Ipotane

Although sometimes attributed to Greek mythology, the term appears to have originated at a much later date, and without a definite description; they are first mentioned in John de Mandeville's fourteenth-century Travels.

In his 1356 travelogue, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville,[1] the author reports the existence of a violent race of ipotanes, found in Bacharie (Bactria).

[2] Some depictions show ipotanes with a human body and a horse's head.

Despite their similarity to centaurs, ipotanes are not mentioned in the corpus of Greek and Roman literature.

However, they appear in modern works of fantasy literature, in which they are depicted with various combinations of horse-like and human features.