Griffin
Reference: Griffin
Eagle in front, lion behind — and the join is where the count goes wrong. Two forelegs, two hindlegs and two wings.
Scored on every axis
Two animals, and one limb pair too many
The griffin takes an eagle’s head, wings and taloned forelimbs and joins them to a lion’s body and hindquarters. The difficulty is that in the eagle, the wings are the forelimbs. Taking the eagle’s wings and also giving the creature eagle forelegs is counting the same limb pair twice, then adding lion hindlegs on top.
This is the composition method in the open: it assembles from named animals part by part, and does not check the total. The result is a creature made of two entirely real animals which cannot exist as a vertebrate.