09.02.2022 Quiz

Of Unicorns and Dragons

Mythical creatures have been a part of human lore since the dawn of time. They live in our stories, our legends and our imagination. UZH zoologist Heinz-Ulrich Reyer has now published a book that explores these legendary creatures. But how much do our readers know about creatures of myth and legend? Test your knowledge in our quiz, and with some luck you can win a copy of Reyer’s book Rendezvous der Fabelwesen!

Roger Nickl/Heinz Ulrich Reyer

Auschnitt aus dem Buchcover — The unicorn has fascinated mankind for millennia.

Throughout the ages and across all parts of the world, travelers have told fantastical tales of dragons, unicorns and basilisks living in far-away places. Accounts of people claiming to have seen werewolves, Nessie or Big Foot persist to this very day. Creatures such as unicorns and dragons have been immortalized in countless paintings, films, sculptures and stories. In his new book Rendezvous der Fabelwesen (in German), UZH zoologist Heinz-Ulrich Reyer explores what lies behind these fantastical beasts and takes a biological look at the cultural history of mythical creatures. Together with the UZH News team, the author has put together an online quiz for our readers to test their knowledge of unicorns, dragons and other legendary beings. Answer the questions for a chance to win a copy of Reyer’s new book Rendezvous der Fabelwesen!

Question 1

Legend has it that unicorns can only be captured by virgins, which is why in the Middle Ages unicorns were considered a symbol of chastity and the immaculate conception. This idea is also reflected in the fresco by Italian painter Domenichino (1581-1641), which shows a unicorn resting in the lap of a virgin. However, the Catholic Church banned such depictions at the Council of Trent in the mid-16th century. Why?

a) They no longer believed unicorns to be real animals.

b) They believed the phallic horn had a sexual connotation.

Question 2

With his encyclopedia Historia animalium (“History of the Animals”), Zurich polymath Conrad Gessner (1516-1565) is considered the father of modern zoology. Gessner’s magnum opus describes more than 1,000 creatures in word and in picture, among them the sea devil and the seven-headed hydra. But the existence of only one of these creatures was considered plausible by Gessner. Which one?

a) Sea devil

b) Seven-headed hydra

Question 3

There are two species that feed on the blood of vertebrates: the real vampire bats and the not-so-real vampires, including the infamous undead Count Dracula. But which gave the other its name?

a) The undead are named after the blood-sucking vampire bats.

b) The bats are named after the mythical undead creatures.

Question 4

Basilisks are legendary reptiles with the body of a rooster, a serpent’s tail and occasionally between two and 10 legs as well as sometimes a human head. They were said to be quite small, but in the 15th and 16th century, basilisks were considered extremely dangerous due to their toxic breath – so dangerous in fact, that a deadly disease spreading at the time was often referred to as “basilisk disease”. Which one?

a) Plague

b) Syphilis

Question 5

One of the two creatures pictured actually exists, the other is made up. Which one?

a) Common flying dragon (Draco volans)

b) Nectar-sipping gimp (Melexsorbius parvus)

Question 6

Many of the ancient Egyptian gods were depicted as having human bodies with heads of animals, for example with the head of a falcon or a jackal. Which of the two figures represents Horus, the most powerful god of the Egyptians?

a) Left figure

b) Right figure

Question 7

Some travelers in Antiquity and the Middle Ages claim to have encountered mythical peoples, i.e. human-like creatures with odd physical features such as backward-facing feet, long floppy ears, facial features on their chest, or one-legged creatures with a single foot large enough to use as a sunshade. What name was given to the latter?

a) Sciapods

b) Ombrelates

The participation period has expired.

The right answers and the winners are revealed in the interview with Hans-Ulrich Reyer.

Picture credits

akg images (Questions 1, 5), akg/Science Photo Library (Question 2), spiegel.de (Questions 3), wikimedia (Questions 4, 5, 6), Museum Winterthur (Question 7)

Roger Nickl/Heinz Ulrich Reyer

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Of Unicorns and Dragons

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