Key Points

- Man-eating winged creature with a lion's body, a scorpion's tail and a human face

Brief Bio

The manticore or mantichore is a legendary creature from ancient Persian mythology, similar to the Egyptian sphinx that proliferated in Western European medieval art as well. It has the face of a human, the body of a lion, and the tail of a scorpion or a tail covered in venomous spines similar to porcupine quills. There are some accounts that the spines can be launched like arrows. It eats its victims whole, using its three rows of teeth, and leaves no bones behind. Other accounts also have it sporting the wings of a dragon.

One of the earliest mentions of the Manticore comes from the work titled Indica by Ctesias of Cnidus. Ctesias was a Greek historian and physician of the 5th century BC who was part of the Persian court of Artaxerxes II Mnemon. Ctesias would write a comprehensive history of Persia and the Persian Empire, but Indica was a work dealing with the Persian beliefs about India.