But dragons do both.

insofaras dragons exist but.

My dragon tells me not to get drawn into a philosophical debate about her existence . But people DO write about things that are speculative or fabulous, and so a word for "fire-breathing" would be handy.

fire-breathing dragons, a natural history

I just asked my dragon and he told me that he is "pyropneumatic." If you'd like to start an argument with him about his self-description, be my guest, but don't stand too close.

how about feumatic?

or fewmetic? oops, wrong end...

> don't stand too close

yeah, that's my m/o for all imaginary beings!

"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."

~Author Unknown.

Hey, thanks everyone for the replies!

consuelo, I definitely had in mind breathing out smoke of fire. Mexico for ten years, that sounds like fun.

wsieber, the concrete sense, but specifically a living organism's respiratory system.

Jackie, thanks, your reply sounds the closest to what I'm looking for.

> non-imaginary dragons

It's wiki, how do I know it ain't a Photoshop image?!

But it just looks like a (cute) lizard on a rock. You can't tell how big it is or nothin'. I sure wonder about that line about them gliding down from the trees on sails of hindleg webbing, though.

It is a lizard on a rock. But it's a damned BIG lizard. Seven or eight years ago a German tourist left his tour group to take pictures of one of these monsters. All they found was his camera. Never did hear what was on the film, but these Komodo dragons can and do kill and eat humans.

Yes, I know today is April 1, but I'm not pulling anyone's leg or other body part on this. YCLIU

And on top of that I learned a new word by reading the Wikipedia article. Had never heard of clade before. That mighta been a pretty good Hogwash word.

I've no doubt it's big, I was just saying how's I didn't think photoshopping would make a bit-o-difference.

Ooo, I remember hearing about that TEd.

I saw a Discovery show on Komodo dragons once. They are huge.

What really amazed me was the constant ooze of biological-warfare sludge dripping from their mouths. They showed a couple of dragons attacking a stray antelope. The dragons didn't even have to run after it – all they did was get in a small nip, and the sludge killed the animal extremely quickly.

The way that they tore that antelope apart makes me really sorry for that tourist.

Komodo's one of those places I keep meaning to go to. Flores is only just next door and there are some komodos there, so I suppose if one had gone a millennium or two ago one might have seen real hobbit v. dragon battles.

You mean before the dragons ate all the hobbits?

Either that or men exterminated them or destroyed their habitat.

...or at least uninhobbited. If he burned up the Shire entirely, perhaps they could never come back due to the dragon's scorched-Middle Earth policy.

A case of Mordor most foul.

I had thought of uninhobbited, but it's the dragons who were making the place uninhobbitable.

Who's a Frodo, Virginia Wolfe?

A friend of mine went to Komodo and visited a bit of forest where Komodo Dragons can be seen. He says that there were big cages dotted around all along the path, for the visitors to run to and lock themselves in should the Komodos become aggressive (or hungry!).

I grew up hearing that Komodo's were not poisonous, but that their mouths were infested with abnormally high amounts of especially nasty bacteria. Supposedly when they bit something, it would take 2 to 4 days for the thing to die. The "dragon" would stalk its dying prey until it finally expired.

However, the recently finished a DNA analysis of the Komodo's (and other lizards, to include iguanas) and determined that the Komodo is actually more closely related genetically to a particular kind of poisonous snake than it is to other lizards. So they looked again - to discover they actually DO secret poison. They also determined that iguana's were related to a kind of poisonous snake. This cleared up a minor mystery. It was supposedly well known among those who like exotic pets that iguana bites were often a lot nastier than one might expect from the size of the creature inflicting the damage. It was assumed that they, too, just had germy saliva.

It was supposedly well known among those who like exotic pets that iguana bites were often a lot nastier than one might expect from the size of the creature inflicting the damage.

I once blessed an iguana named Iggy on Saint Francis' Day. When his owners brought him forward, I reached out with reluctance and was assured by them that he was a vegetarian!

My hamster's a vegetarian, but seeing him yawn when he comes out of his little house of a morning would nevertheless make you think twice about messing with him before he's ready. (He's never bit me, but my kids' hamsters bit them - once enough to draw blood.)

My long dog is a vegetarian. He'll pass up meat for a stalk of asparagus or brocoli any day. My yard has become a desert, what with him having eaten all the bushes and flowers. He even ate the raspberry bushes, which is surprising because the stems are full of hard spines.

The tall dog just eats veggies because the long one does. You can see he doesn't really like them, but darn if he'll let the long one have anything without him getting some.

Your long dog told me to tell you that you dropped an s and typed desert by mistake.

for anyone experiencing a knee-jerk urge to hypercorrect TEd:

yard :: dessert <> long dog :: vegetarian

-ron obvious

No danger of beheading here, that one passed right over.

And never came back.

Dear Ro' Nobvious:

Does that mean that a vegetarian dog gets a yard-long dessert?