The Bird-Shaped Man-Eater.
A creature that had been mistaken for a type of Fire Dragon for a considerable length of time.
Along with that attention-seeking Kelpie-the Loch Ness Monster-it was known as one of the most frequently exposed magical creatures.
The Bird-Type Man-Eater lived mainly on the vast plains of North America. It was a magical creature with both avian and semi-reptilian traits, and a distant relative of the Occamy.
This magical creature could not breathe fire and possessed almost no magical characteristics itself, but it flew extremely fast, and its sharp, serrated teeth could easily tear prey to pieces.
Its tough hide and fur, along with feathers like steel, made it difficult for ordinary magic and early Muggle firearms to harm it.
During the development of the New Continent, large numbers of Muggles had witnessed Bird-Shaped Man-Eaters, and many had been killed and devoured, so the creatures frequently appeared in Muggle newspapers.
This had given the Wizards who had traveled to the New Continent back then endless headaches.
Casting Obliviate on Muggles who had seen Bird-Shaped Man-Eaters, repairing the damage the creatures caused, or finding a "reasonable" explanation for it had become those Wizards' main daily work, much to their exasperation.
As Hagrid's good friend, Harry did quite well in Care of Magical Creatures.
As a Gryffindor, though it was not exactly easy to admit, Harry really was more interested in the fiercer, more imposing Fantastic Beasts-many young Gryffindor Wizards were actually the same.
Just as girls preferred Unicorns, boys preferred Fire Dragons and Griffins.
The Bird-Shaped Man-Eater was also one of the magical creatures Harry was very interested in. And that interest was not simply because the creature was imposing and powerful.
Yet even though Harry was very interested in this creature, encountering one in the wild was