Draconika

Dragon Species

Descriptions of various specific kinds of dragons.

There are various kinds of dragons in lore around the world. Here is a list of specific kinds of dragons from various traditions, arranged alphabetically. For the broad body types, such as wyverns, lindworms, and amphipteres, see our overview of dragon types. For individual dragons with personal names, such as Fáfnir or Smaug, see famous dragons.

Every entry below comes from myth, folklore, or religion, not from modern fantasy. Spellings vary between sources, so common alternate names are given where they help.

Dragon Species by Region

Amaru

The amaru is a mythical serpent of the Andes. In Quechua, the Inca language, the word means "serpent," and the mythic amaru was imagined as a great snake that could have two heads, wings, or the features of a llama or a bird. It was linked to water, the underworld, and the upheaval of the earth. Several Inca rulers carried the name, most famously Túpac Amaru, the last Inca ruler of Vilcabamba, executed by the Spanish in 1572.

Apep

Apep (in Greek, Apophis) was the great serpent of chaos in ancient Egyptian religion. Each night, as the sun god Ra sailed his boat through the underworld, Apep attacked him and tried to swallow the sun. Gods such as Set and Mehen defended the boat, and Egyptian priests performed rituals to help, including writing Apep's name on papyrus and burning it. Apep is described as an enormous snake rather than a winged dragon, but he fills the same role as the chaos dragons of other cultures.

Chimera

A fire-breathing monster of Greek myth, part lion, part goat, and part serpent, killed by the hero Bellerophon riding Pegasus. See article: Chimera

Drakon

The Greek drakon is the ancestor of our word "dragon." It probably comes from a verb meaning "to see clearly," a reference to the snake's unblinking stare. Greek drakones were giant serpents, usually wingless, that guarded sacred places and treasures. Examples include Python, killed by Apollo at Delphi; Ladon, who guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides; and the never-sleeping serpent that guarded the Golden Fleece in Colchis. The many-headed Hydra belongs to the same family.

Jiaolong (蛟龍)

The jiao or jiaolong is a Chinese water dragon, often described as scaled and hornless. It lives in rivers, lakes, and floods, and classical writers sometimes treated it as a lesser or not-yet-mature dragon. Unlike the rain-bringing celestial dragons, the jiao could be dangerous. A famous story tells how the hero Zhou Chu killed a jiao that was terrorizing his district.

Kulshedra and Bolla

In Albanian folklore, the bolla is a serpent that sleeps through most of the year. As it ages, it grows into the kulshedra, a monstrous female dragon with many heads (seven to twelve, depending on the account), who causes droughts by hoarding water and can spit fire. Her enemy is the drangue, a winged human hero born with special powers, who fights her with lightning and thunder. The pattern of a storm hero against a water-hoarding serpent appears in many cultures.

Lindworm

The lindworm (Swedish lindorm, German Lindwurm) is a giant serpent-dragon from Scandinavian and German tradition. It usually has no wings and either two front legs or none. Lindworms coil around treasure, devour cattle, and sometimes turn out to be enchanted princes, as in the Scandinavian fairy tale The Bride of the Lindorm King. Swedish rune stones from the Viking Age often frame their inscriptions inside the long body of a serpent, and the Ramsund carving in Sweden shows the hero Sigurd stabbing the serpent-dragon Fáfnir of the Völsunga saga from below.

Mušḫuššu

The mušḫuššu (also written mushhushshu or sirrush) is a dragon of ancient Mesopotamia. Its name is usually translated "furious snake" or "reddish snake." It has a scaly body, a snake's head with a horn and forked tongue, lion-like front feet, and an eagle's back talons. It became the sacred animal of Marduk, chief god of Babylon. Rows of mušḫuššu in glazed brick decorate the Ishtar Gate built by King Nebuchadnezzar II, now partly rebuilt in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.

Nāga

The nāgas are serpent beings of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain tradition. They live in watery underworld kingdoms, guard treasure, and control rain. Some are cobras, some have many heads, and some take human or half-human form. They are not usually evil. The serpent king Shesha supports the god Vishnu, and the nāga king Mucalinda sheltered the meditating Buddha from a storm. When Buddhism spread to China and Japan, nāgas were often translated as dragons, which is why many East Asian dragon kings have Indian roots.

Orochi

Yamata no Orochi is the eight-headed, eight-tailed serpent of Japanese myth, described in the Kojiki (712) and Nihon Shoki (720). It was so large that it stretched over eight valleys and eight hills. The storm god Susanoo tricked it into drinking eight vats of strong sake, then cut it to pieces while it slept. Inside one tail he found the sword Kusanagi, which became one of the three sacred treasures of Japan's imperial house. See also Yorimasa the Dragon-Slayer.

Panlong (蟠龍)

The panlong, or "coiled dragon," is a Chinese dragon that lives on earth, coiled up and waiting, and has not yet risen to heaven. It is a common motif on bronze vessels, roof beams, and the pillars of temples and palaces. The idea of a dragon lying low until its time comes became a metaphor for talented people who have not yet found their chance.

Piasa

The Piasa was a huge painting of a monster on the limestone bluffs of the Mississippi River near present-day Alton, Illinois. The French explorer Jacques Marquette saw it in 1673 and described two painted creatures with horns like a deer, red eyes, a bearded face, scaly bodies, and very long tails. The original painting was destroyed in the 1800s, and a modern reconstruction now stands near the site. Its meaning to the people who painted it is not certain, but it likely relates to the underwater panther and horned serpent beings of many Native American traditions.

Ryūjin

Ryūjin, the dragon god of the sea, is the most important dragon in Japanese myth. He rules from Ryūgū-jō, a palace of red and white coral at the bottom of the ocean, and controls the tides with magical jewels. The fisherman Urashima Tarō visited his palace in a famous folk tale. In the Nihon Shoki, the sea god's daughter Toyotama-hime turns into a dragon while giving birth; her grandson became Jimmu, the legendary first emperor, which gave the imperial family a dragon ancestor. Read a related tale in A Stay at the Waters Kingdom.

Tarasque

The Tarasque was a dragon that terrorized the region of Tarascon in Provence, in southern France. Later retellings give it a lion-like head, six short bear-like legs, a turtle shell covered in spikes, and a scaly tail. According to the legend recorded in the Golden Legend, Saint Martha tamed it with prayer and holy water and led it away on her girdle, after which the townspeople killed it. Tarascon still parades a model of the Tarasque at its festival each summer, a tradition UNESCO lists among the processional giants and dragons of Belgium and France.

Uktena

The Uktena is a great horned serpent of Cherokee tradition, recorded by the ethnologist James Mooney in Myths of the Cherokee (1900). It was as thick as a tree trunk, had horns on its head, and had a bright blazing crest on its forehead like a diamond. Seeing it was dangerous, and its breath was deadly. Cherokee healers prized the crest, called the Ulunsuti, as a powerful crystal for seeing the future.

Vishap

The vishap is a water dragon of Armenian myth, associated with mountains, lakes, and storms. The thunder god Vahagn was celebrated in old songs as a "dragon reaper" who fought vishaps. Large carved stones called vishapakar ("dragon stones"), many shaped like fish and some dating back thousands of years, still stand in the Armenian highlands, often near springs.

Xiuhcóatl

The Xiuhcóatl is an Aztec fire serpent. It was related to the cult of Xiuhtecuhtli, the fire god and lord of the year. The serpent played an important role in Aztec religion. The Xiuhcóatl is portrayed with the head of a serpent, short legs ending in claws and a curved snout.

The name means "turquoise serpent" or "fire serpent" in Nahuatl. In the Aztec story of his birth, the war god Huitzilopochtli was born fully armed on the hill of Coatepec and used a Xiuhcóatl as his weapon to destroy his sister Coyolxauhqui. Two great fire serpents circle the outer edge of the famous Aztec Sun Stone, their bodies made of flame-like segments. The Xiuhcóatl is often contrasted with Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent.

Yinglong (應龍)

Known as the Proper Conduct Dragon or Responding Dragon, the yinglong is the best-known Chinese dragon portrayed with wings. It is mentioned frequently in myths about the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. As with other Chinese dragons, yinglong is a guardian of the waters of the earth and is associated with the clouds of heaven. According to the Yuanjian Leihan (Yuen Kien Lei Han), a Qing dynasty encyclopedia, dragons gain wings after 1,000 years.

The character ying (應) means "to respond" or "to answer," so the name is usually translated as "responding dragon."

The Shan Hai Jing (Classic of Mountains and Seas) says the yinglong fought for the Yellow Emperor and killed his enemies Chiyou and Kuafu. Afterward it could not return to heaven, and it settled in the south, which is why the south receives so much rain. In another legend, the yinglong helped Yu the Great tame the Great Flood by dragging its tail across the ground to mark where channels should be dug.

Žaltys

A žaltys was a guardian serpent in Baltic tradition. The plural form of žaltys is žalčiai. In 1604, Jesuit missionaries reported:

The people have reached such a stage of madness that they believe that deity exists in reptiles. Therefore they carefully safeguard them, lest someone injure the reptiles kept inside their homes. Superstitiously they believe that harm would come to them, should anyone show disrespect to these reptiles...

The žalčiai are harmless grass snakes, indigenous to the Baltic region. Their scientific name is Natrix natrix. The woodland variety is dark gray, while the domestic kind is usually green. Some have two distinctive crescent shapes on their heads.

In the folk tale Eglė the Queen of Serpents, the Serpent King is a žaltys.

Žalčiai are associated with sexual life, and encountering such a snake prophesied marriage or birth. It was sometimes given a privileged place under the bed of a married couple. Fertility was essential to prosperity, so a žaltys was seen to bring happiness and prosperity.

The Sun Goddess, Saule, loved žalčiai. It was written: "Do not leave a dead žaltys on a field, bury it. The sight of a dead žaltys would cause the Sun to cry."

Zhulong (燭龍)

The Zhulong, or "Torch Dragon," is a giant red dragon from the Shan Hai Jing. It has a human face and a serpent's body a thousand li long, and it lives in the far north where the sun does not shine. When it opens its eyes it is day, and when it closes them it is night. Its breathing makes the seasons, and it neither eats nor drinks. It is one of the oldest Chinese examples of a dragon as a cosmic force.

Zmey

The zmey (also zmei or zmaj) is the dragon of Slavic folklore. In Russian tales and epic songs, Zmey Gorynych is a dragon with three or more heads who breathes fire and kidnaps princesses, and the hero Dobrynya Nikitich defeats him. In Bulgarian and Serbian folklore, the zmey can be a more protective figure, a fiery male dragon who guards crops against the hail-bringing female lamia or hala. Polish legend has its own dragon, the smok, best known from the legend of Krakus and the Wawel dragon.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the oldest kind of dragon?

Some of the oldest dragon-like beings in writing are the serpents of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, such as the mušḫuššu and Apep. In China, dragon-shaped figures made of shells have been found in graves around 6,000 years old.

Are nāgas dragons?

Nāgas are serpent beings rather than dragons in the European sense, but they share many traits, such as guarding treasure and controlling water. Chinese and Japanese Buddhists often translated "nāga" as "dragon."

Which dragon has the most heads?

Among well-known dragons, Japan's Yamata no Orochi has eight heads, and the Greek Hydra is often given nine or more, regrowing two for each one cut off.

Are any real animals called dragons?

Yes. The Komodo dragon of Indonesia is the world's largest living lizard, and several other lizards, such as bearded dragons and flying dragons, share the name. None of them breathe fire.

Sources and Further Reading

  • The Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shan Hai Jing), trans. Anne Birrell (Penguin Classics, 1999).
  • Kojiki, trans. Donald L. Philippi (University of Tokyo Press, 1968).
  • The Saga of the Volsungs, trans. Jesse L. Byock (Penguin Classics, 1999).
  • Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton University Press, 2012).
  • James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee (Bureau of American Ethnology, Nineteenth Annual Report, 1900).
  • Joseph Fontenrose, Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins (University of California Press, 1959).
  • M. W. de Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan (Johannes Müller, 1913).
  • Daniel Ogden, The Dragon in the West: From Ancient Myth to Modern Legend (Oxford University Press, 2021).