Hic Sunt Dracones

by Ark Encounter on August 10, 2012

In 1841 British paleontologist Richard Owen coined the word dinosauria. Until that time, dinosaurs were simply called dragons, and stories of dragons abounded all over the world. They were prominent in the history of Great Britain and practically an obsession with the Chinese. In Ica, Peru, people painted stones with pictures of men riding dragons horseback-style! Even in the American West, men drew pictographs of dragons.


This fire breathing dragon began appearing on billboards around the USA to promote the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky. The museum features a theater that presents dragon legends from around the world.

The fact that man and dragons lived together is hard to deny. You can also read articles on our website ( presenting additional evidence that dragons were contemporaneous with humans.

The Bible tells us God created the land-dwelling animals on Day Six of Creation—aardvarks to zebras … and dragons/dinosaurs. We’re also told that when God brought Noah’s Flood upon the earth, all air-breathing land creatures except those inside Noah’s Ark died. Therefore, the dragons recorded down through history must have been descendants of dragons aboard Noah’s Ark.

But aren’t dragons huge? How could they fit inside the Ark?

Contrary to popular opinion, the average size was only about that of a sheep. It’s the huge ones, however, that we usually think of. But Noah didn’t have to take huge, full-grown adults. A hatching male and female Allosaurus would have fit handily in his two coat pockets.

To see just how large the Ark was, what it might have been like to live and work and play inside it, and what kinds of animals might have been aboard it, plan a visit to the Ark Encounter when it opens in northern Kentucky in a few years. Only when you enter our full-size replica of Noah’s Ark, beware. Hic sunt dracones—here there be dragons!