I thought about the egyptian gods too, but they are gods and not man-animals and they are lacking entirely the human aspect
Portrait of Anubis.
Cool story bro. Egyptians really had some weird dog breeds...
Because Egypt was a very enduring kingdom that survived longer than any other on this world, therefore it has different depictions and for their gods that change over time. But there are other reasons, like the gods form their body according to their tasks or specific required or displayed attributes.
The gods lack the human aspect, because they are gods that have nothing in common with the human and they can change shape as they desire, like in the famous case of Set attacking Thoth as a Leopard. The greek gods (at least Zeus as Bull or Swan or Cloud) can do similar things but they are never depicted in a hybrid form. It can be even worse because this depiction can be only symbolic (it seems that the Egyptians perceive it this way) as representation of their Names (Thoth means "Is like Ibis" (Ibis is a bird)) or Attributes.
Zed Duke of Banville has posted a picture of "weighting of the heart of the dead" where Anubis, Thoth and fuck (what was the name ?)..... Ammut (devourer of the dead) is depicted.
In Egypt's Early Dynastic times to the Old Kingdom (3k BCE - 2k BCE) Anubis was only portrayed in his full animal form and not the hybrid. And throughtout the times Anubis was portrayed also in a full human form like in the grave of Ramses II.
Thoth is even worse since he is depicted in this Ibis hybrid form, then as a full Ibis, full human form, baboon, baboon with a dog face and baboon-human hybrid and all of his forms a known to be symbolic and as metaphors.
To my knowledge only from this three gods Ammut has never been in any other form. But i'm not an egyptologist with specialisation in their mythology so there could be examples where Ammut is depicted differently than this Crocodile, Lion and Hippo mix.
Do you see now how much knowledge and thoughts i put into this, while you post just pictures? You have utterly no understanding about the Egypt's mythology.
One Minotaur that eats humans for breakfast make a good monster that stands for the fall of man that is halted by heroism and sacrifice by the Hero, but a herd makes it just degenerate.
So, you mean it's ok to have herds of centaurs, sirens, cyclops or giants but not Minotaurs because there was only one in the Greek's mythology ? That's just ridiculous.
Decline is just a combination of lack of both culture and talent, nothing to do with numbers.
Kyklopes are only 8 and they are brothers to the Titanes (i include here also the Olympioi) and Gigantes, since they are born from Gaia and Uranus. So yes a herd of them is form also a retarded decision, since the Kyklopes have also a key role as weapon makers besides Hephaistos.
In greek mythology only around 30 Gigantes are named, but D&D relies upon the norse mythology for Giants and there their numbers can be as high as its fits the setting, since they inhabit entire worlds.
Seiren are only 2 in the Odysseia aand only later authors expand the number to 3. So yes i'm also against herds of Seiren.
Kentauros on the other hand were born out of the cloud nymph Nephele that meated with Ixion on the Olympos. Dependend on the version Ixion is either a half-god or or quarter-god. But either way this offspring Kentauros mated with mares creating the race Kentauroi.
Decline is just a combination of lack of both culture and talent, nothing to do with numbers.
You cannot divorce the monster from the act of its creation and here lies the problem in your statement.
The act of creating Minotauros is the act of bestiality. One Minotauros is result of specific sin against a god, a entire race is a lifestyle habit of the population. One Minotauros poses as a bitter warning especially it exposes everything, while an entire race is just a degenerate bestiality joke.
Numbers - Numbers always matter and not only in mathematics, physics, engineering and etc.. but also in story telling.