'Amazing Dragon' Fossil Discovered In China But It's Really Just A Dinosaur

Nat Geo – Long-necked dinosaurs were the largest animals that ever walked on land. Moving cathedrals of sinew and bone, these plant-eating giants—called sauropods—could stretch up to 120 feet from head to tail. At their heaviest, they weighed a staggering 70 tons.

But a new study published today in Nature Communications takes a whack at sauropods’ conventional origin story. A new Chinese species of sauropod named Lingwulong shenqi—the “amazing dragon of Lingwu”—directly implies that major groups of Earth’s largest land animals arose some 15 million years earlier than previously thought.

The announcement comes mere weeks after another blockbuster paper in Nature Ecology and Evolution revealed that sauropods’ early days were a time of evolutionary experimentation. An ancient cousin of classic sauropods named Ingentia prima—“the first giant”—arrived at an anatomical path to hugeness millions of years before the classic long-necked dinosaurs.

I’m not mad at National Geographic, I’m just disappointed. They click-baited the shit outta me. I’m sitting here with poo in my pants because of how hard they click-baited me. I thought we found a dragon. I thought we finally have proof that dragons once flew around our planet, roasting other dinosaurs with their fiery breath and then tearing into them with sharp talons and giant teeth. Nope. Just Dr. Xing Xu blowing smoke up our ass.

I guess the discovery of these giant fossils in China is still important because it proves that these big fucking dinosaurs had already spread themselves across Pangea long before it split into the continents we know today, so that’s kinda cool. I have a hard time thinking about long stretches of time like when dinosaurs existed, but we’re talking about a difference of 15 million years in the timeline of how scientists previously believed these animals evolved, so I understand why people are excited.

That’s alright with me and I’m happy for these fossil-digging weirdos, but I just wanted a fucking dragon. Now THAT would be a discovery to put Dr. Xing Xu on the map. I’m not sure why I’ve been calling him “Dr.” but it just seems right.

I leave you with this, a glimpse of what our world could’ve been like if the dragons survived. Keep digging, Dr. Xing Xu. Show us some dragon fossils and maybe then people will care.