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Description
When I was a child, I was drawing animals much better than humans - my speciallty was wolves, dogs, big cats (tigers, panthers), horses, stags and birds - and dragons, too, if I only can say that dragon is an animal, too. Now there's a long time until I was drawing animals, but while I'm a fantasy and legends lover, too, I decided to draw one of my favourite fictional creatures: the basilisk. This creature is quite popular in polish and russians fairytales and legends, one of my favourites.

What is important, this is not a basilisk from "Harry Potter" series, where this creature was nothing but a giant snake. This isn't a basilisk from "The Witcher" books, because there it was described like flying lizard, draconic in shape. And, of course, that's not a basilisk from "Warcraft" - because those basilisk are totally different than any of mythological aspect of this creature.

So, how basilisk is looking in myths and legends? It's usually described as a merge of cock and snake, an effect of two cocks (chicken males) copulation. But while I'm interested in zoology, something like this is just unsatisfying for me, even explained by "curse" or "magic". So, I decided to make him looking logical but still cool and similar to its mythic equivalent.

My baslisk is a bird, one of the effects of birds evolution from theropoda dinosaurs. It's a "living fossil", very similar to extinct archaeropteryx from real world. Its most typical features are:
- it's primitive avian specie, missing link between modern birds and theropods from jurassic era
- bodysize is similar to big swan or bustard (about 10-17 kilograms)
- females bigger than males
- is able to flying, but it's not the best flyer ever
- prefers nocturnal lifestyle, has perfect sight, its lifestyle is similar to lifestyle of New Zealand parrots kakapo
- its sense of smell is extremely sensitive as for a bird
- naturally lives in swamps, but oftenly is used as a guardian in dungeons
- lives solitary lifestyle
- has venom fangs and forked tongue like snakes via convergent evolution
- has reptilian, snake-alike tail
- has three fingers with claws on each wing
- has feather tuft, "crown" on the head
- it's NOT magical, it's a normal bird
- far related to couatlitz, colorful "living pra-bird" from jungles of east, worshipped as a sacred child of god Quetzalcoatl

Enjoy!

Description
When I was a child, I was drawing animals much better than humans - my speciallty was wolves, dogs, big cats (tigers, panthers), horses, stags and birds - and dragons, too, if I only can say that dragon is an animal, too. Now there's a long time until I was drawing animals, but while I'm a fantasy and legends lover, too, I decided to draw one of my favourite fictional creatures: the basilisk. This creature is quite popular in polish and russians fairytales and legends, one of my favourites.

What is important, this is not a basilisk from "Harry Potter" series, where this creature was nothing but a giant snake. This isn't a basilisk from "The Witcher" books, because there it was described like flying lizard, draconic in shape. And, of course, that's not a basilisk from "Warcraft" - because those basilisk are totally different than any of mythological aspect of this creature.

So, how basilisk is looking in myths and legends? It's usually described as a merge of cock and snake, an effect of two cocks (chicken males) copulation. But while I'm interested in zoology, something like this is just unsatisfying for me, even explained by "curse" or "magic". So, I decided to make him looking logical but still cool and similar to its mythic equivalent.

My baslisk is a bird, one of the effects of birds evolution from theropoda dinosaurs. It's a "living fossil", very similar to extinct archaeropteryx from real world. Its most typical features are:
- it's primitive avian specie, missing link between modern birds and theropods from jurassic era
- bodysize is similar to big swan or bustard (about 10-17 kilograms)
- females bigger than males
- is able to flying, but it's not the best flyer ever
- prefers nocturnal lifestyle, has perfect sight, its lifestyle is similar to lifestyle of New Zealand parrots kakapo
- its sense of smell is extremely sensitive as for a bird
- naturally lives in swamps, but oftenly is used as a guardian in dungeons
- lives solitary lifestyle
- has venom fangs and forked tongue like snakes via convergent evolution
- has reptilian, snake-alike tail
- has three fingers with claws on each wing
- has feather tuft, "crown" on the head
- it's NOT magical, it's a normal bird
- far related to couatlitz, colorful "living pra-bird" from jungles of east, worshipped as a sacred child of god Quetzalcoatl

Enjoy!