CHIMAERA, ki-me-ra, a fire-breathing female monster reported to be of divine origin, brought up by Amisodarus, king of Carla. According to the description of her given in the Homeric poems, the fore part of her body was like that of a lion, the middle like that of a goat and the hind that of a dragon. She laid waste the fields of Lycia and all the coun try round. Hesiod says she had three heads, one for each of the three animal parts com posing her body. She was destroyed by Bel lerophon with the help of Pegasus. This mythical monster is supposed to have had its origin in the volcano of the same name, near Phaselis, in Lycia, round the top of which, ac cording to popular belief, dwelt lions, round the middle goats and at the foot poisonous serpents. The word Chimera early came to be used for a nondescript, unnatural production of fancy, a wild dream, owing to the strange, unnatural form of the being described by the poets.
In ichthyology, one of a family of oceanic, elasmobranch fishes, Chimericke, of primitive structures, a few species of which survive from Cretaceous and Lower Eocene time; noted for their extraordinary appearance. They are small, no living species exceeding three feet, have a shark-like body, heads furnished with strange fleshy projections, especially in the male, where they serve as or the snout may be .extended into a sharp beak. The tail is con tinued into a sort of whip, often nearly as long as the body. One species is frequently caught in the North Atlantic, and others exist in the North Pacific and in the Japanese and South seas. Most of them inhabit deep water, where the young are born from eggs laid in leathery cases, like those of rays, on deep bottoms. Con sult Boulenger, 'Fishes) (London 1910).