“Vitality — that is the test; and, whatever its components, mere truth is not necessarily one of them. A dragon, for instance, is a more enduring animal than a pterodactyl. I have never yet met anyone who really believed in a pterodactyl; but every honest person believes in dragons — down in the back-kitchen of his consciousness.” -Kenneth Grahame Outro Song: Just A Ride by Rishloo http://www.rishloo.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/living-as-ghosts-buildings/id976469574 BOOKS The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame on Amazon http://geni.us/TheReluctantDragon The Fruit, The Tree, And The Serpent: Why We See So Well by Lynne A. Isbell on Amazon http://geni.us/TheFruitTreeSerpent An Instinct For Dragons by David E. Jones on Amazon http://geni.us/AnInstinctForDragons The Dragons Of Eden by Carl Sagan on Amazon http://geni.us/TheDragonsofEden Kenneth Graham Biography by Peter Green on Amazon http://geni.us/KennethGrahame Dragons: The Myths, Legends and Lore by Doug Niles on Amazon http://geni.us/MythsLegendsandLore Dragons And Unicorns: A Natural History by Paul A. Johnsgard on Amazon http://geni.us/DragonsandUnicorns Dragons: A Natural History by Karl P. N. Shuker on Amazon http://geni.us/DragonsANaturalHistory Venomous: How Earth’s Deadliest Creatures Mastered Biochemistry by Christie Wilcox on Amazon http://geni.us/Venemous RESEARCH PAPERS Conditioned Electrodermal Responses To Masked Fear-Relevant Stimuli https://goo.gl/wiM9sE On The Automatic Nature Of Phobic Fear https://goo.gl/v94ovh Testing The Snake-Detection Hypothesis https://goo.gl/IICPk6 The Hidden Snake In The Grass https://goo.gl/Kj2uOs Humans Recognize Partially Obscured Snakes More Easily Than Other Animals https://goo.gl/oPyjad The Origin of Snake And Spider Fear https://goo.gl/ViXJDs The Narrow Fellow In The Grass https://goo.gl/vwId37 ARTICLES Afraid of Snakes? Your Pulvinar May Be To Blame by Carl Zimmer https://goo.gl/hoJGtu Fear Of Snakes, Spiders Rooted In Evolution by John Roach https://goo.gl/nOMD5h When You Were A Baby, You Were Not Scared Of Snakes by Melissa Hogenboom https://goo.gl/TbNNnL Why We Are Afraid Of Snakes by Ann Lukits https://goo.gl/AMzJBh Are Humans Predisposed To Fear Snakes by Nathan H. Lents https://goo.gl/cRqIUe Scientists Have A Scary Theory About Why Human Vision Evolved by Meghan Bartels https://goo.gl/3NGnvv East vs West Dragons https://goo.gl/hpharX NPR Lynne Isbell Snake Detection Theory https://goo.gl/tN9rPQ https://goo.gl/qlqOMW Ancestor Of All Placental Mammals https://goo.gl/AucczE ASSET CREDITS Fire-Breathing Dragon Sound Effect by CGEffex https://goo.gl/RKR589 Tablet V Photo of Epic of Gilgamesh by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin https://goo.gl/uHeImk https://goo.gl/Z9P820 Spanish Dragon Relief by Alexandre Perez Vigo https://goo.gl/T78u0Y Gilgamesh Statue Photos by ZulaikhaN and Samantha https://goo.gl/OtgIwM https://goo.gl/EtGjPb https://goo.gl/3rUZUy Eastern Dragon Gates picture by Okkisafire https://goo.gl/88oQfb Blindsight Experiment 1989 https://goo.gl/gkK3rY Lemurs Madagascar by Quentin Djaq Le Franc https://goo.gl/h9cSWG Lemurs Madagascar r by Andrew Quitmeyer https://goo.gl/LwWX3U World Map by Nicholas Raymond Changes Made https://goo.gl/SQa7u2 Harlow’s Studies On Dependency In Monkeys https://goo.gl/Y5iFf7 UCF In Print - David Jones https://goo.gl/tJ962k Die Nibelungen by Fritz Lang (1924) https://goo.gl/6yiKwD Artwork By Darrell K. Sweet Edward Burne-Jones Bernat Martorell George Timothy Tobin Arthur Rackham Briton Rivière Viktor Vasnetsov Qasim ibn ’Ali Ogata Gekko Donn P Crane Konstantin Vasilyev Thomas Cooper Gotch Chen Rong William Blake Harold Nelson Leonardo Da Vinci Emil Doepler Solomon Joseph Solomon Sir George Ripley Maximilian Liebenwein Georg Jenny Ulisse Aldrovandi John Bauer Gustav Doré Caravaggio VSAUCE CREDITS Written, Produced, Edited and Hosted by Kevin Lieber Instagram: http://instagram.com/kevlieber Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevinlieber Website: http://kevinlieber.com/ Contributing Researcher & Editor Matthew Tabor, Koala Fight Media http://koala.fm/ VFX by Eric Langlay null Sound Design by Jay Pellizzi http://jaypellizzi.com/ Select Music by Jake Chudnow null Special Thanks Hopi Hoekstra https://twitter.com/hopihoekstra Special Thanks Joshua Mark https://www.ancient.eu/user/JPryst/ Special Thanks Paula Lieber https://twitter.com/pixichuu Vsauce2 Links Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/VsauceTwo Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VsauceTwo Website: http://www.Vsauce.com/ The Curiosity Box null