The Sphinx has a lion's body, bird's wings and a female head. She is a treacherous and merciless monster who kills and eats those who cannot answer her riddle. This deadly version of a sphinx appears in the myth and drama of Oedipus. This Sphinx was stopping passers-by out of the Greek city of Thebes and asked them to answer her riddle, otherwise she would eat them. The riddle was: "Which creature has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?" in the Greek tragic play by Sophocles, the mythical King Oedipus was the only one who answered the riddle and managed to finally kill the monster. The answer he gave was: "Man - who crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two feet as an adult, and then uses a walking stick in old age."
