From giant sea monsters to rabbits with horns, here are the top 9 creatures people used to
believe actually existed!
9.
Sea Serpent The best place for the imagination to run
wild is the ocean!
And sea serpents are enormous creatures believed to attack ships and terrify sailors and fishermen
around the world.
In a way, sea serpents are closely related to dragons.
In fact, they could be interpreted as sea-dragons, because people depicted them in almost the
same way, except they were drawn in the ocean on maps.
The famous Loch Ness monster is also a famous example of a mysterious sea serpent (albeit
in a lake).
These imaginary creatures probably came to be because in the past, our knowledge of the
ocean was very slim, even now we could argue we still don’t know that much about it.
People attributed every suspicious sighting to some fantastical creature, most likely
mysterious and dangerous.
And there no better creature to scare you to death than a giant sea snake!
Scientists now believe that all those sightings reported by sailors were big sharks, giant
squids or some species of whales, but back in the day – sea serpents were the stuff
of legend.
Some fanatics even went so far as to collect different types of bones and join them together
in sea-serpent “skeletons”, exhibiting them as real evidence of the animal’s existence.
Who knows what Frankenstein monsters those were – they probably contained bones of
dozens of different animals!
8.
Jackalope The jackrabbit with antelope’s antlers,
the Jackalope is one of the most amazing imaginary animals ever.
And the funny thing is – people used to really believe it existed.
Throughout the centuries, especially in the 17th and 18th, there were several sightings
of this creature in the fields and prairies of North America.
However, with the help of taxidermists and fans of tall-tales, the legend of the Jackalope
grew more and more.
At the time, America didn’t have a mythology of its own, and the new settlers and explorers
saw many things that they had never even heard of before.
The new pioneers were probably so terrified of the New World that they attributed any
suspicious sighting to a strange-looking, fantastical creature.
Horned hares appeared in early 17th century works of natural history and it turns out,
it wasn’t all myth.
Turns out that the horns on these hares that people were seeing weren’t actually horns,
but tumors caused by a virus.
In the 1800’s cowboys would sing to their cattle before a storm to keep them calm and
they would hear their songs repeated back to them by a jackalope in the brush.
Not by the cows, that would be silly!
Now you can see jackalopes mounted to walls all over the United States.
7.
Bonnacon The Bonnacon was thought to have the mane
of a horse, but the head and the body of a bull.
Other sources depict it as a horse with a bull’s head, horns that curved backwards,
and a neck that was a bit longer than that of other bulls.
According to ancient writer Pliny the Elder (here we go…) the Bonnacon inhabited the
area of Paeonia, in Ancient Macedonia, present day Northern Greece.
Whatever it looked like, and whenever it lived, the most amazing thing about this animal was
its defense strategy.
Allegedly, the Bonnacon would run away when attacked, but it would drop fire dung that
could travel more than 500 meters in length!
This acidic fire dung would burn skin on contact and destroy everything in its path.
It would definitely scare off all potential predators.
No real evidence of this exists, obviously, although it has over a dozen manuscripts that
reference it, and the Bonnacon was probably just another made up story.
And a pretty ridiculous one too.
As far as the fire dung bit, though, it must have been a creative way to interpret the
awful stench of animal dung from bulls, bison and other similar beasts.
It’s hard to say.
This creature is most likely based on the European bison that was hunted to extinction
in 1919.
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6.
Phoenix The story of the Phoenix began in ancient
Egypt and Arabia and later became part of mythology around the world.
The Greek historian Herodotus is then credited with introducing the legend of the phoenix
to the west after his travels to Egypt.
The bird was said to live 500 years or more and then when it got tired, it would travel
to the City of the Sun (Heliopolis) and build a nest that would catch fire and the old phoenix
would die in the flames.
A new, young phoenix would rise from the ashes symbolizing rebirth and new life.
This message of eternal life also fit into Christian themes and the Popes and royalty
took on the phoenix as their emblem.
Both Eastern and Western phoenix legends begin in murky prehistoric times so it is hard to
say where the real animal began and the legend started.
It may come from the extinct Asian ostrich or from a prehistoric flamingo in Egypt where
the heat waves would rise from the salt flats where it laid its eggs, and it may have looked
like a nest on fire.
The fact that there are similar bird-like creatures in Persian, Hindu, Jewish and Slavic
traditions only goes to show that the Phoenix is a recurring symbol all over the world,
and that almost every culture believed, or wanted to believe, that this animal really
existed.
5.
Dragon Dragons may be the most epic imaginary creature
ever and these animals were respected and feared by humans the world over.
Dragon’s blood was prized as a powerful medicine in Europe and the Middle East and
dragons were also mentioned in Pliny the Elder’s famous book.
The dragon can be found in many mythologies around the world, Chinese ancient scriptures
to European lore.
According to most stories and legends massive dragons were everywhere, hidden in remote
areas breathing fire.
There are many creatures that could have been responsible for the dragon myth.
Ancient people stumbling upon the bones of large creatures on land such as whales would
have no idea of knowing that this was a sea creature, or what it even looked like.
Only that it was huge and must come from a large and terrifying animal.
Ancient people all over the planet probably also found dinosaur fossils and misinterpreted
them as the remains of dragons.
After all, if you are coming across bones, then the animal must have died, and it’s
living counterparts must be around somewhere.
They wouldn’t have known the animal had been extinct for millions of years and if
you look at some stegosaurus fossils for example, you can see why people would have been worried.
Some scientists also believe that the dragon symbolizes our innate fear of earthquakes
and volcanic eruptions, hence the fire-spewing bit.
4.
Unicorn
The unicorn is one of the most famous imaginary animals from ancient times.
The legendary creature was described as a beast with a single spiraled horn coming out
of its forehead.
Over the centuries it has been depicted as a horse, a pony, deer, and sometimes even
a goat.
Over 2,000 years ago Greek travelers told tales of unicorns living in far off lands.
Stories of the unicorn claimed that the horn had magical properties that could detect poison,
cure fevers, and stop aging.
The unicorn was first mentioned in Asia around 2700 BC and described as a peaceful creature
with great power and wisdom.
According to legend, the rare appearance of the unicorn is an omen and the Chinese philosopher
Confucius was the last person to ever see an Asian unicorn.
The great Roman naturalist, Pliny the Elder, wrote an epic encyclopedia titled Natural
History, which included any type of animal he had ever heard about from travellers, whether
real or imaginary.
This book was taken as fact for almost 2,000 years!
The unicorn is also referenced in the bible and as a symbol for Christ in European medieval
times.
In European folklore the Unicorn was a symbol of good, of purity and uncorrupted joy and
could only be tamed and captured by a virgin.
Paranoid royalty would pay tens of thousands of dollars for unicorn horns to gain immunity
from toxins.
Most likely they were eating ground up oryx, narwhal or rhinoceros horns instead.
Unicorns as we think of them today as magical, gentle creatures, never existed, and it is
more than likely that the stories arose from travellers tales of narwhals and rhinos, or
even antelope seen from afar.
The most recent sighting of unicorns was apparently in North Korea in 2012.
I’ll just leave it at that….
3.
Cyclops The ancient Greek legend of Odysseus wouldn’t
be complete without the famous battle with the Cyclops, a one-eyed giant who’s scary
as heck.
Ever since, the Cyclops has been a household name in Greek mythology, and one of the archetypal
mythological creatures.
Technically, the Cyclops is not an animal, it is more giant man than beast but people
thought the Cyclops was real.
The famous journey of Odysseus took place in the Mediterranean, where he visited numerous
islands and fantastical lands, going through all kinds of adventures.
Now, scientists have proven that the island of Sicily and many other islands visited by
Odysseus actually did have skulls representing the famous Cyclops and would have proved to
ancient people that this creature actually existed.
These skulls came from ancient elephants that had quite big skulls – and they resembled
the head of a Cyclops.
The big hole in the elephant’s forehead was actually a nasal cavity for the trunk,
but some ancient people assumed (or wanted to believe) that this was actually a species
of terrible, massive giants.
The rest is history (or myth, but you get the point).
2.
Allocamelus The Allocamelus was introduced in the Middle
Ages, around the 16th century, and it was first recorded on a Dutch art piece.
Basically, the Allocamelus is something between a mule and a camel.
It has long ears and a big, strong body, with a hump and it’s much faster than both of
them.
It’s a great-looking animal; the only problem is – it doesn’t exist, and it never has!
If you look at the time period when it first appeared, you’ll see that the Allocamelus
came to prominence around the time of New World explorations.
The information coming from America was slow and fragmented, and people in the Old World
had to do a lot of guessing to fill in the missing pieces.
This animal was one of the first descriptions of the llama, an animal living in South America
– and a relative of the camel.
1.
Griffin With the body of a lion, and the head and
wings of an eagle the Griffin is one of the most well-known animals of ancient Greek mythology.
And it wasn’t found only in Greek mythology, as there is evidence of Griffon-like creatures
in ancient Egypt and Persia, including some other countries.
But the Griffin wasn’t only limited to stories – people actually thought it was real.
According to ancient lore, the old Greeks reported that the Scythians (another ancient
people) came across some griffins in the famous Gobi desert.
The Scythians were searching for gold, but found griffins instead.
Since then, this animal has been associated with gold mines, as the protector of gold
and other precious metals.
Needless to say, this was all pure fantasy.
Why?
Because while there is no further proof of the existence of griffins, there is a lot
of evidence of dinosaur fossils in the Gobi desert, exactly where the Scythians were digging
for gold.
The fossils are those of the Protoceratops – a creature on four legs, with a bird-like
beak and wide shoulder blades easily mistaken for wings.
In the ancient world, it would definitely seem like these creatures were real and live
ones could appear at any moment.
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