Types of Dragons: 70 Dragon Species From Myth, Folklore and Fantasy
Dragons sort into four body plans and everything else is a variation on them: a true dragon has four legs and two wings, a wyvern has two legs and two wings, a drake has four legs and no wings, and a wyrm has neither. On top of that sit the regional traditions, western dragons that hoard and burn and eastern dragons that bring rain and good fortune, and the modern elemental types invented by games. Below are 70 dragon types across all six groups, each with the one detail that tells it apart.
Most dragon lists are a pile of names with no system behind them, which is why nobody can ever remember the difference between a wyvern and a drake. There is a system, and it is simple: count the limbs.
Everything else follows from there. The body plan tells you how the dragon moves, the region tells you how it behaves, and the element or habitat tells you what it does to anything that gets close. This guide runs through all six groups in that order, then answers the questions people actually search for, including whether any of it was ever real.
The Dragon Family Tree: True Dragons and Their Relatives
Almost every dragon in myth, fiction or a game is one of these twelve body plans. Count the legs first, then look for wings. That single check separates most of them.
True dragon
Four legs, two wings, a breath weapon. The complete set, and the rarest
Wyvern
Two legs and two wings, built like a bat. Faster than a true dragon and far more common
Drake
Four legs, no wings. Low, heavy and usually the one guarding something
Wyrm
No legs, no wings, enormous. The oldest dragon shape in European legend
Lindworm
Two front legs and a serpent body dragging behind. Halfway between a drake and a wyrm
Amphiptere
A winged serpent with no legs at all. Small, quick and usually venomous
Sea serpent
A wyrm that never leaves the water. Long, finned, and blamed for a lot of missing ships
Hydra
Many heads on one body, each able to regrow. Aquatic, and famously hard to finish
Dragon turtle
A dragon head on a shelled body. Slow, armoured and tied to river mouths
Guivre
A wingless French dragon of wells and rivers, said to retreat from anyone who meets its eye
Basilisk and cockatrice
Not dragons, but filed beside them in every bestiary: small, crested, lethal at a glance
Salamander
A fire lizard from old natural history, believed to live inside flame without burning
Western Dragons From European Legend
The hoarding, burning, cave-dwelling kind. These are the specific named creatures the western template was built from, and most of them are older than the word "dragon" in English.
Fafnir
Norse. Took dragon shape out of greed and lay on a cursed hoard until it killed him
Nidhogg
Norse. The serpent gnawing at the root of the world tree from below
Jormungandr
Norse. A sea serpent long enough to circle the world and bite its own tail
Zmey Gorynych
Slavic. Three heads, three separate fires, and a habit of regrowing what you cut off
The Wawel Dragon
Polish. Lived in a cave under Krakow and was beaten by a trick rather than a sword
The Lambton Worm
English. Pulled from a river as something small, grew until it could coil round a hill
The Beowulf dragon
Anglo-Saxon. Woke over a single stolen cup and burned a kingdom for it
Y Ddraig Goch
Welsh. The red dragon on the flag, from a legend of two dragons fighting under a fort
The Tarasque
French. Six legs, a turtle shell and a lion head, out of the marshes of Provence
The Stoor Worm
Orkney. A sea dragon so large that its teeth were said to have become islands
The Knucker
Sussex. A water dragon living in bottomless pools still called knuckerholes
Cuelebre
Asturian. A winged serpent that guards cave treasure and never stops growing
Eastern Dragons of China, Japan and Korea
A different animal wearing the same English word. Eastern dragons are serpentine, wingless, associated with water rather than fire, and treated as bringers of good fortune instead of monsters to be killed.
Long
The Chinese dragon. Serpentine, wingless, flies regardless, and brings rain rather than fire
Tianlong
The celestial dragon, highest in the Chinese ranking, tied to the sky itself
Shenlong
The storm dragon. Blue, vast, and held responsible for rain and wind
Fucanglong
The treasure dragon of the deep earth, said to surface as a volcano
Dilong
The earth dragon, keeper of rivers, springs and the courses they run in
Yinglong
The winged dragon, described in the old texts as the oldest of the Chinese types
Jiaolong
A scaled river dragon. Folklore gives it a thousand years before it becomes a long
Panlong
The coiled lake dragon, which stays in the water and never takes to the sky
Ryu
The Japanese dragon. Three claws on each foot instead of the Chinese four or five
Yong
The Korean dragon, four-clawed, usually shown holding a pearl in one hand
Imugi
Korean. A lesser serpent waiting out centuries in the water before it becomes a yong
Rong
The Vietnamese dragon. A long body in smooth even curves with a mane like fire
Elemental Dragons and What Each One Actually Does
The modern classification, invented by games rather than folklore. It is useful because the element decides everything else: the breath weapon, the scale colour, the terrain and the way the dragon hunts.
Fire dragon
The default. Furnace gut, heat-proof scales, nests in volcanic rock and hunts by burning cover
Ice dragon
Breathes cold instead of heat. Pale, slow to anger, and hunts by freezing prey in place
Storm dragon
Lightning breath and a charge that builds in flight. Rides the front edge of weather
Wind dragon
No breath weapon to speak of. Wins by speed, downdraft and knocking things out of the air
Earth dragon
Stone-plated and slow. Tunnels rather than flies, and collapses ground under what it is chasing
Water dragon
Finned and smooth-scaled. Breathes a pressurised jet, and is faster underwater than in the air
Shadow dragon
Hunts at night with breath that puts out light. The hardest type to see coming
Crystal dragon
Light-breathing, faceted scales, blinding in direct sun. Usually the rarest type in any world
Poison dragon
Swamp-dwelling, dull green, with a corrosive breath that lingers after it has flown off
Metal dragon
Scales of iron or bronze. Nearly unkillable from the front, heavy enough that flight costs it
Magma dragon
Molten under a cracked black hide. Leaves burning ground wherever it lands
Forest dragon
Moss-grown and patient, green enough to be mistaken for terrain until it moves
Dragons Grouped by Where They Live
Habitat is the other way to sort dragons, and the more interesting one, because it explains the body. Every feature below is the animal solving a problem its home gave it.
Mountain dragon
Oversized wings for thin air, and a nest high enough that nothing can climb to it
Cave dragon
Pale, small-eyed, navigating by sound and heat. Wings folded tight for narrow passages
Desert dragon
Sand-coloured, water-storing, active at dawn and dusk and buried through the heat
Jungle dragon
Short broad wings for turning inside a canopy, and a hide patterned like broken light
Arctic dragon
White, heavily insulated, and able to sleep through the months when nothing moves
Deep sea dragon
Finned instead of winged, with light-making organs where a fire gut would be
Marsh dragon
Flat-footed ambush hunter that lies submerged with only the ridge of its back showing
Sky dragon
Almost never lands. Sleeps gliding, drinks from cloud and comes down only to nest
River dragon
Otter-shaped and quick in the shallows, fishing rather than hunting large prey
Ruin dragon
Nests in abandoned towers and collects metal, which is where the hoard legends start
Famous Dragons, and What Type Each One Is
The quickest way to make the taxonomy stick is to apply it to dragons you already know. A surprising number of the most famous ones are not the type people assume. These characters belong to their respective creators and studios, and are listed here as reference points for the classification rather than as names to use.
Smaug
The Hobbit. A true dragon in the book, redesigned as a wyvern for the films
Toothless
How to Train Your Dragon. A wyvern build, with a second pair of fins on the tail
Drogon
Game of Thrones. A wyvern: two legs, two wings, no front limbs at all
Falkor
The NeverEnding Story. A luck dragon, far closer to an eastern long than anything western
Saphira
Eragon. A true dragon, four legs and two wings, bonded to a rider
Draco
DragonHeart. A true dragon, and the clearest example of the classic build put on screen
Mushu
Mulan. An eastern-style dragon shrunk to lizard size, serpentine body and short legs
Norberta
Harry Potter. A Norwegian Ridgeback: four legs, two wings, raised from an egg
Elliott
Pete’s Dragon. Four legs, small wings, and the ability to stop being visible
Spyro
Games. A small four-legged true dragon built for gliding rather than distance flight
Charizard
Pokemon. Two arms, two legs and two wings, which makes it a true dragon by shape
Sisu
Raya and the Last Dragon. An eastern water dragon, wingless, with a mane instead of horns
Wyvern, drake or wyrm? How to tell them apart
This is the single most searched dragon question, and the answer takes two seconds once you know what to look at. Ignore the head, the horns and the colour. Count the legs, then check whether the wings are separate limbs or the front legs themselves.
| Type | Legs | Wings | Typical size | Usually found |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| True dragon | 4 | Yes, a separate pair | Largest | Mountains, caves, hoards |
| Wyvern | 2 | Yes, the front limbs | Large, lighter built | Cliffs and open sky |
| Drake | 4 | None | Medium, heavy | Ground level, guarding |
| Wyrm | 0 | None | Very long | Water, tunnels, deep earth |
| Lindworm | 2, at the front | None | Medium | Forests and old roads |
| Amphiptere | 0 | Yes | Small | Trees and open country |
A wyvern is the one people get wrong most often, because film and television keep calling them dragons. Drogon, Smaug in the Peter Jackson films, and almost every dragon in a modern fantasy series are wyverns: their wings are their arms, the way a bat or a bird is built. A true dragon has six limbs, which no land animal on Earth actually has, and that is part of why the older design feels more mythical.
The rest of the vocabulary is regional rather than biological. Wyrm, worm and wurm are the same word in three languages, and a lindworm is a wyrm that grew a pair of arms somewhere in the retelling.
Eastern and western dragons are not the same animal
Two separate traditions ended up sharing one English word, and the result is a lot of confusion. They agree on almost nothing except that the creature is enormous and older than you.
| Trait | Western dragon | Eastern dragon |
|---|---|---|
| Body | Bulky, four legs, bat wings | Long and serpentine, no wings |
| Element | Fire | Water, rain and storm |
| How it flies | Wings | Without any visible means |
| Role in stories | Monster to be killed | Bringer of luck and good harvests |
| What it wants | Treasure, and to be left alone with it | Balance, rivers and weather in order |
| Meeting one | The worst day of your life | A good omen |
The claw count is the detail collectors care about. Chinese dragons are usually drawn with four claws on each foot and five on imperial ones, Korean dragons with four, and Japanese dragons with three. The old joke is that dragons lose a claw the further they travel from China, and the Japanese version is that they gain one travelling the other way.
The closest things to a real dragon
No animal has ever combined wings, four legs and fire. Several have come close enough on one axis to keep the idea alive, and two of them are probably where the legends started.
Animals that carry the name
- The Komodo dragon, up to three metres of predatory lizard on Indonesian islands, with a bite that combines bacteria and venom. It is the largest lizard alive and the best argument that a small dragon is possible.
- Draco volans, the flying lizard of Southeast Asia, which extends a set of elongated ribs into a wing and glides between trees for up to 30 metres. Wings from ribs rather than arms is a genuinely dragon-like solution.
- The frilled lizard of Australia, which opens a collar of skin around its head and runs upright on two legs when threatened.
- The leafy sea dragon, a relative of the seahorse covered in leaf-shaped fins that make it invisible against kelp.
- The black dragonfish, a deep sea predator that produces red light, which almost nothing down there can see, and uses it as a private searchlight.
Where the legends probably came from
Two sources explain most dragon myths. The first is fossils: a Protoceratops skull eroding out of a cliff in Mongolia, or a plesiosaur in a European quarry, looks exactly like the remains of something that should not exist, and cultures with no concept of extinction had to explain it somehow. The second is large snakes and crocodiles, which are real, dangerous, and easy to exaggerate over a few retellings.
The fire is the one part with no natural precedent, though the bombardier beetle sprays a boiling chemical jet, and several fish and squid produce light chemically. Nothing on Earth breathes flame, and the physics of storing a fuel next to an ignition source inside a living body is the main reason it stays fiction.
Build your own dragon type in three questions
If you are inventing a dragon for a story, a game or a drawing, answer these three in order. Each one narrows the next, and the result is a creature that holds together instead of a list of cool features.
- What is the body plan? True dragon, wyvern, drake, wyrm or amphiptere. This decides how it moves and therefore how it hunts, so pick it before anything else.
- What is the element? Fire, ice, storm, shadow, poison, crystal or none at all. The element sets the breath weapon and the scale colour, and a dragon with no element is a perfectly good choice if you want the animal to feel real.
- Where does it live? Mountain, cave, desert, deep sea, marsh or ruin. Habitat is what makes the design specific: a cave dragon should have small eyes, a desert dragon should be pale, and a jungle dragon needs short wings to turn between trees.
One extra rule worth applying: give it exactly one weakness that comes from the answers above rather than from nowhere. A metal dragon is slow in the air because it is heavy. An ice dragon struggles near volcanic ground. A shadow dragon is close to helpless in open daylight. A weakness that follows from the design is the difference between a creature and a stat block.
Flying a dragon in Flying Dragon’s Life Simulator
Reading about dragon types only goes so far. Flying Dragon’s Life Simulator is our dragon life sim for iPhone and iPad, and it is built around the western template above: a four-limbed winged dragon, a territory of mountains, caves, lakes and islands, and a life to run rather than a level to finish.
You hunt on land, in the sea and in the air, train and upgrade your dragon, fight boss animals including raptors and dinosaurs, and change your dragon’s colour to whatever type you have decided it is. Building a nest, finding a mate and raising baby dragons is the part that turns a flight sim into a life sim, and it is also the part that rewards having picked a type: a family of ice dragons on the high ground plays differently to a forest pair living low.
It is a paid game at $9.99 with no ads and no in-app purchases, rated 9+, single player, and it works offline. Gamepad support arrived in version 1.5 if you would rather fly with sticks than with a touchscreen.
Fly one instead of reading about it
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Frequently Asked Questions
What are the different types of dragons?
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Dragons divide first by body plan: true dragons (four legs, two wings), wyverns (two legs, two wings), drakes (four legs, no wings), wyrms (no legs, no wings), lindworms (two front legs only) and amphipteres (winged serpents). They then divide by tradition, western versus eastern, and in modern fantasy by element, such as fire, ice, storm, shadow, poison and crystal.
What is the difference between a wyvern and a dragon?
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A wyvern has four limbs: two legs and two wings, with the wings taking the place of the front arms, like a bat. A true dragon has six limbs: four legs plus a separate pair of wings. Wyverns are usually smaller and faster, and most dragons in modern film and television, including Drogon in Game of Thrones, are wyverns by this definition.
What is a dragon with no legs called?
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A wyrm, also spelled worm or wurm. It has no legs and no wings, and is essentially an enormous serpent. The Lambton Worm and the Orkney Stoor Worm are classic examples. A wyrm with a single pair of front legs is a lindworm, and a legless dragon that does have wings is an amphiptere.
What is the strongest type of dragon?
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By the traditional hierarchy, the true dragon: it is the largest body plan, keeps its front legs as weapons while still flying, and is the version that hoards treasure and levels kingdoms in legend. In eastern tradition the celestial dragon ranks highest, though power there means authority over sky and weather rather than strength in a fight.
Are dragons real?
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No animal has ever combined wings, four legs and fire, and none breathes flame. Several real animals carry the name and come close on one point: the Komodo dragon is a three metre venomous lizard, and Draco volans glides between trees on wings made from elongated ribs. Most historians think dragon legends grew out of fossils, which looked like the remains of impossible animals, and out of large snakes and crocodiles.
What is the difference between eastern and western dragons?
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Western dragons are bulky, winged, fire-breathing hoarders and are the monster of the story. Eastern dragons are long and serpentine with no wings, are associated with water, rain and rivers, fly without any visible means, and are treated as bringers of luck rather than as creatures to be killed. The claw count also differs: Chinese dragons usually have four or five, Korean four, and Japanese three.
What is a baby dragon called?
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A wyrmling, which is the standard term in fantasy for a newly hatched dragon, or simply a hatchling. Older sources use "dragonet" for a small or young dragon. Dragons in almost every tradition hatch from eggs, and the long lifespan means the young stage can last decades.
What type of dragon is Toothless?
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A wyvern. Toothless has two legs and two wings with no separate front limbs, which is the wyvern body plan, plus an extra pair of tail fins that the films use to explain his flight problem. Smaug is a true dragon in the book of The Hobbit but was redesigned as a wyvern for the films.
Is there a game where I can fly a dragon?
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Flying Dragon’s Life Simulator is our dragon life sim for iPhone and iPad. You fly a winged dragon across mountains, caves, lakes and islands, hunt on land, sea and air, fight boss animals, change your dragon’s colour, and build a nest to raise baby dragons. It is $9.99 with no ads or in-app purchases, rated 9+, and supports gamepads from version 1.5.