Anka is a giant bird of West Asia.
Etymology[]
Turkish word, originally from the Arabic Anka. Incidentally, anka means “sparrow hawk” in the Quechuan language of the Andes. Variant names include Angka, Anka kus¸u, Anka-mogrel, and Zümrüt anka.
Description[]
Female has eight wings. Male is multicolored with a white ring around its long neck. Wingspan is the breadth of five elephants (roughly 20 feet). Anka has a terrifying call, preys on large mammals, birds and humans, even carrying off children.
It lives in the high mountain peaks of Caucasus Mountains in Russia.
Sightings[]
The prophet Hanzala ibn Safwan saved his people by killing the Anka, to whom a youth was sacrificed every day.
An Anka was said to have been housed in the zoological gardens of the Fatimid dynasty in the eleventh century (possibly in the capital at al Mahdiyah, Tunisia).
Explanation[]
Based originally on a species of heron in Egypt, possibly a surviving giant heron, which may have inspired the Bennu Bird hieroglyph. After the introduction of Islam, the Anka became associated with the Simurgh.[1]