Category:Manticores

Historical Background
The manticore is a legendary creature, a kind of chimera with the head of a man — often with horns, gray eyes, three rows of iron teeth, and a loud, trumpet/pipe roar — the body of a (sometimes red-furred) lion, and the tail of a dragon or scorpion, which may shoot out venomous spines or hairs to incapacitate prey (thus confusing its imagery with the cryptozoology of a porcupine, though tarantulas do something similar with their hairs). Occasionally, a manticore will possess wings of some description. Size reports range from lion-sized up to horse-sized.

The manticore was of Persian origin, where its name was "the Eater of People" (from early Middle Persian martya "human, mortal being" and xwar- "to eat"). The English term "manticore" was borrowed from Latin mantichora, itself borrowed from Greek mantikhoras - an erroneous pronunciation of the original Persian name. It passed into European mythology first through a remark by Ctesias, a Greek physician at the Persian court of King Artaxerxes II in the fourth century BCE, in his notes on India ("Indika"), which circulated among Greek writers on natural history, but have not survived.