Dragons as People

The Dragons of NewEarth are mammals, they are intelligent, each has their own personality with strengths and weaknesses and they are people. Just as humans have difficulty accepting another species as being equal, so do the dragons. Obviously these are not the legendary dragons of earth mythology so how did they come to be called dragons? Shortly after arrival, the first contact was made when a new territory dragon flew into camp, trying to initiate contact with the newcomers to the planet. The humans ran, hid and tried to attack the dragon from cover. That dragon reported to the others that these newcomers were primitive, unable to communicate and probably no danger to the planet.