ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of monsters in biological texts, focusing primarily on Aristotle. Whereas monsters in cosmogony and ethnography are chronologically or spatially distanced from the audience, the monsters in biology inhabit the same world. Aristotle presents monsters as the result of flawed reproductive processes. He characterises offspring which do not resemble their father as monstrous to a greater or lesser degree depending on the extent of the difference. However, the monsters that are most significant are those that differ from their species’ norms, and could therefore change the types of bodies their species could have. Additionally, Aristotle describes as deformed types of creatures that have qualities belonging to more than one of the large groups of animals (for example, seals are like both land and sea animals). Examining individuals or groups which are perceived to have abnormal bodies therefore allows us to understand the structures and hierarchies Aristotle uses in his presentation of the natural world.
