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
Iara (mythology) live with her underwater forever, which was not necessarily a bad thing, as she was pretty and would cater for all needs of her lover for the rest of his life. It is often claimed that, until the 18th century, the Iara legend was originally about an aggressive monstrous river merman known as Ipupiara ("freshwater monster", in Portuguese phonological rules; by that [Pre-Pombaline] time, most Brazilians still spoke ), that would readily devour fishers, rather than that of a seducing, docile river mermaid. Iaras are immortal (like the nymphs of Greek mythology), but her lovers do age and die, which