Monsters (and mystical plants) of the Portuguese Age of Discoveries
I have an old newspaper clipping for this exhibit in the Lisbon Zoo which was in July-October 1996 as part of the 1990s Commemoration of the Portuguese Age of Discoveries which was called À Descoberta dos Bichos ("To the Discovery of Critters"), which was around early scientific exploration of animal species from outside Europe and how often those were misrepresented as monsters. Most of the clipping of the exhibit advertisement The mythical monsters shown are (from left to right of the beginning of body of theirs, regardless of position upwards or downwards): Sea-devil (in German Meerteufel ) or She-Triton ( Tritona in Portuguese) sea monster Ru(m)bus is a mythification of the Brill ( Rodovalho in Portuguese) fish (scientific Latin name, Scophthalmus Rhombus ), which was believed to be a fish of the Greek sea and of the seas of Italy, round like a ring, with many red spots and full of sharp fins and spikes, being a slow swimmer because it was so big; he could go to th...