Introduction
Amphiptere from Amber's Dragon Lair.
Amphiptere is a hybrid from on European heraldry, part snake and part bird. [1] Throughout Europe, the amphiptere was widely feared, so any family that displayed it on their coat of arms would be perceived as particularly fearsome in battle. [1]
Despite the origin of the word, amphipteres can be found all over the world predating the European counterpart. For example, Ancient Egypt has many amphipteres, and the Mesoamerican Plumed Serpent Quetzalcoatl sometimes takes the form of the amphiptere.
Physical Description
The amphiptere has the body of a serpent, from head to tail. It also has a pair of wings behind its neck, where forelimbs might be found on a quadruped, but the amphiptere possess no hind limbs. As a hybrid of bird and serpent, most amphiptere have feathered wings, but some have membranous wings like those of a bat.
Footnotes
For more information on footnotes and references, please see the bibliography.
