A lion-sized predator with blood-red fur, a human face, three rows of teeth, and a scorpion tail that fires regenerating spikes: the manticore is the ultimate nightmare creature, and it was probably a Bengal tiger. This deep dive traces a two-and-a-half-thousand-year game of historical telephone, beginning with the Old Persian word for man-eater and the Greek physician Ctesias, who claimed to have seen a live specimen at the Persian court and recorded stingers over a cubit long.

The episode follows the beast into Pliny the Elder's encyclopedia, where a scribal typo changed its name, a loose grouping moved it to Ethiopia, and a neighboring entry gave it a voice like a panpipe and a trumpet. It then visits the medieval scriptoriums where monks gave the monster a beard and a Phrygian cap, downgraded its tail, and accidentally invented a new sp ...