Scientists at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Australia have issued an apology to a 7-year-old girl after they were unable to fulfill her request for a pet dragon.

Sophie Lester of Queensland made the request for the mythical beast in a letter that begins “Hello Lovely Scientist.”


“My name is Sophie and I am 7 years old. My dad told me about the scientists at the CSIRO. Would it be possible if you can make a dragon for me. I would like it if you could but if you can’t thats fine. I would call it toothless if it was a girl and if it is a boy I would name it Stuart. I would keep it in my special green grass area where there are lots of space. I would feed it raw fish and I would put a collar on it. If it got hurt I would bandage it if it hurt himself. I would play with it every weekend when there is no school.”

In an effort to be helpful, Sophie included a diagram of what the dragon should look like.

Even though CSIRO has been around since 1926, the organization is still unable to create a dragon.

They felt obligated to apologize.

“Over the past 87 odd years we have not been able to create a dragon or dragon eggs. We have sighted an eastern bearded dragon at one of our telescopes, observed dragonflies and even measured body temperatures of the mallee dragon. But our work has never ventured into dragons of the mythical, fire breathing variety. And for this, Australia, we are sorry.”

It’s not quite as good, but scientists at CSIRO have made Sophie a 3D-printed titanium dragon instead.

[Metro] [Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization]