File:Chimera_Apulia_Louvre_K362.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
chimera
Sign in to saveAlso known as chimæra, chimaera
mythical or fictional animal with parts taken from various animals
A chimera is a creature from mythology or fiction that combines body parts from different animals into a single being. It matters as a concept because it appears across many cultures' stories and has influenced how people imagine and create fantastical creatures in art, literature, and popular culture.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
~16 min read
Encyclopedic overview
According to Greek mythology, the Chimera, Chimaera, Chimæra, or Khimaira (/kaɪˈmɪərə, kɪ-, -mɛər-/ ky-MEER-ə, kih-, -MAIR-; Ancient Greek: Χίμαιρα, romanized: Chímaira, lit. 'she-goat') was a monstrous fire-breathing hybrid creature from Lycia, Asia Minor, composed of different animal parts. Typically, it is depicted as a lion with a goat's head protruding from its back and a tail ending with a snake's head. Some representations also include dragon's wings. It was an offspring of Typhon and Echidna and a sibling of monsters like Cerberus and the Lernaean Hydra.
The term "chimera" has come to describe any mythical or fictional creature with parts taken from various animals.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “chimera” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
Gallery (10)
Available in 69 languages
- Español
- Français
- Deutsch
- 中文
- 日本語
- Русский
- Português
- Italiano
- العربية
- Albanian
- Aramaic
- Armenian
- Azerbaijani
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Bangla
- Basque
- be_x_old
- Belarusian
Show 50 more
- Bikol
- Bosnian
- Breton
- Bulgarian
- Burmese
- Catalan
- Corsican
- Croatian
- Czech
- Danish
- Esperanto
- Estonian
- Finnish
- Galician
- Georgian
- Greek
- Hebrew
- Hungarian
- Ido
- Kannada
- Kurdish
- Latin
- Latvian
- Lithuanian
- Macedonian
- Malay
- Nederlands
- Norwegian
- Norwegian Nynorsk
- Occitan
- Polski
- Quechua
- Romanian
- Serbian
- Serbian (Latin)
- simple
- Slovak
- Slovenian
- Svenska
- Tiếng Việt
- Türkçe
- Ukrainian
- Uzbek
- Waray
- Wu Chinese
- zh_classical
- zh_yue
- فارسی
- ไทย
- 한국어
via Wikidata sitelinks · CC0