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Nearly every time we've been asked about a dragon sighting we've had to regretfully inform our audience that dragons just do not exist outside of fantasy books and movies. No, a dragon didn't fall from the sky in Tibet. No, a dragon skeleton was not found in Iceland. No, a dragon was not killed in Malaysia. But then, in June 2021, we came across a photograph that supposedly showed a flying lizard from Southeast Asia. While we still stand by the determination that dragons exist solely in fictional realms, this is about as close as you can get to one in the real world. The above-displayed animal does not blow fire, live atop a pile of gold in a dark cave, or grow to an enormous size like its fictional dragon counterparts, but this is a genuine picture of a species of lizard known as flying lizards, flying dragons, or gliding lizards. We haven't been able to definitively determine the lizard species, but this is some type of draco, a genus of agamid lizards that is known for its ability to glide. This photograph appears to show either a Draco volans, known as the common flying dragon, the Draco quinquefasciatus, the five-banded gliding lizard, or Draco taeniopterus, the Thai flying dragon, which is pictured below: In any case, the critter pictured here is a lizard that is capable of gliding. Here's a BBC video about the similar black-bearded draco: Ecology Asia describes the barred gliding lizard, writing: Another species of Draco lizard made an appearance in the Jungle episode of the BBC's Planet Earth II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a94DNeLh6r0&t=17s We haven't been able to source the specific photograph that went viral in June 2021. While we can't say when or where this picture was taken, this photograph appears to show a genuine species of gliding lizard that is frequently referred to as a flying dragon.
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