What Is the Mythosaur in 'The Mandalorian'?

Editor's Note: The following contains minor spoilers from Season 3 Episode 2 of The Mandalorian.We've been hearing about them for a long time, and now The Mandalorian has finally given us our first glimpse at a real Mythosaur in this week's episode, "The Mines of Mandalore". It was brief, but enough to make every fan jump off the edge of their seats: a gigantic beast, hidden by the shadows under the Living Waters of Mandalore, suddenly turning its eyes towards Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) as she blasted from the depths with an unconscious Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) at her back. Even through the darkness, we could tell: they are immense, and one wouldn't want to be underwater with a wild one.

By now, The Mandalorian is already making a point of showing fabled creatures of Star Wars lore we always wanted to see in live-action. We've had Blurrgs in Season 1, there was the Krayt Dragon on Tatooine in Season 2, and, now, we finally get to see, for the very first time, a real Mythosaur. We first heard about them back in Season 1, when Kuiil (Nick Nolte) evoked their legend to motivate Din to finally mount a Blurrg in Arvala-7. "Your ancestors rode the great Mythosaur!" he said, giving the Mandalorian the boost he needed. They are the ultimate symbol of Mandalorian culture and religion. Let's see what makes them so special. This is the way.

The Meaning Of The Mythosaur In Star Wars

The mythosaur skull behind the armorer in The Mandalorian — Image via Disney

Although we had never seen an actual Mythosaur before, the imagery of the beast has always been present in Star Wars from its earliest days. When Boba Fett made his first appearance in The Empire Strikes Back, played by Jeremy Bulloch back in 1980, his shoulders bore an emblem with a Mythosaur skull, which soon became the symbol for his Mandalorian origin. When The Mandalorian made its debut back in 2019, and we first visited the Armorer's (Emily Swallow) covert in Nevarro, a Mythosaur skull could also be seen above the entrance.

But, despite their skull being one of the most popular symbols in Star Wars, even their names had never even been spoken on screen before Kuiil did (his catchphrase isn't "I have spoken" for nothing, right?), appearing mostly on reference books in the official Disney canon. This means that, from here on out, the creators of The Mandalorian, Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, are breaking new ground, and whatever comes next is brand new to the franchise, and has precedence over any other media that can use Mythosaurs to tell a story.

In The Mandalorian, though, they have been very present, even though they didn't show up in the flesh until now. In The Book of Boba Fett, actually, the Armorer tells Din Djarin of a legend about them: "The songs of eons past foretold of the Mythosaur rising up to herald a new age of Mandalore." As the leader of the Children of the Watch, she is the guardian of the legends and traditions of the Mandalorians, but, during her time, Mandalore is in ruins, destroyed by the Empire and turned to glass. Not many Mandalorians believed old traditions and fables, and, besides, legends often speak in metaphors, and the reference to a Mythosaur could very well have been one. After all, they are, of course, myths - it's in the species' very name.

But this is a desperate time for Mandalorians. Their people have been scattered to the four winds after the Night of a Thousand Tears decades prior to the events of the series. They surely have more pressing matters to attend to, like merely surviving. Desperate hours are when one's faith is tested the hardest, and, whenever a nation faces trouble, it's common for people to go think of their greatest symbols to gather strength. Mandalorians are no different, with the fabled Mythosaur being theirs.

What Do We Know About Mythosaurs So Far?

The Mythosaur in The Mandalorian — Image via Disney

Like we saw, the Mythosaur has never been a very present figure in Star Wars lore up to now, so whatever The Mandalorian chooses to use them for will be new stuff. But a long time ago, in our own galaxy, the franchise had a very different look and feel, and Mythosaurs did appear in this bygone era. We're talking, of course, of the times before Disney acquired Lucasfilm and started Star Wars lore from scratch. Everything that was written up to that moment is now defined by the Legends label, and they tell us a bit more about the mythic Mandalorian beasts.

The Mythosaurs are the original dominant species of Mandalore, wandering the planet millennia before any humanoid species appeared in those parts. They were gigantic, both their size and height compared to that of small cities. Compared to the Mythosaurs of legend, the one Bo-Katan found in the Living Waters is likely a small one, by the size of its head.

Unlike in the official canon, though, in Legends the Mandalorians weren't known for riding Mythosaurs. In fact, they were the ones responsible for the extinction of the beasts millennia before Human Mandalorians ever existed. Yes, the original Mandalorians weren't even Human, but from a humanoid species called Taung. They were the creators od the Mando'a language and the warrior ways that became known as the Mandalorian way. They also started the custom of embracing foreigners into Mandalorian culture, and that's how Humans, the most numerous species in the galaxy, became Mandalorians in the first place.

the-mandalorian-season-3-episode-2-bo-katan — Image via Disney+

But, despite the good they did for Mandalore and its people, the Taung were terrible for the Mythosaurs. When they first landed on the planet, their leader - called Mandalore, the First - started a crusade to wipe out the beasts. The Taung were extremely proficient with swords and spears, and made short work of the Mythosaurs, despite their gigantic proportions. As a way of paying tribute to them, the Taung adopted the Mythosaur skull as their symbol, and it became known as the Mandalorian sigil forever after.

Lucky for us, though, the Disney version of the legend of the Mythosaur is friendlier towards them, and incorporating them into Mandalorian culture is definitely better than wiping them out millennia before we could even see them. From now on, whatever happens with them, we can be sure they will play a big role in the Mandalorian renaissance that's to come, and, who knows? we may even get to see Din Djarin ride one.