This medieval artist had clearly never seen a horse in real life

27 November 2020, 17:10 | Updated: 14 December 2020, 16:36

If you've never seen an animal in real life, don't say you can draw said animal.

It would seem that you were not a true medieval knight, unless you had a spider horse as a trusted companion. At least according to this painting.

Read more: People are unearthing Renaissance manuscript doodles and they’re pretty spicy >

The perplexing work of an over-confident medieval artist has been unearthed by evolutionary anthropologist, and tweeter, Dorsa Amir.

Amir also gives a very probable theory of the dialogue, through which this anatomically unique beast may have come into being.

It's proof that the days before you could head to Wikipedia or Flickr to do your research were quite trying.

Pretty much everyone on the Internet seems to now love spider horse. So we really should say thank you to its faking-it-as-best-they-can creator.

Medieval and Renaissance art is full of peculiarity, as well as bizarre and fantastical representations. Here are a few more animal favourites from by-gone musical manuscripts. Enjoy.