Basilisk

Basilisk is a mythical reptile with a lethal gaze or breath. It is an animal fabled to have been hatched by a toad from the egg of an old cock, before whose breath every living thing withered and died, and the glance of whose eye so bewitched one to his ruin that the bravest could confront and overcome it only by looking at the reflection of it in a mirror, as Perseus was advised to do, and did, when he cut off the head of the Medusa; seeing itself in a mirror, it burst, it as said, at the sight.

A lizard found in Central America is also known by this name. It is long, slender, and chiefly of bright green colour. The male basilisk has a crest running from the head to the tail. It can run on its hind legs across the surface of water, and also can swim well. It zoological name is Basiliscus plumifrons, and it belongs to the family Iguanidae.

In Heraldry, basilisk is another name for cockatrice, the depiction of this mythical animal as a two-legged dragon or wyvern with a cock's head.