Saturday, February 04, 2006

Nature's Freaks Part II: The Chimaera


This hideous sad looking freak is a shark relative known as the chimaera.

The name comes to us from ancient Greek mythology. The Geeks were creative in ways that may never again be matched; however in dreaming up mythological animals they were largely lame and lazy preferring to just combine traits of existing animals into one freak animal rather than make up new animals. That, animals in a blender approach, was the route they took with the chimaera claiming it was fire-breathing part lion, serpent, and goat.

Even lamer by wide margins are those who name newly found animal species. I'm not sure which part of this fish resembles a lion, serpent, or goat, but nonetheless it's a chimaera.

2 comments:

The Bourbon Samurai said...

Dude! That is a goddamn scary looking fish!

Bluefish Canoe said...

Yes it is Mr. Samurai.