Sea Goat: half-goat half-fish

Roman aureus coin with Capricorn as a sea goat minted in 19 BC by Emperor Augustus[1]
Grouping	Legendary creature
Sub grouping	Hybrid
Folklore	Greek mythology, Jewish folklore, Sumerian religion
Region	Mesopotamia, Greece, Israel
Habitat	The ocean

The sea goat is a legendary aquatic animal described as a creature that is half-goat and half-fish.^[2]

The constellation Capricornus was commonly imagined as a type of sea goat. The constellation has its origin in Bronze Age Mesopotamia. According to the Babylonian star catalogues the analogous constellation to Capricornus of the Greeks and Romans was ^MUL SUḪUR.MAŠ, 'the goat fish', which symbolized the god Enki.^[3][4]

Greek interpretation

The Greek interpretation of the sea goat comes from the introduction of the Babylonian zodiac. In an attempt to codify the constellation Capricornus within the Greek pantheon, two myths were used as an explanation. One being that the constellation is Amalthea, the goat that raised Zeus. As thanks for caring for him as a child, Zeus places her amongst the stars.^[5]

The other being that the sea goat is the wilderness god Pan.^[6] The myth goes that Pan jumped into the river to escape the monster Typhon. He tries to turn himself into a fish while jumping into the river, but he moves too quickly and only his lower half becomes that of a fish. Zeus then engages in combat with the monster. Zeus defeats him, but not without Typhon pulling the muscles out of Zeus' legs. With the help of Hermes, Pan replaces the damaged muscles. As a reward for healing him, Zeus placed Pan in the sky as Capricorn.^[7] The god Aegipan is also depicted in Greek art as a sea goat.

Jewish tradition

In Jewish oral history, sea goats are mentioned. The story goes that one day all the creatures of the sea must offer themselves to the monster Leviathan. In another, a sailor encountered a sea goat while far at sea. On its horns was carved the sentence, translated as "I am a little sea-animal, yet I traversed three hundred parasangs to offer myself as food to the leviathan."^[8]

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_goat}