RESEARCH EDITION 01 · 5 OCTOBER 2026

A wide lens. An honest record.

Mythscribe Mundus is being built toward an ambitious compendium of life, peoples, traditions and fictional worlds. This edition is a selected research library, not a complete catalogue of everything that has existed or been imagined.

4978research profiles

1171research profiles with images

53fictional universes

7986distinct source links

Research depth and record counts

4978 original research profiles, 1,021 structured game-data records, and 110,000 source-backed taxonomic records. These tiers are not interchangeable: an accepted taxonomic name and classification is not a fully researched, illustrated article. The full requested depth remains incomplete.

The image total above covers research profiles. The structured game records separately contain 1,021 image records, mainly game sprites. Captions distinguish creature depictions from documentary pages, cultural context and reconstructions.

Search the species catalogue and inspect its source provenance.

Explore 73 scientific study trees, 293 narrative families and documented creator influences.

What this edition covers

Collection	Local entries	Evidence and limits
Folklore & traditions	3583	Publicly documented traditions across six geographic groupings. No claim to represent all communities or oral variants.
Fictional worlds	2108	Selected creatures, species and peoples. Continuities, adaptations and editions can differ.
Natural history	126	Selected lineages and taxa, extinct life, living organisms and early-life hypotheses. No complete species inventory.
Peoples & cultures	182	Selected human cultural identities. Not biological races and not a complete ethnographic catalogue.

World traditions

Africa809 Asia1355 Caribbean3 Europe586 North America381 Oceania258 South America191

Geographic headings are navigation aids. They do not imply that a tradition is confined to modern borders, or that communities within a region share a single belief system.

Fictional worlds in the collection

Our editorial distinctions

Record, interpretation, and uncertainty. Physical evidence, oral tradition and fictional canon answer different questions. A first written record is not necessarily the beginning of a tradition; an oldest known fossil is not necessarily the first member of a lineage.
Peoples are not creature categories. Living peoples are presented as cultural identities within Homo sapiens. Indigenous accounts and self-descriptions should take precedence over imposed racial classifications.
Specific works, selected bibliography. Literary lists document selected appearances and useful reading. No entry claims to list every publication, adaptation or oral variant.
Evidence before quotations. Excerpts include a work and locator. Entries without a verified excerpt omit it. An omitted quotation is a research gap, not evidence that literature does not exist.
Images have identities too. Captions distinguish historical art, specimens, reconstructions and fan interpretations. A cosplay photograph is not official character artwork. Missing imagery is visible and counted below.
Research profiles, not final authorities. These are original editorial summaries prepared with AI assistance and linked sources. They have not all received independent specialist review. Read the cited evidence, especially where dates, taxonomy or cultural interpretation are contested.

Images in research profiles

The 1171 profile images include 78 source-page facsimiles or ritual documents. These document a source; they do not complete coverage with depictions of the creature. Reference, thematic and cosplay images retain their separate labels and are not automatically exact portraits or official artwork.

Image type	Research profiles
Contemporary documentary photograph of a specifically attributed Kawésqar basket-making display	1
Contemporary photograph of a named community member	2
Contextual community activity photograph	7
Contextual community education photograph	1
Contextual community food-distribution photograph	1
Contextual community governance photograph	4
Contextual community health-service photograph	1
Contextual community heritage-site restoration photograph	1
Contextual community nutrition-program photograph	1
Contextual community performance photograph	1
Contextual community photograph	4
Contextual community portrait photograph	4
Contextual cultural heritage-site photograph	1
Contextual cultural institution photograph	1
Contextual cultural landscape photograph	1
Contextual cultural object photograph	20
Contextual cultural object photograph with qualified attribution	4
Contextual cultural textile photograph	1
Contextual historical object photograph	1
Contextual multilingual legal-access event photograph	1
Contextual named Cape Verdean public festival photograph	1
Contextual named historical photograph	2
Contextual named historical portrait reproduction	1
Contextual photograph of community livestock and wildlife; no human portrait	1
Contextual public Isukuti performance photograph; performers’ ethnicity unspecified	1
Contextual research map	1
Cosplay interpretation	32
Creator-made Animated Armor Updated miniature render	1
Creator-made Ankheg Updated miniature render	1
Creator-made Basilisk Updated miniature render	1
Creator-made Bulette miniature render	1
Creator-made Chimera Updated miniature render	1
Creator-made Chuul miniature render	1
Creator-made Darkmantle miniature render	1
Creator-made Ettercap miniature render	1
Creator-made Flying Sword miniature render	1
Creator-made Gorgon miniature render	1
Creator-made Grick miniature render	1
Creator-made Remorhaz miniature render	1
Creator-made Roper miniature render	1
Creator-made Rug of Smothering Updated miniature render	1
Creator-made Sahuagin miniature render	1
Creator-made rust monster miniature render	1
Dated documentary photograph of source-identified Kayapó leader Raoni Metuktire	1
Documentary event photograph of two named Sarayaku representatives	1
Documentary photograph of a named Kichwa Otavalo public figure at a dated parliamentary appearance	1
Documentary photograph of a named Pataxó representative at a dated public hearing	1
Documentary photograph of a named Wapichana public figure at a specifically dated public hearing	1
Documentary photograph of a named community ensemble at a dated public concert	1
Documentary photograph of a named participant shown by videoconference at a public institutional event	1
Documentary photograph of a specifically identified public Otomí-Hñöhñö doll-fair opening	1
Documentary photograph of named petitioners at a dated CIDH hearing concerning the Shuar people	1
Exact fossil photomicrograph, published Figure2b	1
Exact narrative illustration in historical American collected-tale edition	2
Exact subject	14
Experimental cell tomography and molecular reconstructions in an original multi-panel figure	1
FWS documentary photograph of specifically captioned White Earth tribal members harvesting wild rice	1
Game sprite	4
Historical Devi Mahatmya narrative painting	1
Historical Japanese minogame decorative sculpture	1
Historical Ramayana narrative painting	1
Historical Tibetan furniture painting	1
Historical armor-mask photograph	1
Historical artist’s portrait of a specifically named Tłı̨chǫ sitter	1
Historical community group photograph	1
Historical community portrait photograph	1
Historical contextual community institution photograph	2
Historical contextual community photograph	1
Historical contextual narrative montage with interpretive character identification	3
Historical contextual settlement photograph	1
Historical cultural scene interpreted by an outside artist	1
Historical decorative-object photograph	1
Historical engraved portrait of a named individual, reproduced from a film copy negative	1
Historical illustrated book-page facsimile	3
Historical illustration	458
Historical individual portrait illustration	1
Historical literary illustration	1
Historical literary illustration of Kulóskap in a separately identified Penobscot metrical adaptation	1
Historical literary illustration of the named wind-eagle in a1902 metrical adaptation	1
Historical manuscript illustration	18
Historical model photograph	2
Historical mural photograph	1
Historical named-person engraving	1
Historical named-person photograph	1
Historical narrative drawing	2
Historical narrative painting	3
Historical photograph of a named community member	1
Historical ritual document	2
Historical ritual performance photograph	26
Historical ritual-object photograph	1
Historical sculpture photograph	8
Historical story illustration	3
Historical text facsimile	76
Institution-supplied composite fossil photographs and explicitly artistic reconstruction	1
Institutional two-view photograph of a historically catalogued wooden box drum	1
Literary context	1
Modern fan illustration of Rodan; film incarnation unspecified	1
Modern fan illustration of a specific Middle-earth story scene	2
Modern fan illustration of the 1984 Godzilla design	1
Museum fossil-cast photograph	1
Museum photograph of a historical Northern Northwest Coast bird mask with multiple catalogue cultural attributions	1
Museum photograph of a historical Wolastoqiyik canoe model and accessories	1
Museum photograph of a historical carved headdress with qualified cultural attribution	1
Museum photograph of a specifically catalogued Asháninka featherwork object	1
Museum photograph of a specifically catalogued Mam Maya everyday blouse	1
Museum photograph of a specifically catalogued historical Gitxsan game set	1
Museum plant-specimen photograph	1
Organism microscopy, shell-colony photographs and explanatory anatomy diagram	1
Original named-tale colour illustration.	1
Original narrative illustration, Burns’s Nannie chase; entire illustrated page retained, landscape reading orientation.	1
Original narrative illustration, explicitly captioned; Jacobs’s1916Master-Maid retelling	1
Original narrative illustration, human-form episode before Aoife’s air-demon transformation.	1
Original student fan-art poster; whole custodial medium-resolution display rendition	1
Photograph of historical narrative relief	4
Published static render of kijai’s Final Fantasy Tonberry sculpt	1
Reference illustration	266
Reference image	4
Scientific animal anatomy photograph composite	1
Scientific animal behavior photograph sequence	1
Scientific animal photograph and anatomy figure	1
Scientific animal photograph and fin-pattern comparison composite	1
Scientific animal photograph, karyotype and genome-assembly figure	1
Scientific animal photographs and comparative genome figure	2
Scientific brightfield micrograph	1
Scientific dissected animal and light-organ photograph composite	1
Scientific field photograph composite	1
Scientific field photograph with two identified species	1
Scientific fluorescence micrograph composite	1
Scientific fossil community reconstruction diagram	1
Scientific fossil microscopy photograph	1
Scientific fossil reconstruction and specimen figure	1
Scientific fossil reconstruction silhouette	1
Scientific fossil specimen and reconstruction figure	1
Scientific fossil specimen photograph	1
Scientific fossil tomography rendering	2
Scientific fungal culture photographs and phylogeny figure	1
Scientific fungal fluorescence microscopy and experiment figure	1
Scientific herbarium specimen photograph	1
Scientific hypothesis diagram	1
Scientific life-cycle diagram	1
Scientific organism atomic-force microscopy figure	1
Scientific organism fluorescence microscopy and experiment figure	2
Scientific organism fluorescence microscopy figure	2
Scientific organism light micrograph	1
Scientific organism microscopy and cell-cycle figure	1
Scientific organism microscopy and immobilization comparison figure	1
Scientific organism microscopy and locomotion figure	1
Scientific organism microscopy and movement figure	2
Scientific organism microscopy experiment figure	2
Scientific organism microscopy photograph	5
Scientific organism mouth microscopy and experiment figure	1
Scientific organism photograph	1
Scientific organism reference silhouette	1
Scientific organism specimen photograph	1
Scientific photograph composite of prepared mushroom parts	1
Scientific plant experiment photograph and chart	1
Scientific plant experiment photographs and microscopy figure	1
Scientific plant experimental photograph composite	1
Scientific plant photograph	1
Scientific plant photograph and microscopy figure	2
Scientific plant photographs and distribution map	1
Scientific specimen photograph composite	1
Sri Lankan Nāga Raksha performance mask, catalogued as nagarassa	1
Static render of a creator-made Totoro fan model	1
Static render of a creator-made fan model of the Goron Yunobo	1
Thematic illustration	39
Whole comparative fossil-photograph figure, exact Funisia population in panel B	1
Whole creator-published four-view render of a DnD5e-compatible homebrew Mimic miniature	1
Whole experimental tardigrade microscopy comparison figure	1
Whole organism photograph by Erling Svensen	1

These categories describe each profile’s main image. Additional credited images appear in article galleries; imported game-record and taxonomic-catalogue images are counted separately.

Image and text attribution

Each illustrated entry carries its own creator, license and source record. Licenses apply to individual works; the compendium does not claim ownership of franchise characters or cultural traditions. Reuse must follow the linked image’s terms. Thumbnails may be visually cropped in the index; article figures preserve their proportions.

Optional encyclopedia introductions are attributed to Wikipedia contributors, with the retrieved revision and CC BY-SA license shown beside the text. These introductions are separate from the original profile and can be compared with the primary references.

Known gaps and the next research pass

Taxonomic coverage is highly selective: most organisms, especially invertebrates, plants, fungi and microorganisms, remain outside this edition.
Regional breadth does not mean complete coverage of any continent’s cultures, languages or living traditions.
Fictional entries need continued edition-by-edition bibliographic expansion.
3807 profiles still need a suitable documented image; 4232 research profiles have no located literary excerpt.
Source links and attributions are recorded, but link availability and the underlying scholarship may change.

See profiles still awaiting a documented image (3807)