Wyvern

Wyverns are dragons with one pair of wings and one pair of legs (usually front legs). In the past, there was more confusion about the number of wings and legs. Some authors used wyvern, cockatrice and lindworm interchangably, or to mean different things. This eventually standardized into the wyvern that is recognized today.

These dragons are common in heraldry. They can symbolize envy, war, pestilence and viciousness. A drop of their blood can give humans the ability to understand bird-speech. Their skin, if eaten, can impart knowledge of the natural world. Their claws make powerful taslimans.

A German tale from the 1200s tells of a lindworm that lived near Klagenfurt. Flooding threatened travelers along the river, and the presence of a dragon was blamed. A Duke offered a reward for anyone who could catch it, so some young men tied a bull to a chain, and when the lindworm swallowed the bull, it was hooked like a fish and killed.

In 1335, when the skull of a wooly rhinoceros was found in a cave nearby, it was believed to be the dragon's skull and is currently on display in Klagenfurt. You can also see the Lindwurm fountain in Neuer Platz at the city centre.

Wyverns are not as large or as intelligent as dragons. They do make fierce gaurdians. Some cryptozoologists have theorized that wyverns are evidence of surviving pterosaurs, a large flying reptile thought to have gone extinct around 65 million years ago. There are alleged sightings in remote areas of pterosaur-like creatures known as the Kongamato in Africa. But this may be a different species altogether.