HERE BE DRAGONS!

. . . and nature breeds,
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable, inutterable, and worse
Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd,
Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimeras dire.

John Milton, Paradise Lost, Bk II, 1667

The Impossible Zoo is filled with those creatures that natural science has ruled out, yet still find their role in history and the social sciences. Here you will find the things that once made the woods wild and the nights to be feared; that made ancient map-makers write, 'Here be Dragons'.

It is a biology of the supernatural - a study of the life of things that never lived. This world of mermaids and unicorns, now confined to fantasy, but once believed to exist, is a world of the imagination that still affects us today.

Wonderfully illustrated throughout, it also provides sources as a guide to further study and exploration. To provide the most valuable reference work possible, Dr Ruickbie has drawn from the original sources and authoritative scholarship, referenced throughout, to create a world of context that takes us from Roman naturalists to Medieval travellers to Victorian explorers, and beyond, making a much richer and more useful book.

Leo Ruickbie's impeccably-written TheImpossible Zoo is a menagerie like no other, as its exotic inhabitants are fabulous in every sense of the word. So for anyone who has ever wished that dragons and unicorns were real, for anyone who believes that they are, and for anyone who peruses bestiaries with unbridled joy, this magical, mystical, and truly memorable book is definitely for you ­- and for me!
Dr Karl Shuker, author of A Manifestation of Monsters