Out Of Curiosity, What Is The Silliest Most Impossible Biology You've Seen Or Heard On A Mythological

Out of curiosity, what is the silliest most impossible biology you've seen or heard on a mythological creature? Like, "what am I even reading" tier.

I get that all the time!

We kind of take it for granted, but the Chimera is the original "this doesn't make sense" creature. Even the ancient Greeks figured that it had to have been inspired by some real-life event, like a volcano with lions, goats, and snakes on it.

The goat was the biggest issue. Nobody quite knew how it was supposed to be involved. My favorite interpretations are the ones where a whole half goat rises like a tumor out of the chimera's back, which I tried to replicate.

And since we're on the subject of Greek monsters that are confusing, what about Scylla? Homer gives her 6 heads and 12 legs and sticks her in a cave where she yaps like a puppy. Greek artists apparently couldn't figure out how to draw that so she evolved from a multi-headed dragon-thing into a mermaid with dogs coming out of her middle. As they do.

How do they go for walkies?

And then of course there's Typhon with his frankly ridiculous number of heads and arms, and then Nonnus decides to one-up that with his description of Campe in the Dionysiaca.

Moving on from Greek silliness though, you've got to appreciate the sheer what-the-heckery of the creature described by Iambulus and which, for lack of a better name, is called a geluchart.

It may be a turtle. Or a pufferfish.

And there's a bunch of weirdos in the Shan Hai Jing. Heard of multi-headed creatures? How about one head and many bodies?

The heluo-fish is weird.

And on the subject of multiples, what about Kuyutha? How does something have 40,000 eyes, 40,000 noses, 40,000 ears, 40,000 mouths, 40,000 tongues, and 40,000 legs?

I gave it a shot.

The creatures described by the Inuit mystic Anarqâq are also bizarre - if it wasn't for his drawings of them, I'd have no idea how to depict them myself. Igtuk, for example? He has arms and legs on on his back, one big eye level with his arms, ears on the same level, nose inside a cavernous mouth, and a tuft of thick hair on the chin.

Friendly!

I should probably also mention the chemosit. Because, you know. Nine buttocks.

What about life cycles? Basilisks and basilisk-adjacent creatures go through some absurd life cycles. The basilisk's is actually the simplest one - just have an egg laid by a rooster and incubated by a toad. Easy! But if you want a skoffin, you'll need a male fox to reproduce with a female cat, have the kittens born with their eyes open, and then have them sink into the ground to mature for 3 years before emerging as deadly monsters. And for a gallo de la muerte - a ROOSTER OF DEATH - you need a kite to lay a red egg in a gorse bush, the resulting black and white bird to live for fifty years, and then for a green worm to emerge from its decaying corpse and become said rooster of death.

But personally I think the prize for the most Outrageous and Downright Most Bizarre Creature I've seen yet goes to the Butatsch Cun Ilgs. That's right, the Swiss lake monster that's a giant cow stomach covered in thousands of eyes that can make fire erupt.

Defender of the peasantry!

That's all I've got off the top of my head. There's definitely more but that would have to wait for another time...