in my mind if dragons were real then western and eastern dragons would be only distantly related species filling the same ecological niche across different continents. but due to visual similarities got called the same thing in English. and it would be one of those things that you hear on trivia game shows and go “oh that’s neat” about and then move on with your day, like how tanuki get lumped in with racoons even tho racoons are musteloids and tanuki are canids. do you see my vision.
This is literally true. There are two well known real animals that are named “dragon,” they’re the komodo and bearded and they are not anywhere near closely related. (Also I guess the sea dragon which is basically a weird seahorse and not a reptile at all)