Cockatrice

Fortunately the blood elf mount is not a larger version of this :-)

In classical representations, cockatrices look like a mixture of a rooster and a dragon, seen in the picture to the right. (Depending on which source is used, the cockatrice is sometimes another name for the basilisk. See Myth for more information.) Between Blizzard's tendency to put their own spin on myths and traditional fantasy and the High Elves' love of grace and beauty, it's no mystery why these scaly monsters were reinvented for their new incarnation. Cockatrice was also going to be the name for their racial mount, but due to the word's coincidental similarity to an offensive slang term, the name was changed to Hawkstrider