Mythological creatures that were actually inspired by real fossils

• Cyclops

Imagine you have just arrived on an island in the ancient Mediterranean. You set up camp next to a bubbling river in anticipation of a storm. You spend the night, but the next morning you discover that the flooded river swept away a great deal of dirt, revealing a giant human skull with a single hole in the middle of the forehead. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the dwarf elephant - better known as the cyclope.
Dwarf elephants were found on islands across the Mediterranean, from Malta to Cyprus. Their skulls are strangely human-like, but in the middle of them is a huge hole for the nose. A hole that looks a little annoying. Together with the ancestral elephant Deinotherium, the dwarf elephants almost certainly began the legend of the Cyclops. And you can blame an old Greek for making the mistake?
source: FX Guide

• Giants

Elephants are not the only creatures to be confused with something a little more fantastic - but they are one of the most popular. In 1443, a large thigh bone was unearthed in Vienna during the construction of St. Stephen's Cathedral. Obviously, this was the thigh of one of the giants killed in the Deluge, so the faithful carved it into a decorative pattern and hung it at the entrance to the cathedral.

source: imgur/stopitcharlesgetoutofmyhead

• Dragons

Many paleontologists and historians today believe that dragon myths can be attributed to dinosaur fossils, which would explain why they are so widespread in so many distant cultures. In China, it may have been a long-necked sauropod, whose legs were lost, which inspired the classic flying dragon, while in England the Megalosaurus' teeth suggested a ferocious predator.

But there is a fossil-fueled story that shows both giants and dragons and highlights the dangers of reinterpreting bones to fit the story you already know. Wilten, a town in Austria, had a legend of a giant named Aimon who killed a local dragon. The dragon's tongue hanged in a monastery for a few centuries - in fact it was the nose of a swordfish. When the church ordered an excavation to find Aimon's own body, they collapsed their own building.

source: imgur/Wonderlandsgrandhostess

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