I am being a little hasty in reply and I haven't fully read the thread yet, so I am sorry if this point is moot.
I have to ask do u think Tolkien met living examples of Homo floresiensis (the race lovingly refereed to as Hobbits by modern scientists)?
Mythology and story telling are wonderful, and many bizarre and beautiful creatures have been spawned from human imaginations - but as they say any similarity to people(creatures) living or dead is purely coincidental
I should also add why would existng dinosaurs affect our understanding of evolution at all? It'd be cool to imagine Dinosaurs VS Cavemen like in an old B-Movie but it wouldn't change Evolutionary theory one jot - although there would be quite a few red faced palaeontologists. If there is a chain of logic linking Dinosuars => No Evolution I'm afraid it eludes me
R u expecting to find fossilised Griffons, Hydras, unicorns, cthulhu, centaurs, goblins, orks, elves, the StayPuffed MarshmellowMan, etc
Even if there is a link between fossils and dragon lore it is simpler to suggest that the fossils inspired the stories similar to how elephant remains inspired stories of the cyclops
Edited by GrimSqueaker, : No reason given.