World’s Strangest

flying dragon lizardXianglong (meaning “flying lizard” in Chinese) is a genus of Cretaceous lizard discovered in the Liaoning Province of China. It is known from LPM 000666, a single complete skeleton with skin impressions. The specimen comes from the Barremian-age Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation, near Yizhou. The most notable feature about Xianlong is its bizarre [...]

Photo: Virgil England Artist Virgil England is best known for his custom fantasy-inspired knives and swords. But in 1990, he stepped outside of this domain to create a life-sized (if that’s an appropriate term for an imaginary creature) dragon skeleton in Chugach National Forest in Alaska: The part of the Dragon that is exposed is about 18 [...]

(YouTube Link) The Lucky Dragon is a work by Japanese artist Yanobe Kenji. It is a water and fire-shooting articulated steel dragon head with glowing eyes mounted on a 15-meter long cruise boat. The video above is of the boat in action at Aqua Metropolis festival in Osaka. It’s scheduled to make similar demonstrations in Osaka’s [...]

It was a busy Labor Day weekend in Atlanta, Georgia, and the mental_floss staff was smack in the middle of the action. Not only were we rockin’ the mental_floss booth at the Decatur Book Festival, but we were able to sneak away for a little fun at Dragon*Con on Saturday night. For those unfamiliar with [...]