The catch

In 1553, Belon was the first to describe such a dragon in an illustrated academic work, De aquatilibus (On water creatures). As a researcher of nature, he was taken very seriously by his contemporaries. He was one of only a few people at the time that had traveled to faraway places such as the Middle East and North Africa, and who could provide eyewitness accounts of the local flora and fauna. He was one of the first to bring first-hand knowledge back to Europe about the hippo, the chameleon and the crocodile. Despite his in-depth knowledge of nature, Belon describes the dragon very earnestly, as if it was a real species. And yet, it’s clear that he knew something was off, or he wouldn’t have included the dragon in a chapter about rays.

The dragon he shows us is also a lot less manipulated than ours, and still bears an obvious resemblance to a stingray (see first image). It even still has his tail. Aldrovandi would later copy Belon’s image and add an enlarged image of the tail. There is no doubt that Belon, too, knew what he was dealing with. But why, then, didn’t he just say that he believed the animal wasn’t real?

The answer lies with the aforementioned Conrad Gessner, who would, in turn, reference Belon’s dragon five years later.