FT254

The ancients imagined mythical creatures that combined human and animal elements, including mermaids, minotaurs, satyrs and centaurs. They also mixed up different animals to form new combinations, like the gryphon (eagle/lion) and the chimera or chimæra (lion/dragon/goat). Differ­ent species can sometimes mate and produce hybrid offspring, but there is also a stranger type of creature which, like the mermaid, is half one thing and half another. These are known to science as mosaics or chimeras.

Both mosaics and chimeras are individuals with two genetic­ally distinct populations of cells. The difference between them is that in a mosaic the different types both arise from the same fertilised egg, whereas a chimera comes from more than one.