[Part 1] Is a Dragon a Chimera? | Various Chimeras of the World & Element-Recombined Chimeras

I know I shouldn't have, but I've started another series-like thing.
I have so many things that have ended halfway through, yet I never learn.
My meta-self is whispering that to me from diagonally above my head.

■ I became curious about the true nature of dragons ■

So, I posted the following article a while ago.

I looked into the "since when" of that dragon at the water purification pavilion, but this time, I became curious about "who exactly is a dragon in the first place?"

For now, I think it's safe to include dragons as chimeras.
Let's define a chimera for the time being as follows:

"An imaginary creature created by combining parts of multiple real animals."

In English, it's chimera.
It originates from the Greek khimaira.
The Chimera is a proper noun and is also a type of chimera (monster), but I won't go into that too deeply this time.

So, what kind of chimera is a dragon?
Wang Fu, a figure from the Eastern Han dynasty in China, proposed a theory called the "Three Stops and Nine Resemblances" theory.
It's a theory name that reminds me of a rakugo performer's name.
This is an analysis of dragon parts as follows.

Strictly speaking, it's a theory about which animal's parts the dragon's parts resemble, but no, wait a minute!

What do you mean, a clam's belly?
Even if I concede a hundred steps, no, five hundred steps, and admit that some part of a clam's body is its belly, a dragon's belly has zero clam elements.

Let me illustrate it.

The rabbit's eyes, the snake's neck, the camel's head, and the tiger's palms are also hard to see.
Are you okay, person from the Eastern Han dynasty?

■ Humans love to "mix" ■

Monjayaki, namul, and goya chanpuru are all mixed.
Ways of eating that involve mixing various things exist all over the world.

Basically, I personally think that humans have an instinctual desire to "stick things together" and "mix things."

Then why did we expand this "mixing" to the imaginary world of chimeras?
I will present three hypotheses.

Thinking this way, we can explain why people in "certain black companies (industries)" want to have dragons tattooed on their backs (from 1), why dragon water spouts and dragon paintings are in shrines (from 2), and legends about dragon gods being sealed in barriers (from 3).

■ Digest of a tour of the world's chimeras ■

Besides dragons, various chimeras have been passed down in East Asia, such as the Genbu (though I feel like that's just a snake and a turtle tangled together...), the Nue (monkey + raccoon dog + tiger + snake), and perhaps even the Kirin (various animals + beer) counts, too.

In Greece, a treasure trove of mythology, there is the Chimera (lion + goat + snake), the Griffin (eagle + lion), and the Centaur (human + horse).
Sphinx (human + lion + eagle) counts as well.

In Mesopotamia, there seems to have been the Mushkhushshu (snake + lion + eagle + scorpion). It has a somewhat dragon-like image. In India, there is a chimera called the


Makara (elephant + crocodile + fish), and at Indian temples, it spits water from its mouth.

Come to think of it, Singapore's symbol, the Merlion (lion + fish), is also a chimera.
Although there is a legend, it was established in that form in 1964.
Chimeras are still being created today, aren't they?

■If so, it's also an option to think of one yourself!■

If a person from the Later Han dynasty were to break down a dragon into the parts of nine animals, what would happen if you combined the other parts of those nine animals?

I have generated images of an imaginary chimera with the following combinations.

The result is here.

Honestly, AI is convenient.
It generated the image exactly as ordered.
Its back is just packed with stuff!

Changing the animal parts that make up the dragon resulted in a completely different chimera.
This is truly a new dragon, a New Dragon!

Since it's boring as is, I will name it Ororon.
It has no meaning.
I just combined the sound and some kanji that aren't used much in Japan.

Earlier, I raised three hypotheses as to why humans have created chimeras.
From a perspective unrelated to those three, I created a new chimera with the idea of,
"What happens if you collect cute animal parts?"

The elements are as follows.

The result is here.

Wow!
Isn't it unexpectedly cute?
I feel like the cat's face is a bit too human-like, but let's allow it.

In the AI generation service (?), it took the liberty of adding acorns inside the kangaroo's pouch.
It seems it was aiming for increased cuteness. Well done.

Based on an intuitive image, I will name this chimera Punya.

■"Chimeras" that exist in the real world■

Creatures that resemble chimeras do exist in the real world.
However, since they are born through crossbreeding, they are basically limited to two types, and only those of closely related species.

Therefore, the expression "XX × YY" seems more appropriate than "XX + YY".

Liger(lion father × tiger mother), Tigon(tiger father × lion mother), Leopon(leopard father × lion mother), and so on.

Leopons were artificially created at the Koshien Hanshin Park, an amusement park and zoo located next to Koshien Stadium.

Five were born, but they had low reproductive capacity and all ended with a single generation.
This is a major difference from imaginary chimeras that have been passed down for over a thousand years.

Furthermore, although the leopons were stuffed and put on display, they lost their "home" when the exhibition facility closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they now exist quietly somewhere.

Also, the bear discovered in 2006, sometimes called a grolar bear, is a hybrid of a grizzly bear and a polar bear.

It is said that they may have been born from the crossbreeding of the two types of bears due to the effects of climate change.
I would like to investigate this in detail at some point.

Unlike imaginary chimeras, real-world chimeras (though they are merely hybrids) seem to harbor various modern social issues.