Why might ancient peoples have used real animals as inspiration for some of the animals in their myths? what is another example of a mythical animal that might be based on a real animal

Because mythic animals often showed qualities that ancient people thought actual animals showed. Due to this they assigned the mythic animals a lot of different qualities that actual animals had. Another possible reason why they did this was because they thought that if mythic, made up animals will be similar to actual animals, people who hear the myths will be also able to relate better, compared to making up completely imaginary animals.