People have been drawn to stories about exotic animals throughout our history. The further you go back in that history, the less likely those stories were accurate. Here is a gorgeous compendium of illustrations showing how people imagined real animals they had only heard about.
Crocodiles from Liber Floridus (Book of Flowers), an encyclopedia by Lambert, Canon of Saint-Omer between 1090 and 1120.
(via Erik Kwakkel)
Animals from the Rochester Bestiary, c. 1225-1250
A crocodile:
Elephants:
Lions and other animals:
A lion:
A colorful panther:
A crocodile from the Northumberland Bestiary, fol. 49v, mid-1250s
An elephant from the 13th century, by Guillaume le Clerc
An elephant from Italy, c. 1440
(via British Library)
Lions from the Ashmole Bestiary (f.10v), 1511
A whale from Adriaen Coenen's Visboek (Fish Book), 1560s
(via Koninklijke Bibliotheek)
An elephant and a giraffe by Noè Bianco, 1568
(via NYPL Digital Library)
The History of Four-Booted Beasts and Serpents, by Edward Topsell, 1658
A beaver:
A dromedary:
(via University of Houston Digital Library)
A history of the Earth and animated nature, by Oliver Goldsmith, 1825
A hippo:
Seals:
Lions:
(via Biodiversity Heritage Library)
A striped hyena, by Aloys Zötl, 1831
Gibbons, by Aloys Zötl, 1833
The Hoolock Gibbons, by Aloys Zötl, 1835
The Cheetah, by Aloys Zötl, 1837
A rhinoceros, by Aloys Zötl, 1861
A sea turtle, by Aloys Zötl, 1867
A walrus, by Aloys Zötl, 1879
________
(via Wikimedia Commons 1 –2 and British Library)