Here be dragons!
The BBC reported recently that villagers in central China have been using dinosaur bones as medicine - thinking they were from dragons.
The BBC reported recently that villagers in central China have been using dinosaur bones as medicine - thinking they were from dragons.
The bones have been dug up, then boiled in soup or ground down to make traditional medicines for decades.
The news emerged this week when scientists displayed some excavated bones at a museum in Henan Province.
"[People] believed that the bones were from dragons flying in the sky," one Chinese scientist said.
The "dragon bones', found in Henan's Ruyang County, were sold for approximately 4 yuan per kilogram.
"Local people used the bones as medicine to treat conditions such as dizziness and leg cramps," said Zhang Xinliao from Henan Geology Museum.
They were also made into a paste and applied to fractures and other injuries.
"Some locals even made a business out of collecting the bones. One had collected up to 8,000 kg," Zhang added.
Bones displayed this week at the museum were from an 18m-long plant-eating dinosaur.
The dinosaurs in this case are 85 to 100 million years old. I've heard of ancient medicine, but prehistoric?!