Chinese mythology merely fantastic types of the bestiary sort. Sometimes the dragon is considered part of this category, related to it, or the ruler of all the swimming and crawling folk. This may include the giant marine turtle or tortoise Ao, the Bashe snake reputed to swallow elephants, a nine-headed snake monster reminiscent of the hydra known as Xiangliu, and the White Serpent from the novel "Legend of the White Snake". Various birds are found in Chinese mythology, some of them obviously based on real birds, other ones obviously not, and some in-between. The Crane is an example of a real type
Dog in Chinese mythology against the evolved-monkey hero, Sun Wukong, critically biting him on the leg. Later on in the story (Chapter 63), Sun Wukong with Erlang (now both on the same side) and their companions-in-fight battle against a Nine-headed Insect monster, when, again, Erlang's small hound comes to the rescue and defeats by biting off the monster's retractable head, which popped in and out of its torso: the monster then flees, dripping blood, off into the unknown. The author of the "Journey to the West" comments that this is the origin of the "nine-headed blood-dripping bird", and that this trait was passed on