Classical Chimera

Don't even ask what its internal organs look like.

The Chimera (also spelled Chimaera, from the Greek Chímaira "she-goat") is a legendary beast from Classical Mythology, said to be one of the many offspring of Echidna and Typhon, alongside Cerberus and the Hydra. First referenced by Homer in The Iliad, and later killed by the Greek hero Bellerophon, it is most well known for being a three-way mixture of a lion, a goat, and a snake. Due to its mixed animal nature, the term chimera has since often been used as a way to classify a fictional creature with traits of various different animals. And, in modern biology, it is also used to describe an organism with different DNA in different parts of its body (among humans this includes recipients of organ transplants, as well as those who absorbed an underdeveloped twin in the womb).

The most common depiction of a chimera is that of a beast with a lion's head and body (despite being female, it is commonly shown with a male's mane), a venomous snake instead of a tail and a fire breathing goat's head protruding from its back; variation in depictions tends to maintain an overall body composed of a lion, goat, and snake. Traits are sometimes switched around, such as by moving the goat and snake heads to be side by side with the lion one. Other times, the creature sometimes features new appendages such as, most commonly, a goat's hindquarters, a pair of wings, a fourth dragon's head, or a regular dragon's tail. Another common depiction is a one-headed variant depicted with a lion's head, a goat's body and a snake's tail. Sometimes, some of the component animals may be replaced with related ones for visual variety, such as leopard or tiger instead of the lion.

The chimera is often linked to disasters and volcanic eruptions. Seeing one was said to be an omen of disasters, such as the aforementioned volcanic eruptions or violent storms. It was said to live in Lycia, Turkey near the volcano of Phaselis (named Mount Chimaera), which is most likely where the monster was first thought up. It's believed that this volcano and Lycia's mysterious ground fires (caused by the permanent gas vents surrounding the area) lead to the Chimera being given its fire breath.

It should be worth noting that "chimera" can be used to refer to any sort of creature with traits from more than one animal — that is, what this wiki means by Mix-and-Match Critters. However, this page will primarily focus on the Greek version.

Compare to Flesh Golem (a manmade creature, with different body parts stitched together).

Subtrope of Mythical Motifs, Hybrid Monster and Mix-and-Match Critters. See also Our Manticores Are Spinier, Our Sphinxes Are Different, Our Gryphons Are Different, Our Perytons Are Different and Nue for similar creatures made up of different species of animals. Multiple Head Case is often in play in many depictions of chimeras.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Bakugan: Despite its name, the Bakugan Griffon bears a much closer resemblance to the Chimera with the fore-body of a lion, the scaled hind legs of a goat, the wings of a dragon and a snake as a tail.
• Bleach: During the Arrancar: Decisive Battle of Karakura arc, the Arrancars Emilou Apacci, Franceska Mila Rose, and Cyan Sung-Sun sacrifice their left arms as a last resort to create a Chimera-like creature known as Ayon, shown with a long lion's mane and a scaled tail with a snake at the end, though the goat traits have been replaced with the legs and head of a deer. Ayon goes on to fight Rangiku, Hinamori, Hisagi, and Iba, before being finally destroyed by Captain-Commander Yamamoto.
• Mon Colle Knights: The Chimera is one of the many monsters under the control of Prince Eccentro. It has the body and head of a lion, with a goat's head and a dragon's head beside it and the wings of a dragon. It's tasked by Lark to guard Zaha, a mission it continues to do even after his death.
• Spy X Family: Anya is frequently seen with a chimera stuffed toy that she seems to treasure a lot. But the appearance of the chimera is rather simplified, having a snake as its tail and only one head instead of two, with the head sporting a lion's mane and horns to represent the goat.

Card Games

• Magic: The Gathering: Chimeras are rare creatures that have appeared on multiple planes, but the majority are from the Classical Mythology-based plane of Theros. They're generally agreed to be the result of the magical fusion of multiple disparate creatures, either as the product of mages maddened by the god Keranos or the byproduct of a bygone city whose natives used magic carelessly. They're physically extremely variable, although almost all are winged, but the classical lion-goat-and-snake form is represented in Coastline Chimera and, with some additions, in Daybreak Chimera (with an eagle head, and horns on the lion) and Treeshaker Chimera (with a wolf head). The only legendary Chimera, Gnostro, has the heads of a wolf, an owl, and a horse.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! features a large number of chimeras, both in the sense of merely using it to refer to any creature that mixes together other creatures and/or has multiple heads (most notably the Chimeratech line) and in the sense of the classical lion/goat/snake monster (including Chimera the Flying Mythical Beast, Scrap Chimera, Frightfur Chimera, Wattchimera, and DZW — Chimera Clad).

Comic Books

• The Tomb of Dracula: The chimera is one of the main story elements of issues #26-#28. This time around the chimera isn't a monster, but rather a very powerful statue made up of three pieces (one for each animal) which can cause disaster and death in the wrong hands. It was created 30,000 years ago by a mad wizard on the island of Atlantis and is revealed to be the cause of the Black Plague.
• Wonder Woman: The chimera occasionally appears in Wonder Woman-related stories. Its description is never consistent; one appearance has it as a fire-breathing lion with a goat's horns and body and a snake-headed tail, while another time it's portrayed as the more common version with a lion's front quarters and head, a goat's hindquarters with its head in the middle and a tail with a snake's head.

Fan Works

• Pokémon Uranium: Chimical and Chimaconda are bright red lion-like animals with purple wings and snakes for tails. Chimaconda also has horns.
• Return to the Labyrinth: The Chimera is described as having the jaws of a lion capable of breathing flames, yellow goat eyes, horns on top of its head, long scaly paws ending in claws resembling human hands, and a red-eyed snake for a tail.

Films — Animation

• Animal Crackers (2017): During the climax of the movie, Horatio eats some broken crackers he had been keeping, which results in him turning into a Chimera. This transformation grants him six limbs, the head of a lion, the horns of a goat, the wings of a dragon, the body of a crocodile and the tail of a serpent. After a heated battle, he is ultimately captured and then turned into a hamster.
• Coco: Mamá Imelda's alebrije companion, Pepita, seems to take some cues from the Chimera in her design. She's a majestic feline creature covered in snake-like scales, has a pair of ram horns growing from her head, can breathe fire and sports a pair of wings that allow her to fly, similar to newer depictions of the Greek creature.

Films — Live-Action

• Wrath of the Titans: The Chimera appears as the first monster Perseus faces in the movie. This time around it's given a much more hellish design, with a giant lion body, huge bat wings, and a tail that's ended with a serpent's head. Although one of the heads does bare a horn, it does not resemble a goat, nor does the other one resemble a lion's. Its fire breath has also been changed so that both heads have to work in tandem in order for it to work — one head spits out a flammable liquid-substance, while the other one lights it. Perseus is able to kill it by tricking it to burn itself.

Literature

• Book of Imaginary Beings: Borges outlines the chimera's mythical history, stating that the most logical interpretation of its earliest description in the Illiead is a beast with a lion's head, a goat's belly, and a serpent's tail, but it took on a three-headed form in Hesiod's Theogony and in the Chimera of Arezzo, with a lion head at the front, a goat head on its back and snake head on its tail. He recounts explanations proposed for creature's origin, including as an allegory for the volcano Mount Chimaera, whose lowest slopes are home to snakes and middle elevations to goats and whose peak used to be home to a pride of lions, and for a pirate captain who used leonine, caprine and serpentine figureheads. He concludes this to be a sign that the Chimera had become too absurd and implausible a myth for people to take seriously anymore.
• The Darksword Trilogy: Chimeras are one of Thimhallen's Warchanged creatures, animals created or altered during their civil war as living weapons that escaped their creators' control. Darksword Adventures details the creature more thoroughly. It has the forequarters of a lion, the hindquarters of a goat, the tail of a viper, and three heads (lion, goat, viper) each possessing a poisonous bite. It was created to be the ultimate sentry, capable of spotting an approaching enemy from multiple directions and combining the ferocity of all its component creatures. Unfortunately, its three heads operate independently of one another, meaning a consensus must be reached for its body to do something. While not a problem when facing a single opponent, multiple opponents can confuse the creature and cause it to wildly attack any target close by.
• Dracopedia: Depicted in Dracopedia: The Bestiary, the Chimera is depicted with a dragon's wings and body, a snake for a tail, and two heads — one of a fire-breathing lion and the other of a red-eyed goat.
• Harry Potter: While they don't appear directly, chimeras are mentioned in the books, in particular in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, where it is said that Elphias Doge encountered chimeras in Greece. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them gives a more specific description, where it's stated that a chimera has a lion's head, a goat's body and a dragon's tail.
• Impossible Creatures (2023): Chimeras are mentioned in the Guardian's Bestiary. They want to wreak havoc, but their three heads rarely agree on anything.
• Monstrumologist: The chimera is one of the multiple supposed extinct creatures reconstructed by Dr. Black, who gives it the three heads — goat, lion and snake — a regular snake tail and a triple vertebra for its three necks to anchor to. He speculates that its heads allowed it to feed on disparate food sources — the snake and lion heads could hunt when prey was abundant, the goat head graze when it wasn't — and that it was related to similarly snake-tailed and polycephalic hellhounds.
• Ology Series: Monsterology depicts chimeras, named Chimera leocapriserpens, as lions with additional goat and snake heads and dragons' tails; they breathe fire from their goat head and are relatives of the Japanese Nue, Chimera japonicus. Their heads have distinct personalities and it takes some time for them to learn how to get along, and inter-head fighting is a major source of infant mortality for chimera chicks.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians: In The Lightning Thief, Percy is forced to battle Echidna, along with her child the Chimera, who was disguised as a chihuahua. The chimera is one of the few monsters who isn't killed by Percy and his friends, as he's forced to retreat after being poisoned by the beast. In its original appearance, it's described as having the head of a lion, the body of a goat, a blood-red mane, a diamondback snake-headed tail with the ability to breathe fire. The spin-off book Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes later gives it the hindquarters of a dragon and a goat's head on its back. To explain this change, Percy mentions that monsters often change appearances.

Live-Action TV

• In Kamen Rider Wizard, a Chimera Phantom serves as the source of power for Kamen Rider Beast. It's primarily based on a lion, but with an additional falcon head and wing on one side, a dolphin head and wing on the other, an buffalo head below the lion's, and a chameleon head on its back with the tongue serving as its tail. Beast himself wears lion-themed armor, but can channel any of the other four animals into half-cape "Mantles" that let him use their abilities.
• Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger: One of the many monsters of the week was a creature inspired by the chimera, named Dora Chimera. It had the head and torso of a lion, goat feet with a goat's head on the chest, and a snake-like tail. In Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, he was renamed Goatan.
• Kyūkyū Sentai GoGoV also had a monster named Chimera, though it had no connections beyond the name; it was in fact a Hybrid Monster of three already-tough demons into an even worse one. Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue renamed this one too, this time as Troika.
• "Percy Jackson and the Olympians (2023)" appropriately features the Chimera in its take on the chapter I Plunge to My Death in the episode of the same name. The beast is given a bit of an overhaul as instead of the traditional snake's head and neck serving as a tail, the Chimera now has an almost dragon-like tail colored similarly to that of a coral snake and tipped with a vaguely scorpion-like stinger (that comes with detachable 'quills') which she uses to poison Percy. The Chimera is also referred to as a female, as opposed to male like in the book, and has a more lioness-like design rather than the traditional male lion look. It has no goat head or body, but large horns on her head, and instead of fur, she is covered in scales, with a row of jagged spines protruding from her back. Finally, she is still able to breathe fire and has an extendable cobra-like hood instead of the traditional mane.

Myths & Religion

• The Greek Chimera was first mentioned in The Iliad by Homer, where it was described as: "a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle, and snorting out the breath of the terrible flame of bright fire." The Theogony by Hesiod would later use Homer's description of the chimera, while stating that she was one of the children of Echidna and Typhon (alongside Cerberus, the Hydra, and the Sphinx). An incredibly powerful and dangerous creature, the Chimera lived near Lycia and would terrorize the local towns and people. Eventually, King Iobates of Lycia would command Bellerophon (the son of Poseidon) to slay the monster. Riding upon the winged horse Pegasus, Bellerophon slew the beast by thrusting a lump of lead on his spear down the throat of the chimera, killing it from the inside out. Later on, the chimera was described as having the head and body of a lion, a snake instead of a tail and a fire-breathing goat's head on its back. It's generally believed that the chimera got its name from Mount Chimaera, a volcano close to Lycia which was most known for its unexplained and constant fires. Later depictions of the chimera would occasionally add new features, such as the hindquarters of a goat and the wings and head of a dragon.
• Japan has the kotuboki, a chimerical creature composed of recognisable parts of every totem animal in the Eastern Zodiac. This Youkai combines the head of a rat, the ears of a rabbit, the horns of an ox, the comb of a rooster, the beard of a goat, the neck of a dragon, the mane of a horse, the shoulders of a tiger, the arms of a monkey, the back of a boar, the hind legs of a dog, and the tail of a snake.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • The chimera is an evil-aligned creature that looks like a lion with leathery wings on its back. Instead of a snake, this chimera has a dragon's tail, along with a dragon's head on one side of the lion's and a goat's head on the other. They were created when the demon lord Demogorgon visited the material plane and, unimpressed with the local creatures, fused some of them into a new species of many-headed monsters. In personality, some chimeras take more after their dragon side and hoard treasure in solitude, while others take more after their lion and goat sides and live in groups with others of their kind.
  • A few editions include a creature called a gorgimera, which is similar to the standard chimera, except the goat head is replaced with the head of a gorgon, a bull-like creature with the ability to turn other creatures to stone with its breath.
  • Dracimeras, described in Dragon #170, are hybrids of chimeras and evil dragons, resembling regular chimeras with a maned dragon head up front, a horned lizard head instead of the goat, and an additional dragon head instead of its tail. All heads have access to the creature's Breath Weapon, which each head can use twice a day.
  • The Chimeric Creature template allows one to make their own chimera variants, replacing the lion and goat parts with other creatures in the Monster Manual and replace the traditional fire-breathing red dragon head with the head of another dragon species.
• GURPS: GURPS Fantasy Bestiary describes a fairly typical Grecian chimera with a goat head between its shoulders and a snake for a tail. All three heads need to be knocked out to render the beast unconscious. The lion head can bite and breathe fire, the snakehead is poisonous, and while the goat head will insult foes throughout the fight it's not much good for anything else.
• Palladium Fantasy:
  • Chimeras are evil creatures with lion heads, goat bodies and draconic tails. They mostly live in the badlands and jungles west and south of the main setting, and are said to have been the accidental creations of a wizard who wanted a creature as strong as a lion, as vile as a goat, and with a dragon's breath.
  • Beast dragons, while distinct creatures, are notably similar to the Chimera of myth. They possess squat, reptilian bodies with three snakelike necks topped with lion, antelope and serpent heads, all of which can breathe fire. They're dumb, cruel creatures, most often found rampaging around the countryside or lording over terrified villages. They're also thought to have been sorcerously created, in their case during the dwarf/elf wars, although neither side has ever claimed credit.
• Pathfinder: Chimeras are leonine creatures with a lion head, a goat head, and the head and Breath Weapon of any one kind of chromatic dragon. They were some of the many horrible creations of Lamashtu, the Mother of Monsters, and are believed to originate on the archipelago of Iblydos, a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to Greece. They're vicious, aggressive monsters that haunt the wilderness, and all three heads speak with a single mind. Chimeras living in specific environments may have the heads of creatures native to them — jungle-dwelling chimeras may have tiger, leopard or jaguar heads, while montane or arctic ones may have those of musk oxen, mountain goats, snow leopards, or even polar bears or walruses. There are also mythic chimeras, the first members of the race to be created, who have the goat heat between their shoulders and snake-headed tail instead of the dragon head; these are the progenitors of their modern, weaker kin, and serve as the female counterparts to the male orthroses, two-headed dogs with snake tails.
• Warhammer: Chimerae are among the most dangerous monsters of Chaos, and are so heavily mutated from their origins that their ancestral forms are impossible to guess at. The mutating influence of Chaos makes each subtly or drastically different from all others, but almost all have three heads — usually monstrous distortions of rams, lions and fire-breathing dragons — wings, and snake or draconic serpent for a tail. Most breathe fire, or produce corrosive saliva, or similar things. Only appearing when the Winds of Magic are at their strongest, these vicious and dangerous monsters are taken as mounts by powerful Chaos lords and sorcerers as they ravage the southern lands. 1st Edition has each chimera randomly generated, but still within the bounds of the original Grecian model — a dice roll determines the number of heads (two to four), the nature of each head (feline, caprine or reptilian), a more specific nature for these kinds (regular big cat or sabertooth and snake, acid-spitting cobra or dragon), and the nature of the tail (regular, mace, spiked, scorpion or living snake).

Video Games

• Abracadaball features a chimera as a boss in the Laboratory series of levels. While the lion and the snake heads roar and hiss fiercely and spew fireballs, the goat just blankly stares looking confused.
• Age of Mythology: The chimera is the myth unit for Artemis, appearing as in its traditional appearance. It has the ability to breathe fire, burning multiple enemy troops at once, though this ability can only be used every 20 seconds.
• An Egyptian Tale has chimaera in the underworld levels, depicted as having a two-headed leonine body and a snake's head for a tail. They serve as Giant Mook enemies, although if you weaken one enough you can tame it and use the chimaera as a Power Up Mount.
• Born Under the Rain: There's the Sphimera monster, which is a sphinx head attached to some body that has multiple tails and four red paws for feet.
• Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness: During the battle with Ortega, he turns himself into a chimera, shown as a large, winged beast, with a fire breathing lion's head, a poison-spitting snake's head and a bird' head which has a sonic attack.
• Clash of the Titans (2010): The video game features the Chimera as one of the bosses. This one is closer to the original myth than the Wrath of the Titans incarnation, with a large goat head on its back, though with wings and the ability to summon lightning.
• Dragalia Lost: Chimeras are a set of void bosses with elemental attributes that players can fight to get materials for chimeratech weapons which provide a strength boost if wielded by the proper element. Making the chimeratech weapons require a manticore void weapon of the respective element and type to be crafted first.
• Dragon's Crown has one as the B-route boss of the Mage's Tower, big enough to fill the entire room! Because of its immense weight, it will break through the floor and send the party down to lower floors. You have to kill it before it cracks through the final floor to obtain its Talisman.
• Dragon's Dogma: Chimeras (as seen in the page image) are common bosses found throughout the world. It is made up of a Lion's head and front quarters, which specializes in melee attacks, a goat's hindquarters and head, which casts long-ranged spells and a snake for a tail, which focuses on players that come too close or attempt to climb it. A stronger version, the Gorechimera, can also heal itself with spells from the goat and has a snake tail that can regenerate.
  • Dragon's Dogma II brings back the Chimera and Gorechimera as miniboss enemies. The Chimera here has a goat head that casts more powerful spells than in the first game. The Gorechimera meanwhile is depicted outright as an undead chimera, with the lion and snake heads starting the battle dead and having to be reanimated by the ghostly-looking goat head by taking the first two turns of spellcasting.
• Fate/Grand Order has chimeras as Berserker class enemies. The chimeras in the game are lions with goat hind legs and an extra goat head sticking out of its back, and the tail is replaced with a snake. The heads use their breath as an attack.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy: Chimeras appear as enemies, with three heads (a lion head, a goat head, a dragon head), the wings of a dragon, and the body of a goat.
  • Final Fantasy II: The Chimera serves as a boss and later a random creature encounter, this time with the goat's body exchanged for that of a lion's.
  • Final Fantasy III: Chimeras appear as a random encounter in the skies of the surface world.
  • Final Fantasy IV: Chimeras are also random creature encounters in the Tower of Babil, returning to their original design, though without the wings.
  • Final Fantasy V: The Dhorme Chimera is a randomly encountered enemy. It has the head of a lion, goat, and dragon, along with the front legs of a lion, the wings of a dragon the back legs of a goat, and a snake-headed tail.
  • Final Fantasy VI: The Chimera is a randomly encountered enemy, shown to have 5 heads (a lion, a goat, a dragon, an eagle, and a boar), the wings of a dragon, the front legs of a lion, the back legs of a goat, and a snake-headed tail.
  • Final Fantasy VII:
  • The Harpy is a monster originally named "Chimera" in the Japanese version of the game. It has what looks like a lion's head with boar-like tusks, with the heads of a goat and a dragon on either side, a lion's front arms, a goat's front legs, an eagle's wings and rear legs, and a serpentine tail. It can shoot poisonous spray at its victims and also use the powerful Aqualung enemy skill.
  • The Maximum Kimaira is a Harpy palette swap seen towards the end of Disk 2. It's much stronger than the Harpy and can inflict poison like its lesser cousin, but its elemental powers are ice-elemental rather than water elemental.
  • Final Fantasy VIII: Chimeras have a winged leonine body, with four heads arranged in a circle at the front of the body (lion, eagle, lizard, and goat) and a cobra forming the tail. They use a mix of physical attacks, attack magic, status magic, and the Aqua Breath enemy skill.
  • Final Fantasy IX: Chimeras appear in Memoria, and have the heads of a goat, a dragon, a snake, and a monstrous head unlike any real-world animal (a hippopotamus would probably be the closest comparison). The goat head attacks with lightning, the dragon head uses cold breath to inflict the freeze status, the snake uses venom breath, and the monstrous head has a vicious bite that can inflict the virus status.
  • Final Fantasy X: Chimeras are bipedal, and have the heads of a bull, eagle, and lion with a snake forming the tail. The snake-head can use thunder magic, the bull-head can use physical attacks, the eagle head uses aqua breath, and the lion head cast Megiddo flame.
  • Final Fantasy XIV has a chimera as a boss fight. It is an amalgamation of a goat, a dragon, a lion, a scorpion, a snake, and gods only know what else, all with their own attacks. The chimera first shows up as the end boss of Cutter's Cry, and a souped-up version later in a trial to acquire part of your relic weapon.
  • Final Fantasy Mystic Quest: Gidrah and Chimera are two different variants of the same monster, with Gidrah serving as the boss of the Giant Tree level and Chimera serving as a Degraded Boss in later levels. Both of them are depicted as a lion with a dragon's head sprouting from the left shoulder and a goat's head from the right, with Gidrah's fur being brown and Chimera's being purple.
  • Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin: The Chimera is the boss of the Crystal Mirage. It starts off as a winged lion with a cobra for a tail. When it loses its wings, a dragon's head and a goat's head grow from the stumps on long serpentine necks.
• Gauntlet: Dark Legacy has a chimera with a lion's body, dragon wings, eagle talons instead of claws, and three heads — one snake, one lion, and one eagle — to correlate with the three types of Gargoyles and their elements (Poison, Fire, and Electricity, respectively.)
• God of War:
  • God of War III: A Chimera appears as a miniboss, fought before you shoot Helios off his Chariot. The goat is the dominant head, with the lion's being on the chest and the snake taking the place of its tail. It has three phases for each of its heads. During the first one it's on all fours, with the snake being used as a whip, spitting out paralyzing poisons and on occasion grabbing Kratos. Once the snake has been cut off, the Chimera enters a bipedal phase, where the lion is dominant. During this stage, the lion will claw at Kratos and shoot giant balls of fire from its mouth. After Kratos gouges out the lion's eyes, the goat takes the helm and goes back on all fours, ramming into him with her horns and breathing large waves of fire. The Chimera is finally defeated when Kratos impales it with its own horn.
  • God of War: Ascension: An Ice Chimera appears with a blue color scheme and with ice attacks instead of the fire ones.
• Golden Sun: The Chimera appears multiple times as a boss or regular enemy. It has the body of a goat, a snake-headed tail, and the heads of a lion, an eagle, and a goat, with the eagle's front-quarters. Each of the variants has a fire breath attack, venomous fangs, and various spells including Bind and Eruption.
• Grimms Notes: The Chimeras are the Elite Mooks featured in Snow Ashes' Story Zone. They are large beasts with three heads belonging to a red deer, a blue wolf, and a yellow tiger.
• Kirby and the Forgotten Land: The first stage of Fecto Forgo, which is a large, gooey mass of Leongar and other members of the Beast Pack after assimilating them.
• Persona 5 Royal has one of these as a Shadow in Maruki's Palace.
• Pokémon Uranium: Chimical and Chimaconda, the "Chimera Pokémon", resemble red lions with wings and a snake for a tail. Chimaconda adds horns to the mix.
• Red Earth: One of the bosses, Ravange, is a variant of a chimera that has a goat's hindquarters, and an extra eagle and dragon heads beyond the three usual ones.
• Shining Force: Chimera show up late in the game when the City of Ancients rises from the ocean. They come in two flavors, Chimera and the much stronger Great Chimera, though both are simply reskins of each other. Powerful opponents, they can either attack with a vicious melee attack or a deadly breath weapon; fire for the normal ones, ice for the Great Chimera. Their wings let them count as a flying creature in battle, which means they can ignore terrain effects and obstacles.
• Shin Megami Tensei has had Chimera show up in many of its titles.
• Slashout: The "Gatto" enemies are chimaera with feline features, wings, and a clubbed tail they'll use to smash you up. One upgraded Gatto King Mook serves as a Gatekeeper fought before the actual boss.
• Slashout has feline-like Chimaera enemies called "Gatto" near the end of the game, as fast-moving Elite Mooks that takes plenty of hits to defeat. There's also a powerful King Mook Gatto serving as the level's Gatekeeper boss.
• Sylphia has a western chimaera as a boss in the church stage, where it lose heads upon taking damage — first the goat's, and the snake, and you finally kill it by destroying the lion's head.
• Tekken: Ogre's second form, True Ogre, resembles that of a Chimera, with fire breath, a lion-like head, the horns of a goat, the skin and wings of a dragon and a giant snake (or multiple snakes) in place of his right arm.
• Titan Quest: The Chimera is one of the bosses in the Temple of Marduk in the Orient, during Act III. It has a lion's body, with a snake's tail and three heads (a goat, a snake, and a lion). Each head has its own attack, the lion being the one focused on standard melee attack, the goat has a short-ranged lightning attack, and the snake using a long-ranged fire breath.
• A Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky: The Chimera boss has a snake as a tail, wings, and given the classical formula, a goat's backlegs, a lion's front paws, and a goat's horns on its lion's head.
• Subverted with Warcraft III's Chimeras, which are flying, two-headed dragons that spit lightning or corrosive bile and are used as flying artillery by the Night Elves. As a result, they're more akin to Wyverns (meanwhile, Warcraft's wyverns look more like manticores).
• XCOM: Chimera Squad follows the titular Chimera Squad, a first-of-its-kind joint human/alien peacekeeping force formed in the wake of a failed alien occupation that left humanity coexisting uneasily with a myriad of nonhuman once-Slave Mooks. Their insignia features a lion, a goat, and a snake, in reference to the original myth.
• Zeus: Master of Olympus: The Chimera has only one (lion) head, the body of a goat, and a snake tail. It's sent by Atlas if he's a hostile god and needs Bellerophon to be killed.

Webcomics

• The Order of the Stick: One of the first major enemies faced by the protagonists is a chimera named Trigak. After he is unceremoniously disposed of by Belkar (his three heads gasping "Gak!" as he dies), Haley points out that he was clearly meant to become a recurring villain, partly due to having a name. Nope, turns out he was just a random monster.
• Skin Deep: Chimeras resemble lions with the horns and hind legs of goats and reptilian tails. They're all female, but despite that have manes. They're among the various species that lack magical medallions that allow them to take human shape, and because of that are considered monsters — something not entirely helped by their own aggressive natures.
• Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic: The Black Mountain's chimera is a major character early on, consisting of a dim-witted but nice lion head, an utterly brainless dragon head, and a goat head as the Only Sane Man. It's quite powerful, but between the lion's fear of heights (in a flying creature) and the dragon getting easily distracted, it's not quite the menace it could be.

Web Original

• This Reddit post deals with the Speculative Biology of the Greek chimera, portraying it as a relic-surviving mesonychid with a lion-like mane, goat-like hooves adapted for scaling mountains and a long striped tail that somewhat resembles a snake.
• Beast Fables: True chimeras, after which the broader group of animal shapeshifters is named, are lions who can transform in a shape with reptilian and caprine traits. The example in the illustration has a crocodilian or draconic body, a lion's head and neck, and goat horns.

Western Animation

• American Dragon: Jake Long: The Chimera is the central antagonist in "Dreamscape". It appears as a dark red, bipedal monster, with three heads (a lion's in the middle, a cobra's on the right and a goat's on the left), the upper body of a lion, the lower half of a goat and a snake's tail. It's considered very dangerous and one of the Top 13 Threats to the Magical Community. Jake and Rose first encounter it whilst exploring Dr. Rotwood's dream looking for the answers to a secret test. They manage to defeat it and escape, but accidentally release it into the Dream Realm, where it goes on to haunt the dreams of others. They manage to recapture it after chasing it through various dreams and send it back to Dr. Rotwood's Mind.
• Class of the Titans: The Chimera appears twice in the first season, both times as a lion with the hide quarters of a goat, with a goat head on the back and a red snake in place of a tail. Its first appearance, in the episode "Sibling Rivalry," the Chimera is a virtual guardian of Medusa's cell, that is brought to life by the heroes fighting it. They manage to defeat it, by not fighting back, thus causing it to dissolve. Then in "Road to Hades" the real Chimera appears in the opening, being defeated, but not before poisoning Jay. This then leads to a Race Against the Clock, as his friends must go through the Underworld, to find a cure.
• Long Ago and Far Away:^note  A PBS series often cut apart and spliced together under different names with the James Earl Jones framing device removed Has an episode that revolves around Pegasus and features the Chimera. The monster has the head and body of a lion with a snake head for a tail and a goat head springing up from its shoulders, much like classic artwork. It is massive though, big enough to use mountains to lean against while sleeping. A change from the original myth is that the Chimera is so destructive to Lycia that Athena decides to intervene and inspires Bellerophon directly to slay it and sends Pegasus to help. The hero finds the monster sleeping, and rains down arrows on, killing the lion head by shooting it in its eyes. He then kills the other two heads by throwing the lead spear into the goat's mouth.
• The Godzilla Power Hour: Godzilla fights a fire-breathing chimera with a lion's head, ram's horns, snake's tongue and dragon's body in "Island of Lost Ships". It's one of the three monsters that live on the island, the other being a trio of sirens and a minotaur. It's initially kept inside a cage, from which it's released by Godzooky, before being re-imprisoned by Godzilla. During the climax, the sirens merge into one, allowing them to control the chimera, in order to fight Godzilla. After the sirens merge with the chimera, increasing its size, Godzilla defeats it by tricking it off a cliff and into the ocean, where the water then destroys it.
• Mission Odyssey: "Looking for Pegasus" is loosely based on the tale of Bellerophon, and features the Chimera as one of the antagonists. It is shown as a large and hideous fire-breathing beast, with brown fur, only one head with resembles a lion, the horns, beard and feet of a goat, the body of a horse and a long reptilian tail. While originally intended by Poseidon to kill Odysseus and his crew, with his son Bellerophon (in here named Bellero) being in on it, it is eventually killed by the Trojan hero, while riding Pegasus, when it's forced onto a collapsing bridge and then falls into the water.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: A Chimera serves as the central antagonist in "Somepony to Watch Over Me". She retains the goat head and hind-quarters and snake for a tail, though the lion is replaced by a saber-toothed tiger. This Chimera is fully sapient and capable of speech, with each head having its own personality and referring to the others as its sisters. She attempts to eat Apple Bloom when she tries to cross her home, the Flame Geyser Swamp, only to be defeated by Applejack, who charms the snake with her flute, subdues the tiger by shoving a chair through its mouth and satisfies the goat by feeding it cheese. The same or a similar chimera appears in "School Raze" as one of the monsters in Tartarus, and in the episode's second part is one of the chimeric creatures who donate their magic to open Tartarus' door, causing it to temporarily disassemble into a tiger, a goat and a snake.
• Mythic Warriors: Guardians of the Legend: The Bellerophon myth is given the Lighter and Softer treatment in the episode Bellerophon and Pegasus, and features the Chimera as the central antagonist. Though this looks a lot more like a dragon than a Chimera, with no lion, goat or snake parts.

Real Life

• In the modern era, people have begun making their own "chimeras" by fusing embryos from two different species together. As opposed to hybrid animals like ligers and mules, which have one embryo that came from two related species, a chimera is made when an organism is given two embryos from two related species, resulting in it having two genetically distinct sets of cells inside it. An example of this is the Geep, a fusion of a goat and sheep, made by mashing the two fertilized embryos together into one and then implanting the result into sheep and goat mothers. Note that this is also a natural, if rare, occurrence when twin embryos fuse together in the womb, in a kind of inverse of conjoined twins.
• One (5th century BC!) Doing In the Wizard explanation for the chimera was that it was the personification of a volcanic mountain where snakes lived in the forests at its base, goats grazed on the slopes above, and lions lived near the summit, which also featured burning vents.
• It's thought that the constellation Capricorn once represented the Chimera. Capricorn is still a serpent and a goat, two parts of the Chimera. The constellation Pegasus appears to drive Capricorn away. And finally Chimera was thought to be associated with winter before disasters in general, which Capricorn is considered the herald of.

---