Is
this what the fire-sustained pyrallis is said to have looked like in ancient
Cyprus? This is #1 of ten original pyrallis representations included by me in
this article.
The classical mythology of ancient Greece
is plentifully populated by all manner of famous legendary beasts – from
centaurs, satyrs, gorgons, and Stymphalian birds to harpies, sirens, the
minotaur, and much more. There are also some far less familiar but no less
fascinating examples, including the diminutive but thought-provoking fusion of
herpetology and entomology presented here now – namely, the pyrallis of ancient
Cyprus.
Also known variously as the pyrausta, pyragones,
or pyrotocon, the pyrallis derives all of its names from the Greek word 'pyr',
which translates as 'fire', because it is intimately associated with this
traditional fundamental element. According to traditional classical Greek
legend, the pyrallis was a tiny incandescent beast resembling a winged, four-limbed,
golden insect but in more recent times it is often represented with a scaly
reptilian body and the head of a fire-breathing dragon too.
A
16th-Century woodcut engraving of a basic copper-smelting furnace
like those in ancient Cyprus (public domain)
Moreover, not only was it born in but
also spent its entire life flitting amongst the coruscating flames of copper-smelting
furnaces in Cyprus, living amid these blazing domains in great swarms
resembling gleaming showers of glowing sparks, borne upon the furnaces'
billowing heat and smoke. Should any of these minute insectoids fly beyond the
confines of their infernal abode for even a split-second, however, they would
instantly turn to ash and die.
In that respect, the pyrallis, although
entirely different in form and size, is reminiscent of another creature from
Greek fable, the fire-inhabiting salamander, after which real-life salamanders
are named (even though they certainly do not inhabit fire!).
Image
of the fire-inhabiting mythical salamander, created by me using Magic Studio
Needless to say, it was long assumed that
such a fanciful animal as the pyrallis was indeed entirely fabulous, with no
basis in reality. However, as will now be revealed here, although attracting
scant scientific attention even at the time of its original presentation in a
published article, and nowadays, 75 years later, having been all but forgotten,
there is one compelling line of speculation that seeks to identify this mythical
mini-beast with a certain bona fide species, one whose own intimate association
with fire may have genuinely inspired the pyrallis legend.
The earliest record relating unequivocally
to the pyrallis as described by me above is a brief passage that can be found
in Chapter 36 (not 42 as sometimes incorrectly claimed) of Book #11 from Naturalis Historia (The Natural History). This is the encyclopaedic magnum opus produced by the
eminent 1st-Century Roman scholar/naturalist Pliny the Elder (23/24
AD to 79 AD), which consists of 37 books contained within ten volumes.
Portrait
engraving of Pliny The Elder (public domain)
In the 1855 English translation of Naturalis Historia prepared by Dr John
Bostock, the relevant passage reads as follows:
That
element [fire], also, which is so destructive to matter, produces certain
animals; for in the copper-smelting furnaces of Cyprus, in the very midst of
the fire, there is to be seen flying about a four-footed animal with wings, the
size of a large fly: this creature is called the "pyrallis," and by
some the "pyrausta." So long as it remains in the fire it will live,
but if it comes out and flies a little distance from it, it will instantly die.
Pyrallis
#2
True, it was not the first pyrallis
mention. In his comprehensive work History
of Animals, celebrated Greek scholar Aristotle (384-322 BC) stated that the
turtle dove was at war with the pyrallis. However, he seemingly considered the
latter creature to be merely some form of unspectacular bird, as this mention
was contained within a paragraph devoted entirely to warfare between different
types of familiar bird, such as the owl, crow, raven, kite, green woodpecker, gull,
tern, and buzzard. Consequently, it would appear to have no relevance to the
fire-sustaining insect-dragon under investigation by me here. (Indeed, various
Aristotlean researchers have identified this avian pyrallis as a type of
pigeon, the pygmy dove.)
Conversely, and also confusingly,
elsewhere in his same work Aristotle described in some detail a creature that
he did not name but which is evidently one and the same as the pyrallis that
would be named and documented by Pliny three centuries later.
Aristotle
bust, a marble, Roman copy after a Greek bronze original by Lysippos from 330
BC (public domain)
Here is Aristotle's account of his
unnamed version:
Living
animals are found in substances that are usually supposed to be incapable of
putrefaction…In Cyprus, in places where copper-ore is smelted, with heaps of
the ore piled on day after day, an animal is engendered in the fire, somewhat
larger than a blue bottle fly, furnished with wings, which can hop or crawl
through the fire. And…perish when you keep the one away from the fire…Now the
salamander is a clear case in point, to show us that animals do actually exist
that fire cannot destroy; for this creature, so the story goes, not only walks
through the fire but puts it out in doing so…Such is the mode of generation of
the insects above enumerated.
Pyrallis
#3
It is clear that this passage by Aristotle
describing an unnamed blue bottle-sized fire-inhabiting creature was the
primary source utilized by Pliny for his own version, in which said creature
was referred to by him by name, as the pyrallis (or pyrocausta), and also that
Aristotle deemed it to be some type of insect. Less clear, meanwhile, is why
Aristotle applied that very same name, pyrallis, to an entirely different,
wholly unrelated creature, a kind of bird. All very strange, and bewildering!
Anyway, one subsequent early work also
documented the pyrallis, albeit not by that name. This work was Book 2 of De Natura Animalium, a 17-book
collection of brief accounts and anecdotes concerning natural history, written
by Roman author Aelian, aka Claudius Aelianus (c175-c235 AD), with a particular
emphasis upon extraordinary or fabulous cases.
A vintage
claimed likeness of Aelian (public domain)
Here is the short passage that he wrote
about creatures that he termed fire-flies but which obviously referred to the
pyrallis:
That
living creatures should be born upon the mountains, in the air, and in the sea,
is no great marvel [I'd beg to differ regarding creatures being born in the
air!], since matter, food, and nature are the cause. But that there should
spring from fire winged creatures which men call 'Fire-flies,' and that these
should live and flourish in it, flying to and fro about it, is a startling
fact. And what is more extraordinary, when these creatures stray outside the
range of the heat to which they are accustomed and take in cold air, they at
once perish. And why they should be born in the fire and die in the air others
must explain.
Pyrallis
#4
Notwithstanding Aelian's naming of them
as fire-flies, these mythical entities' fire-generated, fire-inhabiting
lifestyle sets them wholly apart from the real-life insects known to us today
as fire-flies, which are bioluminescent lampyrid beetles, and also include the
familiar glow-worms. For their only connection to fire is the fiery light that
they emit. Perhaps, therefore, Alien had somehow conflated the legendary
pyrallis with the genuine fire-flies and glow-worms.
Whatever the explanation for his
nomenclatural confusion, however, Aelian certainly seemed to believe in the
authenticity of the pyrallis, so might there be a real-life insect known to him
that gave rise to this legendary mini-monster? Such a fascinating notion was
put forward as a very plausible possibility in 1950 by Emile Janssens, via a
fascinating yet little-known paper published in French by the scientific
journal Latomus, in turn published by
the Société d'Études Latines de Bruxelles, in Belgium.
A
smoke fly, Microsania sp., greatly
enlarged (public domain)
As Janssens noted in his paper,
pyrophilic or pyrophilous (fire-loving) insects are far from unknown. Take, for
example, the aptly-dubbed smoke flies of the genus Microsania, belonging to the taxonomic family Platypezidae, the
flat-footed flies. Just a few millimeters long at most, typically hump-backed
in appearance, and of global distribution, these diminutive dipterans seem to
appear from nowhere wherever there is a fire and smoke, and swarm amidst the
fire like motes of black ash, then vanish as swiftly as they appeared once the
fire dies and the smoke dissipates.
Their attraction to fire was first scientifically
recorded by Belgian entomologist G. Severin via a 1921 paper, in which he
revealed how, after having sought in vain for any Microsania specimens for 20 years within a particular area of
Belgium, he unexpectedly observed numerous individuals dancing in swarms amidst
the smoke generated by a heath fire in that very same locality, but that was
not all. Not one specimen could be found more than a few feet (1 m) beyond the
perimeter of the fire and its smoke; and once the fire had ceased and its embers
had cooled, every last fly disappeared, not a single one remaining in the area.
The
common blue bottle fly Calliphora
vomitoria (© Shiv's fotografia/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 4.0 licence)
This scenario bears much more than a
passing resemblance to that of the pyrallis legend, as Janssens commented in
his paper. Nevertheless, he dismissed these flies as the likely identity for
the latter entity on account of how tiny they are, in stark contrast to the
classical writers quoted by me earlier here all stating that the pyrallis was
the size of a large blue bottle fly, i.e. Calliphora
vomitoria, a very familiar species of blow fly, which measures 1-1.5 cm
long and is therefore considerably bigger than a Microsania fly.
Although far from unknown as noted
earlier, out of the more than 1 million insect species currently described by
science (and with countless more still awaiting description) only around 50-60
of them are pyrophilic. Of these, moreover, the vast majority are beetles, plus
ten dipterans (true flies), eight hemipteran bugs, one wasp, and one moth. Two
of the best-known pyrophilic beetles are a pair of European carabid (ground
beetle) species – Sericoda quadripunctata
(attracted to severe burning outbreaks) and Pterostichus
quadrifoleolatus (to weak burnings).
Sericoda quadripunctata, a European species of pyrophilic carabid (ground beetle) (©Yves
Bousquet/Wikipedia – CC BY 3.0 licence)
By far the most famous and best-studied pyrophilic
beetle species, however, and which was favoured above all other real-life
creatures by Janssens as the identity of (or at least the inspiration for) the pyrallis,
is a certain European species of buprestid wood-boring beetle. Despite its
sombre black colouration, Melanophila acuminata
is colloquially known as the fire beetle or fire bug, due to its decidedly
fiery lifestyle, in every sense.
For just like the smoke flies, this insect
species is irresistibly drawn to fire (hence yet another name for it, the
fire-chaser beetle) – so much so that whenever there is a forest fire and all
other creatures are fleeing away from
it, these beetles are seen fleeing towards
it! Indeed, rural fire fighters are often greatly hindered by large swarms of
them while trying to extinguish such blazes, to the extent that they often have
to wear special beekeeper attire in order to prevent these beetles from penetrating
their clothes and biting them!
Several studies of this bizarre beetle,
which is approximately 1 cm long, the size of a blue bottle fly, have uncovered
the reason for its obsession with fire and the various anatomical accessories
that it has evolved to assist it in locating conflagrations. As is so often
true in so many disparate walks of life, it all has its basis in sex!
The fire beetle has evolved to copulate
specifically upon the still-burning wood of newly-scorched trees, especially
conifers, and to lay its eggs beneath the charred bark of such trees, which
then serves as food for this beetle's white maggot-like larvae once hatched.
Even its feet have evolved an asbestos-like resistance to high temperatures
that enables it to scuttle around unharmed on smoldering wood and sizzling embers
too hot for a human hand to dare touch.
Melanophila acuminata larva on Pinus sylvestris,
the Scots pine (© Gilles San Martin/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 2.0 licence)
But how do fire beetles sense the
presence of a fire? Examinations of their micro-anatomy have revealed that just
like certain heat-sensing snakes such as pit vipers and rattlesnakes, these
beetles possess a pair of thermal infra-red receptors, resembling tiny pits.
These sensory organs are present on their thorax's undersurface, each
containing a small water droplet that expands when heat is detected, triggering
a nervous system response to follow the heat source.
They are extraordinarily sensitive to
heat, enabling the beetles to home in on a fire from very considerable
distances. In fact, one study whose results were published in 2012 estimated via
the use of modeling that this particular species could detect a fire from as
far away as 80 miles (roughly 130 km)!
Pyrallis
#5
In addition, there are olfactory organs
on the antennae of this species that some researchers believe may detect smoke
and thereby further assist it in its fire-sensing needs. No doubt such organs
explain instances in which these insects have been known to swarm en masse at
American football stadiums during a game, lured there by the thick haze of
tobacco smoke resulting from the game's numerous smoking spectators.
Bearing in mind, however, as I've
revealed earlier here, that the fire beetle is not the only known European
species of pyrophilic beetle, why did Janssens favour it above all of the
others as a possible explanation for the pyrallis legend?
Pyrallis
#6
After referring briefly to one of those
others, here is what he stated in his paper:
But there is better. We know,
thanks to the English entomologist W[illiam]. E. Sharp, the extraordinary
habits of a Buprestid beetle which flies with the vivacity of a fly and which
has the size required by the indications of ancient authors. It is Melanophila acuminata.
Pyrallis
#7
He then
quoted a very pertinent excerpt concerning Sharp that had appeared in a 1934
scientific account written by fellow entomologist A. Collart and published in
the Société Entomologiquede Belgique's Bulletin.
Knowing that this species could be found on charred pine tree trunks, Sharp had
set about seeking specimens of it in a Berkshire pine forest where a fire had
recently broken out. As documented by Collart:
It was only after a long
search that a single specimen of Melanophila
was caught on a charred stump of Pine; this was a meagre harvest, when, guided
by a distant smoke, Mr. Sharp and the friend who accompanied him arrived at a
place where the fire was still active. Immediately several specimens of Melanophila were captured; some were
running on ground too hot for the hand to be able to rest on it. Others were
installed, often in copula on burning pine stumps or, under a bright August
sun, flew through puffs of acrid smoke released by the burning peat; and,
grilled by the peaty materials on fire, blinded by a suffocating smoke, the two
researchers made a painful but very fruitful hunt for the Melanophila!
Pyrallis
#8
As Janssens
judiciously pointed out, the above description certainly parallels that of
Aelian (as well as Pliny's and Aristotle's) for the pyrallis. Moreover, it is
reasonable to assume that the fuel used in the copper ore furnaces of Cyprus long
ago consisted mainly of resinous pine wood.
And whereas fire
beetles do not actually die when they eventually depart from the fire and smoke
that initially attracted them, they do disappear back into their rural
surroundings with extraordinary rapidity, plus their dark colouration makes
them difficult to observe when no longer illuminated by the bright glow of a
fire. So again it is not unreasonable to assume that ancient Cypriot observers
assumed that they had simply turned to ash and died.
Pyrallis
#9
Consequently,
I certainly feel that Janssens's proposal that the pyrallis myth was inspired
by sightings of fire beetles swarming and flying amidst the burning, smoking pine
wood fuel in copper ore furnaces to be a tenable one, and it is a great shame
that it did not receive the scientific attention and further investigation that
it so richly deserved.
NB – All pyrallis
illustrations included here were created by me using Magic Studio, and
represent this legendary beast in a variety of different forms, including
insect-headed, dragon-headed, four-limbed, and six-limbed, all of which are descriptions
that have been attributed to it by various authors down through the ages.
Pyrallis
#10
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