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basilisk (bàs´e-lîsk´, bàz´-) noun
1.A legendary serpent or dragon with lethal breath and glance.
2.Any of various tropical American lizards of the genus Basiliscus, characterized by a crest on the head, back, and tail and the ability to run on the hind legs.

[Middle English, from Old French basilisc, from Latin basiliscus, from Greek basiliskos, diminutive of basileus, king.]

Basilisk

Basilisk, lizards of the helmeted iguana family. Four species of these mostly insectivorous tree dwellers are found in tropical America from Mexico to Ecuador. Adult males are adorned with two crests along the back of the head and neck, and along the back and tail. Basilisks can run across the surface of water on their hind legs, partly because of skin flaps on either side of their toes.

Scientific classification: Basilisks make up the genus Basiliscus of the family Corytophanidae.

• avant garde track _The Gaze Of Basilisk_ MP3 (224k) by Ikue Mori off of _Labyrinth_ on Tzadik (2001)

There is a basilisk lizard, Basiliscus vittatus, locally called "cock malalla" or" tul-luk" in Maya, that has the ability to run across the surface of the water without sinking. Also known as the Jesus Lizard, for obvious reasons, slow motion photography has shown that it rears up on its hind legs and moves its legs in a free wheeling manner so quickly, that its feet are not in contact with the water surface long enough to break its surface tension.

The Basilisk is a symbolic alchemical creature said to have the head of a bird and the body of a dragon. The wingless serpentine animal was hatched from a hermaphroditic cock's egg and nursed by a serpent. Psychologically, the Basilisk represents the melding of our higher and lower natures in Conjunction, a process that must be continued in the next three operations of alchemy for this "Child of the Philosophers" to become the Living Stone of the fully integrated Self. Biologically, the Basilisk represents the mammalian embryology, the genetic replaying of the stages of evolution within the egg or womb. The Basilisk also has chemical connotations, which probably have to do with a metallurgical process involving cinnabar. 

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