Other dragons are clearly reptilian, what with the scales. Some – but not all – dragons could classify as mammalian, by virtue of their long hairy beards.
Dragons definitely nest neatly into the phylum chordata - all dragons have spines, I think that’s pretty clear - but they don’t fit well into any existing class within that phylum. Taxonomically speaking, I guess dragon would be a class. There’s no reason to think dragons all have one common ancestor - they seem to evolve naturally across pretty much all human cultures, like how evolution eventually turns everything into a crab - so dragon isn’t a clade and doesn’t really fit into a cladistic classification structure. The problem with trying to define dragon is that dragon doesn’t describe a specific thing. I accepted the assignment to write this piece with the totally unearned confidence of a fiction writer.īut then I realized I don’t think I know what makes a dragon a dragon. I thought that this would be easy even though actual taxonomists and evolutionary biologists - people who have real educations in these matters and think about them professionally - have historically struggled with the question of whether a hippo is a pig or a whale. Do Hippos Count as Dragons feels like a very simple yes or no question, and I thought I knew what my answer would be. When I received the brief for this piece, I made the same mistake I always do - the mistake of thinking it would be easy. It’s time…Dragon Week: Tokyo Drift is HERE!!! We’re kicking off our third iteration of a week dedicated to all things dragons with a seemingly simple question: do hippos count as dragons? Sarah Gailey, author of The Echo Wife and American Hippo, is here to give us their answer.
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