As a kid, who didn't want unicorns or dragons to exist? I dedicated large portions of my childhood to finding these mythical creatures in the woods behind my house, but I never had any luck. I still remember all the kids at school laughing at me and telling me that dragons and unicorns aren't real. There's no quicker way to crush an 18-year-old's innocence, I can tell you.
I could've saved a lot of time if I'd only gone to the Field Museum in Chicago's exhibit "Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns & Mermaids," I could've saved a lot of time. The exhibit uses fossils, preserved specimens, recreated models, and ancient artifacts to explain how the mythical imagination grew around the fossil record. Ancient Greeks who unearthed skulls of dwarf elephants (pictured) on Mediterranean islands mistook the cavity in the center for a single eye hole — voila, the myth of the Cyclops is born.
(Click through for more pictures of fossils-turned-myths at the Field Museum).
