hidden and mythical organisms

Question 1

sphinx

Answer 1

Greek- body of a lion, wings and head of a women
Egyptian- head of a king
- asked riddles of passerbys or would eat them

Question 2

manticore

Answer 2

body of a lion, face of a person, can shoot arrows from stinging tail also a maneater

Question 3

basilisk

Answer 3

king of snakes, one glance at the basilisk brings death

Question 4

cryptozoo

Answer 4

animals: sphinx, manticore, basilisk

Question 5

cryptogarden

Answer 5

plants: mandrake, apple of sodom, zieba tree

Question 6

mandrake

Answer 6

root resembles a human figure: when pulled from the earth it emits a shriek that kills anyone who hears it

Question 7

apple of sodom

Answer 7

grows at the site of the former towns of Sodom and Gomarrah which God destoyed in his righteous wrath over lustful behavior
when an apple from the tree is picked, it turns to ashes and smoke in the hand

Question 8

zieba tree

Answer 8

tree full of bare breasted mystics and philosophers

Question 9

when was the unicorn first mentioned

Answer 9

Ctesias- Greek historian who had lived in Persia 398 BC

- wrote of it as living in India

Question 10

what was the unicorn believed to have looked like

Answer 10

larger than a horse, horn a half meter long and believed that fillings from the horn were an antidote to poison and a drinking cup made of a horn conferred resistence to epilepsy
- aloof of human interactions

Question 11

old testament: 3d century BC

Answer 11

Alexandrian scholars wanted to translate books from Old Testoment from Hebrew to greek but got stuck at re’em and translated (monokeros) it to Unicorn

Question 12

arab mythology

Answer 12

unicorn was huge

- killed elephants by skewering them but couldnt shake them off after 3-4

Question 13

jewish mythology

Answer 13

too big to fit on Noahs ark, survived by treading water, resting its horn on the ark
Christian mythology, the unicorn could be pacified by virgins to catch a unicorn you would need
1. a virgin
2. a large net

Question 14

marco polo

Answer 14

discerned the source of the unicorn legend while passing through india and wondered how ugly rhinos could give rise to beautiful unicorns

Question 15

alicorhn

Answer 15

medicinal horn - until 18th century
- touched to food revealed prescence of poison
- shavings were antidote to poison
was narwhal

Question 16

biblical credibility of Upas tree

Answer 16

also known as the Javan tree of death

Question 17

who discovered the Upas tree

Answer 17

Friar Oderich of Portenau (1330) and then Sir John Mandeville (1357) –> claimed deadliest poison in the world

Question 18

18th century european visitors of Java

Answer 18

told of an arrow poison sap that was collected from a local tree

Question 19

Amoenitates exoticae

Answer 19

“amusing things” written in 1712 by Dr. Englebert Kamfer

- got criminals to collect the sap and if they lived, were set free

Question 20

Rumphius of Dutch east india company

Answer 20

1741: gas eminates from tree
only approach if skin covered by fabric
- no other plants grew and dead birds littered the ground

Question 21

London magazine 1783

Answer 21

danger zone of Upas tree had radius of 12-14 miles
- criminals collected sap with caps, glasses and gloves
- priest blessed efforts
70/700 cfriminals returned

Question 22

stories of upas tree

Answer 22

loves of the plants - Erasmus darwin 1789
Law of java: 1820 london play
Anchar: alexander pushkin 1828

Question 23

leschenault

Answer 23

french naturalist set out to find the truth in 1804

• shown toxic tree (antiaris toxicaria) but had vegetation around it and no dead animals
• poisonous latex

Question 24

dead animals phenomena

Answer 24

confounding of 2 phenomena:

1. poisonous tree
2. deadly CO2 emissions from dormant volcanoes