According to medieval legend, the land that is modern day Macedonia was home to a ferocious beast. The bonnacon, when attacked, could spray extremely caustic excrement at a range of 291 feet. Medieval naturalists often relied on this description by Roman author Pliny the Elder:
In Pæonia, it is said, there is a wild animal known as the bonasus; it has the mane of the horse, but is, in other respects, like the bull, with horns, however, so much bent inwards upon each other, as to be of no use for the purposes of combat. It has therefore to depend upon its flight, and, while in the act of flying, it sends forth its excrements, sometimes to a distance of even three jugera; the contact of which burns those who pursue the animal, just like a kind of fire.