Could also be an armadillo
this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2025
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Good point – only problem: there are no armadillos in the Old World, and this manuscript dates from before Columbus.
OTH there are turtles in Southern Europe, so monks in Central Europe would have heard of them, but would quite probably not have seen them IRL.
Then a pangolin maybe?
Fun fact: the word "pangolin" comes from the malay word "panggoling" which means approximately "pangolin".*
* this is probably wrong, too. I don't know shit about the malay language, to my shame
I think you got it! There has been quite extensive traffic between Southern and Central Europe in the Middle Ages due to trade, pilgrimage and warfare, so there were people who had seen actual turtles and brought back first hand accounts. A medieval monk should have known someone who's second cousin twice removed met someone who saw a turtle during pilgrimage.
Pangolins OTOH are native to Subsaharan Africa, India and Eastern Asia. Except of Marco Polo no European has travelled to Pangolinland during the Middle Ages. Stories did travel along the Silk Road, though, and and this drawing does resemble a pangolin much more than a turtle.
OTH there are turtles in Southern Europe, so monks in Central Europe would have heard of them, but would quite probably not have seen them IRL.
Turtles aren't native to Central Europe?
No, they are not frost proove and pretty bad at climbing.
LOL, turtles are native just about everywhere.
Thanks bio-history side of Lemmy :D
Could also be a wartortle
Imagine drawing something. Then hundreds of years later someone shares a picture of it (the fuck is a picture?) on something called the internet and they throw shade at your art work post mortem while some guy drawing squares with colors is considered an artist.
But with your comment you started throwing some light shade in the squares guy so things will even out sooner or later
Fast-forward to post-mortem of the squares guy, now we are running a supercomputer with an exclusive Nuclear Power plant and typing in prompts for hours to get it to "draw" us random art-looking squares.
Don’t forget the curly tail! Classic turtle.
Might have been some other species that got extinct from the crime of being too tasty.
No fossils because bones were given to pets and domestics.