Antipodality is based on the principle of Antipodal inversion, which in turn often gives rise to the Antipodal uncanny. Where the Antipodal uncanny becomes increasingly salient and distinctly articulated, it often reveals a new dimension in the form of Antipodal monstrosity. Great instances of this can be found in the first European descriptions of Australian flora and fauna. French naturalist François Auguste Péron, for example, emphasised that ‘the animals and vegetables of this singular continent’ had their own ‘peculiar laws’, while the chronicler James O'Hara wrote: ‘In numerous instances, animals were discovered which might at first sight be considered monstrous productions, such as an aquatic quadruped, about the size of a rabbit, with the eyes, colour and skin of a mole, and the bill and web-feet of a duck.’ The animal referred to here is, of course, the platypus, the discovery of which caused a small commotion in the scientific community of the early nineteenth century. European zoologists fiercely debated whether this ‘monstrous’ creature was an entirely new class of vertebrates, the missing link between reptiles and mammals, or simply a hoax by a skilled taxidermist who had glued together the limbs of several animals. In some ways, the platypus is emblematic of Antipodal monstrosity in general: European naturalists expected Australia to bring forth entirely new and different creatures. However, as in the case of the platypus, sometimes their own utopian expectations were surpassed by the fantastical differences of the Antipodal utopia. It is this excess in utopian expectation that gives rise to Antipodal monstrosity.

Medieval Origins

It appears that Antipodal monstrosity first took on a distinct form in the early middle ages. It seems to have emerged as something close to a by-product of Antipodality, particularly in the context of medieval cosmography and cartography, where the Antipodes featured increasingly as a space denoted ‘here be dragons’. It is a strange stroke of irony that St Augustine of Hippo, who fiercely contested the existence of the Antipodes, can be identified as the originator of their association with monstrosity. Augustine and the early Church Fathers realised that the hypothetical existence of the Antipodes posed severe challenges to Christian doctrine.