Why dragons breathe fire

The enzymes catalyse a chemical reaction, in which hydroquinone is converted into poisonous 1,4-benzoquinone, while the hydrogen peroxide is split into oxygen and hydrogen. The resulting mixture is not only extremely hot, but corrosive as well. The creationist Duane Gish hypothesised that the dinosaur Parasaurolophus used a similar mechanism, but this is considered unlikely today. Gish believed that their bone cavities contained hollow regions which were filled with similar chemicals as the bombardier beetle.

Ernest Drake believed that every dragon has a piece of iron and flint in its mouth, which it rubs together to create sparks. Poison that is sprayed from a gland in the upper jaw is then ignited. Drake then compares the fire-breathing ability or inability of different types of dragons: [4].

Trey the Explainer proposes an alternative to the flint, saying that dragons ignite methane out of their flight bladders using a crystal that produces piezoelectricity. Such crystals generate potential difference when mechanically deformed, i. The electricity could have been used by dragons to ignite methane [5]. Naturally a dragon would have to consume these crystals, since no animal can form such materials in its body.

In most theories, a chemical reaction igniting the substances inside a dragon's body is responsible for the phenomenon of fire-breathing.

As such, there are many possible combinations of flammable materials and reactions, such as:. Dragon illustrated from The Flight of Dragons. Notice the rounded, gas-filled body. Dickinson suggested that dragons descended from dinosaurs, whose anatomy changed over the course of time. According to him, dragons produce acids that dissolve their constantly growing bones, releasing hydrogen gas.

Through this, the dragon's body is greatly inflated and has an increased stability even without ribs, which may have resulted in those ribs developing into wings. Therefore, the dragon does not really fly, but rather floats. Strong gas pressures in the dragon force it to expel hydrogen regularly, which due to its high flammability allows it to breathe fire.

A more realistic version of this theory can be found in the movie Dragon's World. Here, dragons possess a so-called flight bladder , which is formed like a second pair of lungs. These bladders collect digestive gases which provide extra lift during flight.

The gases can be ejected from the mouth, where platinum is found, a metal that dragons often chew on. The metal acts as a catalyst speeding up the reaction between hydrogen formed from the neutralisation of hydrochloric acid in the stomach and bone calcium and oxygen from the air.

Laurie L. Dove hypothesised that dragons originally chewed platinum to aid in the digestive process, as birds swallow stones. Flyingfenix from draconian. Another theory suggests the flight bladder also contains methane which the dragon ignites via an electric organ. The gas is produced in the digestive process. The paleontologist Henry Gee theorised that dragon fire could be based on diethyl.

Organisms such as yeast produce ethanol alcohol , and there are strains of bacteria that can produce sulfuric acid. Both microorganisms are found in the bodies of vertebrates. Ethanol and sulfuric acid can chemically react to form the highly flammable diethyl. This fire cannot be put out by water, which explains the immense destructive ability of dragon fire. According to this theory, dragons eat limestone which is then stored in a separate organ in the body. The dragon's organs also extract fluorine from its diet.

If the dragon is to spit fire, it needs only to expel both substances simultaneously; the resulting chemical reaction will produce fire. The resulting substance is flammable and allows the dragon to spit fire. It is described that dragons consume rocks containing phosphorus, which mix freely with gases in the stomach.

The mixture ignites spontaneously on contact with air. Many fantasy novels simply attribute dragon fire to the power of magic. This fact might disappoint Daenerys Targaryen, the so-called Mother of Dragons from HBO's "Game of Thrones" — as well as her fire-breathing children Drogon, Viserion and Rhaegal — but there are still plenty of dragon-like animals out there.

Take, for instance, the spitting cobra , a group that includes several species of cobra that spit blinding venom from their fangs when threatened. Afrotropical scorpions in the genus Parabuthus can squirt highly toxic venom at menacing interlopers. And, while it isn't as singeing as Drogon's fiery blast, the gecko Strophurus can shoot a nasty-smelling goo out of its tail to frighten off predators. It's just kind of gross," said Keeffe, who co-authored and illustrated the forthcoming book "The Anthropology of Dragons: A Global Perspective.

These beetles' farts are so powerful that they can prompt toads that have eaten the beetles to puke out their last meal. That's exactly what the beetle wants; it may be covered with mucus from the toad's stomach, but sometimes these beetles can survive the ordeal. However, when it comes to fighting with fire, Australian raptors take first prize.

A carnivorous lifestyle is the most likely thing about a dragon. Carnivores obtain their energy far faster than herbivores, though they do have to work harder to catch their food. Herbivores can't afford to stop chewing for long, but carnivores such as cats can have a relatively quick meal and then sleep the rest of the day. I'll leave the original parts underneath the new parts, if some part was majorly edited.

Most of the new information came from this Discovery Magazine article. Scales would be made out of bone. They would be made out of practically solid compact bone, unlike the ones in our body. This would give them the strength needed, without adding an unreasonable amount of weight. These scales also would not burn, unlike normal reptile scales.

I think a dragon that could withstand very high temperatures Ex. Most standard internal organs need a pretty constant internal temperature. But with a well insulated skin lots of fat , and fire-proof scales, a dragon could probably withstand what fire he causes. Your dragons size is very interesting, growing all the way from a small creature to as big as mountain.

At first this may seem fairly fantastical, but it isn't too bad. The dinosaurs did practically the same thing. So I think we can say that this is possible, and has even be seen in real earth biology.

Wings are easy, it is not hard to imagine a reptile with wings. They even existed in the form of Pterosaur. They would be controlled with muscles within the breast of the beast, likely any other winged creature. The main problem of dragon flight is that they are just too big.

To get enough lift for the massive creatures would make the wings too unwieldy. But it is possible that they could still fly. The dragon's bones would be hollow, like both birds and dinosaurs were. The dragon's body would also be filled with large sacs filed with these gases as well. This would also make dragons more agile, because they would be easily light on their feet. This would also mean they could look pretty much like anything, because aerodynamics is no longer in effect.

This idea specifically comes from the discovery magazine article listed above. Dragons would have two sacs with holes that enter to their mouths. Inside one sack live organisms like yeast that produce ethanol. Inside the other lives bacteria that produce sulfuric acid. These two gases are allowed to mix inside the dragon's mouth, just before it breathes fire.

The chemical that is produced when these two mix is Diethyl ether, which is highly flammable. The tiniest amount of friction can light it spilling a beaker on a table is capable of lighting it. The dragon would have to not inhale while this was going on this would of course be an involuntary reflex. As the scientist who was interviewed in the article above points out, we don't always know how something evolved.

But similarly complex defense systems have evolved on earth the bombardier beetle is an example. A guess as how the sacs are formed is given below. The original purpose of the two "sacs" was a very simple, an ineffective, breathing mechanism. These sacs were criss-crossed with blood vessels and bones, leftover from gills, and used for the first mechanisms of breathing.

As a better breathing system lungs developed, the sacs fell out of use, and bacteria and yeast took over them. These then began producing the above substances to create fire. This is another technical possibility of fire breathing. This idea comes from the How to Train Your Dragon books.

All dragons could have two holes in there mouth, these holes would excrete a highly flammable gas during exhaling, this gas is then breathed out of the mouth. At the edge of the mouth, there would be an instrument likely two special teeth that when rubbed together would produce a spark.

When the spark hit the gas, it would light, creating a plume of fire. This gas would be hydrogen, made from splitting the water molecules made from splitting glucose.

This would not have a significant impact on the dragons energy levels, because it would use the energy made from the glucose to split the water. The carbon-dioxide made from the split would be exhaled as normal, and the oxygen would be released with the hydrogen to increase the flammability of it. One hole releases hydrogen, the other hole releases oxygen. Both gases are stored in special sacks behind the holes. To protect against the mouth being burned, the front part of the inside of the mouth would also be covered in scales.

No essential organs not even the nose would be housed near the front of the mouth. However, if the gas was somehow blown back down the dragons throat, it could be killed that way. Next up, evolution of fire breathing. As a better breathing system lungs developed, the sacs fell out of use, but occasionally unused hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon-dioxide still ended up in them.

These two gases would leak into the mouth of the dragon as the sacs opened and closed. The sacs would open when the mouth of the dragon opened, and close when it closed. These dragons ate a high iron content. As dragons developed some teeth began to have a higher and higher content of iron in them. These teeth were stronger, and could break more things. At one point, a chance mutation caused two teeth to be angled in such a way that they would cause a spark. This would then cause the mixture of hydrogen and oxygen in the mouth to ignite, and the process described above would happen.

A dragon would use a massive amount of energy. But so did dinosaurs. A dragon would have to eat a large amount of food, but that would be possible. Especially if dragons laid and wait and did nothing for much of the time. Then they would eat only occasionally, and then in large amounts as there prey would be unprepared. Fireproof scales are just standard bone, and would not be that energy consumptive to create.

Breathing fire costs little energy, because it is done by using the work symbiotic creatures. Finally, don't argue. Dragons don't like it. If that didn't convince, read the ending. I could hardly beat the great level of detail in the other answers, but I like dragons a lot and I think I can share my relevant knowledge with you. I would assume a dragon would be quite similar to the dinosaurs or the creatures that represent the evolutionary phase between reptiles and birds like the Archeopterix , based on the popular representations in folklore tales and fantasy stories.

Egg hatching then would be the way of reproduction. The growing can depend on many factors, but in most cases it is determined primarily by the DNA. An interesting case aside from the topic is a Liger , that is a hybrid produced of a male lion and a female tiger.

It is the biggest cat in the world and for a reason - the genes for growth reduction are carried by the male tiger for the tiger specie and by the female lion for the lions specie respectively. Thus a liger has no genes for resticting his growth and so it was believed 1 to grow all his life, becomming the largest cat in the world.

If dragons were not a regular specie, but produced as a hybrid betweeen species so that it happens to lack growth restriction genes, or if their DNA did not have the growth restriction for other reasons, then a dragon could grow in size troughout his life. Flight is a very energy intensive task and has a lot of requirements for the body structure, mass and size in general. Thus, it would eventually contradict with the first point of near-limitless growth. We could still assume a dragon is similar to a bird-like reptile, or a pterodactyle, it would grow large enough and still be able to fly.

If growing continues to a certain point, it is possible the dragon reaches size and mass that would not allow him to fly. Since then, a dragon could adapt and lead a life similar to the non-winged dinosaurs and the other ground predators.

Breathing fire, literally, is something that I personally would not believe. However, since this characteristic is taken from foklore tales, we could assume these are either exaggerated descriptions of a real capability, or otherwise twisted by the story retelling. Still, I would associate this ability with the description of the Komodo Dragon , which is a large lizzard of the Varanidae family.

These lizzards are known both for their large sizes and "poisonous" saliva. Their saliva is not really poisonous, but it has special bacteria which causes the decay of any exposed flesh. The exposure wounds similar to burns of acid, and these could have been attributed to a "breath of fire" by our uneducated ancestors. I watched a BBC show a long time ago I am unable to recall the name , which also supported this thesis, and added some ancient cultures drawings as a proof - the drawings were of large Varanidae-like lizzards breathing fire.

It is still uncertain if these would rather contribute to the "fire lizzard" folklore specie, insted of supporting the dragon existence, however. If the creature is indeed derived from a dinosaurus, or is a reptile-bird specimen, then it could share the same need for energy we already know these species have dinos were large and ate a lot, burds need great amounts of energy to fly and lead quite a dynamic way of life.

Definitely, a dragon would be a mobile creature with active lifestyle able to fly , which requires a lot of energy. It makes sense that the dragon would more than often predate on large and potent prey in order to support its existence.

In addition, it could also have evolved the ability to go into a lethargic state, like some mammals and reptiles do if the time of the year is not suitable for frequent feeding.

In some folklore tales, and modern fantasy stories, dragons are often being "awakened" from years of sleep by the story's main character. This statement was based on outdated information I had on the topic. However, newer information regarding this hybrid specie does not support the lifetime growth ability refer to wikipedia article and Tim B's comment below.

The tigon retains smaller sizes in comparison to both his parent species, due to having both lion and tiger growth restriction genes. Well, fire-breathing without burning yourself is obviously possible. In addition to various systems already proposed with binary compounds, I'd like to point out that you could have self-igniting saliva that includes a stabilizing compounds. This IIRC is the method many poisonous snakes use with their poison. They simply secrete the anti-dote together with the poison and it will protect them from incidental exposure, but when the venom is "used properly" the protection will fall short and the target will be poisoned.

Poison could be initially an irritant, evolve to being corrosive ants have acid for example , and if the corrosive is oxidative that is short path to making things burn. It would likely be a mixture of several oxidizers and matching stabilizers.

Oxidizers would probably mostly be based on oxygen from the air. Chlorine might be easy enough to get near the ocean. Fluorine would be kind of neat to add, but I am not sure if there is a convenient source. As a practical matter the stabilizers would probably be something that is rapidly vaporized.

Inside the dragon it would be continuously replenished, but as soon as the "fire-breathing" started the chemical balance would break almost instantly. Some fuel beyond the methane from breathing would probably be also mixed in. Some mixture of alcohols and fat, I'd guess. To give pleasant clinging effect when breathing on someone.

And give a higher temperature to get fires started. And cause serious burns even if the target doesn't ignite. Although a strong oxidizer would make most organic things burn well enough. The probable evolution path would be from a spitting venom, initially targeted at eyes.

Then mating rituals. So it would be flashy and mostly cause damage to exposed parts. On targets of reasonable size. If the dragon is much larger than the target, as implied by the question, it would be a lethal weapon. In the real world the above would kind of imply evolution from snakes as most likely option. I'd actually go with that as snakes re-evolving legs would neatly sidestep issues with six being a wrong number of limbs and allow 2 wings plus 4 legs or 6 legs configurations. The big issue with dragons, especially when combined with flying, is obviously the size.

Realistically the issue has been solved by engineers with either high-energy power generation airplanes and helicopters or by making the aircraft float in the air with lifting gas. Since the physical problem to solve is the same these would be the solutions available to draconic non-magical evolution as well.

I find the concept of fire-breathing animals, probably commonly fighting each other, being filled with hydrogen less than convincing. Helium would work, but the only sources for it would be ingesting large amounts of methane methanovore? Tapping underground methane would actually be kind of interesting, as it would explain why dragons spend centuries in underground caverns doing nothing visible to humans.

They are breathing in the methane, living from the energy of it and harvesting mixed in helium. Actually eating methane might be a draconic attribute even if you skip dragon-blimps. Apart from matching the iconic behaviour of dracons, a source of methane is useful to fire-breathing.

Third lifting gas option would be hot gas, either plain air or steam. This might actually work for a VERY large animal. And needing to generate high temperatures would match with evolving other pyrotechnics. Problem is that dragon-blimps don't really look very dragonic. So I think I'd skip this option and focus on increasing power density.

I think the easiest way to up power density would be to increase the number of hearts. Basically biological power density is limited by the ability to remove heat and metabolites from tissue. You also need to bring energy in, but that is not generally the issue when talking about power density. This kind of implies that dragons would be able to boost their metabolic rate to level insane. Which would imply very high blood pressure at muscular system, while other parts, such as brain, maintain normal pressures.

And one heart maintaining high pressure at a very large animal wouldn't really work that well anyway. Separate secondary circulation systems that boost pressure selectively might work. By itself this wouldn't be enough, but if you can increase blood pressure, and maybe even have an entirely separate circulation of "something else" with higher power density, you can also replace muscle cells with something else. You can't really make cells work with power beyond certain level, but cells could generate structures capable of higher power in a manner similar to how hair is created.

I have no idea how high this could get the power density, but high enough that power density wouldn't be the biggest issue So you end up with the structural strength being the big issue. Hollow or otherwise low density bones are pretty much compulsory. Even then you'd probably need "biologically generated but not living" structures such as I used to dodge the power density issue. Nature has some remarkably strong protein based fibers and glues, so composite structure of fibers combined with strong adhesive seems likely.

Something similar to what trees use with cellulose and lignin?