Quick Facts
- Also spelled:
- mantichora, manticora, or mantiger
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manticore
Detail of a miniature of a manticore from a Latin bestiary, 13th century.
manticore
legendary animal
Also known as: mantichora, manticora, mantiger
manticore, a legendary animal having the head of a man (often with horns), the body of a lion, and the tail of a dragon or scorpion. The earliest Greek report of the creature is probably a greatly distorted description of the Caspian tiger, a hypothesis that accords well with the presumed source of the Greek word, an Old Iranian compound meaning “man-eater.” Medieval writers used the manticore as a symbol of the devil. In Canadian author Robertson Davies’s The Manticore (1972), the protagonist dreams of a sibyl leading a manticore and examines his dream under Jungian analysis.
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This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.
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