The Editors Recommend David E. Jones's An Instinct for Dragons . Routledge, New York, 2000.
Many societies have a concept of and a word for the dragon, even though the creature never existed.
Jones got his idea from the behavior of vervet monkeys in Africa. Most of the 40 illustrations in the book portray dragons as different societies envisioned them. The common theme is that they look scary. How Two Geologists' Dramatic Discoveries Changed Our Understanding of the Evolutionary Path to Modern Humans . Scribner, New York, 2000.