Could science allow monsters to exist?: Opinion
The other day, I was watching a travel diary about the Scottish highlands, and unsurprisingly, was I reacquainted with the legend of the lake-dwelling, Loch ness monster. Nessie is just one amongst many monsters that roam in our mythical folklores, most of which make good stories to tell around a campfire or when you have friends over. So, is that it? Are monsters just good stories, or could science allow them to exist in secret places across the globe? The latter is very unlikely but interesting to look at nonetheless. So, let’s break this down.
Size, how big can animals get
The first and foremost thing that makes a monster scary is its sheer magnitude. Sure, ghosts and ghouls are pretty scary too, but they invoke a different type of fear, and delving into ‘fear’ in general, requires its own article. We are talking about the pandora-box of monsters, the leviathans, and the beasts of yore, which makes everything around it seem inconsequential.
Outside the realm of fiction, our planet has played host to many giant creatures over the years, but none of them holds a candle to the majestic blue whales, which are the largest animals to ever dwell on Earth. According to the Guinness world records, the blue whale is as long as a Boeing 737, and weighs as much as four African elephants, or 3,333 humans! The anatomy of a blue whale is also equally mystifying as its size, its lung capacity and heart size are second to none in the animal world, and this makes it a good measuring stick for mythical creatures.
A hoard of stories over the years has talked tastefully about creatures lurking under the vastness of our oceans. To start, your best bet of finding gargantuan beasts is definitely in the ocean, because in the oceans, the gravitational barriers that prevent organisms from achieving enormity are counteracted by buoyancy. How many times have we seen that when nature sets the conditions for something to occur, it almost inevitably, always occur? And you could make the same case for blue whales—they are so big, because nature allows them to be big, or better yet, nature requires them to be big. You see, whales are mammals, and much like any other mammal, they are warm-blooded. Warm-blooded creatures in a cold environment is not exactly a match made in heaven—unless there was a way to prevent the rapid loss of body heat. A large organism does not lose body heat rapidly, and if it could couple this with the consumption of massive quantities of food, it can sustain itself in the oceans. And lo and behold the mighty blue whales —these creatures aren’t lavishly huge— rather, they are necessarily huge.
The Kraken: Myth or real?
One of the fascinating mythical monsters that lead a similar life in the ocean is the Kraken. This Norse legend is one of the more well-known monsters to roam our oceans. But unlike a blue whale, it isn’t a mammal, the tales talk of the Kraken having long tentacle-like arms, giving it a cephalopod-like form. In the poem, ‘The Kraken’, the great Victorian poet, Alfred Tennyson, describes the creature as follows:
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell Unnumbered and enormous polypi Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green
The Kraken's enormity is not blatantly expressed in any literary works. Many loosely state how big the Kraken was, some writers even describing accounts of fisherman, stating the monster to be one and a half-mile in length! While the oceans have the space to host such creatures, there is no reason for something as big as that to exist. Generally, natural selection tends to make organisms big to have an advantage over other organisms in their environment—if an animal gradually grows bigger than its predator, it can evade predation, and that’s an essence of natural selection. But with nothing nearly as big as it around, why would the mythical Kraken be that monstrously huge? Perhaps, to get away from another monster? Implausible, right? But the tales of Kraken aren’t like some arbitrary monster story—it is the closest one that could be based on reality.
Back in the day, the Kraken lore taunted the sailors in the North Atlantic because of these Nordic stories. But maybe the stories of returning sailors may well have had some truth in it. In the depths of the oceans where there’s hardly any light, strange creatures dwell with very interesting features. One of the peculiarities allows certain creatures to be much larger than their shallow-water relatives. This process is called deep-sea gigantism, a well-documented phenomenon across our oceans. Deep-sea gigantism is observed in crustaceans, and it produces some of the most weirdly-fascinating organisms in the deep ocean. There are fish, shaped like giant elongated ribbons that can stretch up to 8 meters in length, and crabs that are so big that it could give you Sci-Fi nightmares. But as we are making the case for a potential Kraken, none of these animals fits the description as well as squids.
The ancestors of squids have been on this planet for quite some time, and currently, we have found more than 300 types of squids in the oceans. They belong to the class of cephalopods, which are in and of itself a strange group of animals with blue blood and tentacles for arms. As deeper into the ocean we go, deep-sea gigantism impacts the size of squids, and they grow to be ridiculously large—like the giant squid, which can acquire lengths of 12 meters or more, making it the second-largest mollusk, only playing second-fiddle to another species of squid known as the colossal squid, which is not only the largest mollusk but also the largest invertebrate in the world! Their football-sized eyes also make it into the record books as the largest eye for any animal in the world.
Keeping in mind all these extraordinary features, transport yourself back to the medieval times, or maybe a period prior, and imagine being a sailor, sailing the unknown seas with such creatures lurking below the waters. Today, we know that these creatures exist, and we also keep an open mind about finding even bigger animals as we explore the unchartered waters of our oceans. But, back then, it would have been deliriously frightening to spot something like a colossal squid. It is no spectacle that these ‘monsters’ existed in the hearts and minds of sailors, for there was a genuine need to fear what they did not understand—that’s just the nature of fear. And perhaps, as the lore passed on from generation to generation, the unbound imagination of creative people portrayed various versions of these giant cephalopods, granting it with features that administered more fear—and it may be that this emotional response to danger took care of itself from then onwards, shaping the ‘Kraken’ today as a vicious monster waiting to gobble ships.
Dragons of yore
If the Kraken was the most treacherous beast in the ocean, it’s only fitting that its worthy match on land took the shape of dragons. Dragons are perhaps the most accomplished of all monsters, with almost every culture across the world having stories to tell of the beast. In different cultures, they take different forms, from serpent-like to dinosaur-like, with anatomies that allow at least some of these creatures to breathe fire. Some have impenetrable hide, while others soar high. Some hoard gold, while others respond to battle cries.
The fascination of dragons in literature is another well-seen phenomenon that has lived through the years. In the book, an instinct for dragons, David E. Jones, an anthropologist of the University of Central Florida, shares his thoughts on why dragons exist in the folklore of almost all cultures across the world. According to him, the dragons represent a combination of our primitive ancestors’ predators. For instance, the fear of snakes seems to have outlived through generations of humans, and even today, people are afraid of snakes even when they might not have seen one in their lives. Scientists believe that this fear fits into the paradigm of 'the survival of the fittest' for when our ancestral nomads were hunting and foraging for food and shelter, they would have come across venomous snakes, and evolving a fear of snakes, would have allowed them to be alert and detect these creatures quickly in their environment. Studies have shown that humans aren’t born with this fear but learn to fear them. Babies are very good at detecting snakes and can learn to fear them fast when they are shown images of snakes.
So, how does this fit into the framework of dragons? Well, Chinese dragons, one of the oldest depictions of dragons, do look like serpents. Many other cultures also represent dragons that slither and grow in stature as they come near you. But then there is the limb problem. Most of the modern dragons, at least the ones that made it onto the screens from books, are portrayed less like a serpent and more like its species, and they even share attributes from different kinds of animals. James Balm writes in his article on Biomed central, a similar explanation that correlates to the one given by David E. Jones in his book about dragons. The reason why he thinks that some cultures, especially the European culture, had gone with ‘dragons with limbs’ owes to the terror created by wolves in Europe. And this is just one example that might tell us why dragons take different shapes and forms. Humans have a vivid imagination when it comes to fear, and this is perhaps the root of the dragon lore. Attributes like sharp teeth, thick scales, talons, enormity, flight, etc. are things that give life to these beasts, whether it is on a tv screen or a fantasy book. But close analysis shows that these are all things that we either fear in other animals or abilities like flight, that gives a potential predator an advantage over us.
Size of dragons
But does the over-sized dragons of the fantasy genre anatomically exist? The thing with animal anatomy is that it can’t, and understandably, defy the laws of physics. If you take a small animal and blow it out of proportion, its mass will increase cubically[1] while the surface area only increases by a power of two. Now, to support this massive weight, the creature would need sturdier limbs, something that you see with elephants, which today, are just about the largest terrestrial animals roaming on this planet.
But it doesn’t mean that we haven’t had terrestrial giants back in the day. People think that another origin story for dragons could have originated after we came across dinosaur bones. Some of the dinosaurs that walked on this planet were immense—take the ginormous Argentinosaurus, for example, which is widely regarded as the largest creature to ever walk on Earth. While there’s uncertainty to how much the largest one weighed, most would agree that it easily weighed at least 10 times more than the largest African elephant. But with such gigantic proportions, scientists believe that these behemoths were toiling with the extremities of animal anatomy[2]. And for this reason, these weren’t the very nimble of creatures, much like the elephants, but only 10 times less nimble presumably.
Do dragons fly?
So, if we don’t account for larger-than-mountain dragons that exist in some lore, which is anatomically impossible, the much smaller ones like Smaug or Drogon could very well exist under the laws of physics. But feats like flight gets much complicated as the size grows. With majestic wingspans that can reach up to 3.5 meters, the largest of any birds alive today, the wandering Albatross glides in the wind above the southern ocean, with needing to flap its elegant wings only once in a while. But it is worthwhile to note that they weigh only 12 kilos at max, while dragons of lore, with the stature they possess, could easily weigh half a ton, if not more. If it takes an average 3-meter wingspan to keep around 10 to 12 kilos from crashing to the ground, try half a ton of weight. And for all the astonishing feats that Albatrosses can pull off, they are clumsy landers—so don’t expect elegance from dragons either when it comes to touchdowns.
So, does it mean that they can’t fly at all? Well, not necessarily. If dragons in movies and books are well-versed, their wings would look like quasi bat-like wings. And there is a good reason behind it. The thing with normal feathery wings is that it has to grow exponentially with the body size of the bird—take the example of the Wandering Albatross, or the Great Bustards, or the Andean Condors, which all weigh an average of around 11 kilos. But wings have been around for some time. For that matter, let’s take a trip down history lane.
The Jurassic period hosted some of the most astonishing flying creatures. Even before the first birds, there were winged reptiles that ruled the sky. These flying reptiles had learned the art of flight almost 230 million years ago and were quite different from our feathery friends of today. These first vertebrates to fly were called the pterosaurs, and they did not have feathery wings but possessed elongated forelimbs that were aerodynamic, just like the bats. But unlike bats, some of the pterosaurs were massive, one of the largest being the Quetzalcoatlus northropi, thought to have an estimated mass of around 200-250 kg. Even though there are different estimates of its weight, and controversy surrounding its flight, an article on PLOS[3], suggests that they were flying creatures indeed. And they achieved this feat with wingspans around 10-11 meters. It is not clear how these flying reptiles maneuvered through the air, while some suggest that they were sluggish others claim that they were perfectly capable of nimble flight. This was chiefly because of their wing anatomy. Their wings consisted of hollow tube-like bones,[4] which were flexible and light, and with thin membranes supported by fibers, their wing anatomy was complex and allowed the pterosaurs to be heavy.
If evolution allowed such creatures to exist, there is no reason why dragons can’t exist strictly speaking from the perspective of wings. But it may only be true for some dragons that reasonably or serendipitously fell into the right weight category. While such forelimb extensions can carry quite a lot of weight, there would be a limit, and dragons, the size of mountains, would simply find it hard to take off.
If they exist, can they breathe fire?
“My armor is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!” — J.R.R. Tolkien
It’s perhaps the aptest adjective that a dragon can have, and perhaps its most deadly weapon as J.R.R. Tolkien ever so eloquently puts it. Dragons breathe death, for fire represents chaos and destruction. This fear is unanimous—whether or not you fear a dragon, you would only be foolish if you didn’t fear fire. In almost all literature, dragons are known to have this ability. While there are mentions of non-fire-breathers in lore, they don’t arouse the same degree of panic as a fire-breather. Smaug, from the hobbit, was terrible and menacing without the fire, but when he reigned fire upon the people of dale and lake-town, only then did he become the true monster that everybody feared.
So, what is it about fire-breathing? Is it even remotely possible in reality? Evolution by natural selection is a gradual process where nature provides an advantage for a species in a particular habitat. Predator or prey, these perks come in different forms—white fur as camouflage for polar bears, bioluminescence in deep-sea organisms, poisonous skin in frogs, ink pockets in squids and many more. Generally, these abilities allow these animals to survive in their environments and procreate. But when you look at it this way, it makes you wonder, now why would a dragon need fire for? If nature allows dragons to exist, then you can think of fire-breathing as an ability formed through natural selection as well. But then again, there remains that nagging question? Why fire? Even though we are finding new creatures now and then, producing fire biologically, is something that we haven't across in animals.
But that doesn’t stop scientists and genuinely bored people from talking about dragon science. I recently came across an article on ScienceNewsforStudents[5] that explains how fire-breathing could be approved by nature. A fire, once ignited, can burn as long as it gets fuel and oxygen supply. Oxygen is not a problem since it is all around us in ample amounts. But the ignition and fuel source is the real concern here. Technically, all it would take is a flint, perhaps something in the dragon’s mouth to ignite the fuel. And as for the fuel, it could ideally be a chemical with a low ignition point. Many chemicals match this criterion, but not all of them would be suitable fuel for a flame-thrower. For instance, gases are harder to control than solids and liquids. Solids, on the other hand, do not move about so easily as gases or liquids. So, the ideal candidate could be liquids. And sure enough, there is evidence form nature that supports this statement—Meet the bombardier beetles. These beetles are equipped with a bizarre defense mechanism that allows them to squirt hot chemicals from the tip of their abdomen when threatened. The chemicals, hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone are mixed with other enzymes to form benzoquinone, in a hot exothermic reaction that reaches a temperature of 100 degrees Celsius. This is enough to stun their prey and gives them time to get away.
A liquid with a low flash point but a high auto-ignition temperature would serve the purpose for the dragon—the flash point being the lowest temperature at which vapors emanating from a volatile liquid catches fire in the presence of an ignition source, and auto-ignition temperature being the lowest temperature at which a chemical, automatically catches fire without an ignition source. An organic liquid such as ethanol or methanol makes the most sense in this scenario since these are by-products of biological processes that take place within certain living organisms. Both have low flash points at around 13 degrees Celsius, and autoignition temperatures well above 300 degrees Celsius. So, as crazy it may sound, methanol or ethanol could remain within the body of the dragon without causing it harm, and the vapors of these volatile fuels need only catch fire as it escapes the dragon's mouth. But nothing could be that ideal. The problem with ethanol is in its storage—it is difficult to store ethanol as an article on ScienceNewsforStudents[6] puts it. If it is stored in a pouch-like organ, the chances are that it will leak out eventually. So, conjuring up enough biofuel to produce a decent flame becomes difficult, or highly improbable for the dragon.
Fire breathing would indeed be a complicated process as it should be if it existed. Numerous parameters have to be met, and things have to fall into the right place for it to happen. And such is the world of monsters—Almost too good to be true. Most of us know that monsters aren’t real, yet sometimes, we can’t help but wonder what if this statement wasn’t true? Matt Kaplan, the author of the book, The science of monsters, writes[7] that monsters evolve at the same rate at which our understanding of the physical world evolves. The more we know, the more there is that we don’t. The variables that make up a monster have to face the test of time, and eventually, with a better understanding of the world around us, this fear subsides. But from this newer knowledge, new monsters are birthed. A few hundred years ago, people weren’t thinking about lifeforms beyond our planet. But our space expeditions since the last century forged strange monsters, with variables of fear that are unknown to us. Our ancestors needn’t be worried about these aliens, for they could not have known about the worlds beyond. But for us, this fear is inexplicable, strangely impending, for it did not rise from the plains of Africa but arose recently from the enlightenment of how vast the universe is.
Read more from sources
[1]. Ben Panko, Smithsonian Magazine, (March 21, 2017) How Big Can a Land Animal Get? Retrieved on April 12, 2020, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-king-kong-should-have-been-blue-whale-180962603/
[2]. Victoria Gill, for BBC News, (October 31, 2013) Dinosaur titans: Sauropods' secrets revealed. Retrieved on April 12, 2020, from https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-24659003
[3]. Witton MP, Habib MB (2010) On the Size and Flight Diversity of Giant Pterosaurs, the Use of Birds as Pterosaur Analogues and Comments on Pterosaur Flightlessness. PLoS ONE 5(11): e13982. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0013982
[4]. American Museum of Natural History, (Date: Unknown) How Did Pterosaurs Fly? Retrieved on April 12, 2020, from https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/pterosaurs-flight-in-the-age-of-dinosaurs/how-did-pterosaurs-fly#:~:text=Like%20the%20mast%20on%20a,was%20shaped%20like%20a%20sail.&text=Although%20many%20animals%20can%20glide,fly%20by%20flapping%20their%20wings.
[5]. [6]. Bethany Brookshire, ScienceNewsforStudents, (April 26, 2018) Nature shows how dragons might breathe fire. Retrieved on April 12, 2020, from https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/nature-shows-how-dragons-might-breathe-fire
[7]. Matt Kaplan, for ABC science. (July 8, 2013) The science of monsters. Retrieved on April 12, 2020, from https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/07/08/3795976.htm
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