reaching out and the thumb sticking out. This is also how traditional dragon wings are depicted. Yi qi had a wing a bit like this. Two fingers support the membrane and two fingers stick outwards.
Yi qi is also known for having the shortest genus for a dinosaur, Yi. It also has the shortest species name, qi. It shares the honor with the great evening bat, whose scientific name is Ia io. Unfortunately, I don’t think our ‘Z’ dinosaur is going to have so many interesting things. I need to do more research. Bye!
Anay Ganesh 