STRANGE SERPENTS

The serpent lore of Greece speaks of some strange creatures and I don't mean the ones from early Greek mythology.  In 1835 the port of Fonia was in trouble.  Water gushed down from the mountains and flooded the town.  It was then that certain serpents with heads like those of oxen were espied.  This is not the only time such creatures have been seen in the land of Homer and Hesiod.  Two hunters in the forest of Rapsani heard the approach of an animal.  Ere long they discerned a large ox-headed serpent.  So ox-headed (or bucephalic) was it that it actually had a brace of small horns.  The hunters did not linger.  Whether due to the beast's size or its strangeness, they do not seem to have thought to open fire on it.

If you go to Naxos, a Greek island, you will find it has a cryptid called a laphiate.  This is a serpent with two heads.  Some lusus naturae may lie behind belief in this creature.

Coat of arms of Greece