The Dragon Gets Its Fire: teacher key

Dragons and Mythical Creatures, grade 11 edition, written for 11th grade. How the winged, fire-breathing dragon of modern books was assembled over centuries from serpents, Chinese rivers, fossils, real lizards and sailors' tales.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What did Jess Nevins say fire-breathing dragons came from?
   • Fossils found in China
   • Fiction such as the Letter of Alexander to Aristotle (answer)
   • Volcanoes in Greece
2. What does the word drakon mean in Greek?
   • A flame
   • A castle
   • A serpent (answer)
3. Why could Komodo dragons not have inspired European dragons?
   • Europeans did not find them until 1910 (answer)
   • They live only in cold seas
   • They have no teeth
4. What was the Klagenfurt skull really from?
   • A two-legged dragon
   • A giant squid
   • A woolly rhinoceros (answer)
5. What did buyers in Europe take narwhal tusks for?
   • Dragon teeth
   • Unicorn horns (answer)
   • Mermaid combs
6. How did Europeans first learn of the Komodo dragon?
   • Rumors of a giant dragon-like lizard in the early 1900s (answer)
   • Old maps from Wales
   • Greek stories of Ladon

Words

• bestiary: animal book
• serpent: large snake
• fossil: ancient remains
• aurochs: wild cattle
• venom: poison bite