The legend of Shennongjia, from the legend of Shennongyan Emperor to the legend of the Bigfoot Monster Savage, these stories that people talk about inevitably after tea and dinner.
Indeed, the environment of the site is deeply rooted in both natural evolution and culture.
But there is a relatively unpopular rumor that also appears in Shennongjia, "donkey-headed wolf". And what exactly is it?
Some people say that it is an animal with a donkey's head and a body like a wolf; others say that this animal looks strange, like a donkey and not a wolf, often appears near the farmers' homes in Shennongjia, eats their free-range pigs, and is not afraid of people.
But experts believe that this bizarre creature may be the "four unlike" iguana.
What kind of creature is the donkey-headed wolf? Why does Shennongjia have such a strange creature? And what kind of animal is the "four unlike" iguana? Where did the whole rumor come from?
This article will answer these questions from the rumors of the "donkey-headed wolf" of Shennongjia, the biological characteristics of the iguana and related reports, and then look at how the Shennongjia donkey-headed wolf and the four-unlike iguana are revealed.
The legend of the "strange wolf"
According to the accounts of local villagers, this creature has a head like a donkey and a body like a gray wolf, but it is much larger than the average gray wolf.
Many villagers are even more afraid of this creature, because it not only hunts the villagers' free-range animals, but also is not afraid of people.
It is said that this creature will not run when it sees a person, but will confront the person for a period of time, and will escape after determining that it is threatened.
The earliest accounts of such events date back to the 1970s at Danyang Airport in Hubei District.
According to the recollections of the workers in the barracks of the rescue force, there was an uneasy cry in the pigsty in the middle of the night, and there was a strange noise, which they thought was a pig thief.
At this time, the country was in a special stage of development, and it was possible for bold people to come and steal pigs, but it should be rare.
The soldiers standing guard quickly went to the scene of the crime, and when they approached, they found that there was a large "monster", the soldiers immediately decided, and killed the monster, and then found a large gray wolf.
Gray wolf appearance
Since then, in the early to late 1980s, many villagers in the Shennongjia area have claimed to have seen similar monsters many times.
Perhaps communication was limited at the time, or the villagers had the illusion of memory of the description of the event after being frightened.
The animal has been described many times as having a head like a donkey , a horse-like mouth , long ears , and a mane behind its neck , and a large body like a gray wolf.
In a further description of the appearance, the donkey-headed wolf is hemp-gray throughout, the abdomen is gray, the body length is two meters, the height is about 1.5 meters, the weight is estimated to be 100 kilograms, and it has relatively slender limbs.
Donkey-headed wolves may look like this
The story of the donkey-headed wolf is spreading more and more in the Shennongjia area, and there are more and more related reports.
In the early 1970s, when Shennongjia villagers' piglets were eaten and many free-range pigs were bitten, hu Zhongliang, a township government official, shot at the donkey-headed wolves in the head and drove them away.
In 1982, Li Xueyin, the younger brother of Li Xuejin, the township party secretary who worked in Shennongjia Forestry District, found the donkey-headed wolf on the lawn, and then Li Xueyin aimed his gun at the donkey's head wolf. The donkey-headed wolf queen was captured by people, and the overall description was no different from the description of the residents.
However, the incident has been recorded in multiple accounts as amputation of the head and eating by the villagers, and there are no related specimens.
Therefore, judging from the course of events, it is likely that there are fabrications or artificial changes, and there are such famous rumors circulating in the local area, why people meet donkey-headed wolves and leave no relevant specimens.
In the mid-to-late 1980s, the period when donkey-headed wolves were most rumored, many people in Honghe Village responded to the township armed forces that donkey-headed wolves appeared.
For this reason, the relevant production was suspended, and the students did not dare to go to school alone, so the members of the Armed Forces led the team to look for the donkey-headed wolf.
Tracking down the "donkey-headed wolf"
There is no obvious whereabouts in this investigation, and the hounds who led the search were also frightened, which shows that the "donkey-headed wolf" is a very fierce creature, but the specific unknown, and has since been included in the dangerous beasts by the relevant personnel.
The whole event and related rumors have attracted the attention of many scholars, on the one hand, there are not many studies on Shennongjia in the last century, and the area has high research significance and academic value in terms of ecological protection and species research.
Shennongjia Scenic Area
At the same time, the legend of the donkey-headed wolf is most likely a discovery of some new species, which is highly likely given the environmental and evolutionary history of Shennongjia.
In 1987, Professor Liu Minzhuang of East China Normal University went to this place to investigate this strange creature, and there are also legends about the Shennongjia savages.
Professor Liu Minzhuang, who works at Shennongjia Scenic Area
It can be said that during this period, there were countless rumors and stories about Shennongjia, and Shennongjia became the habitat of various mysterious animals for a time.
After Liu Minzhuang and related researchers recorded the accounts of many villagers in interviews, they believed that Shennongjia may have this strange creature.
But there is definitely no such strangeness as the villagers say, if you look at the history of biological evolution, the "donkey-headed wolf" may be the once extinct "sand".
A creature that lived between 45 million and 3.5 million years ago, it is a typical odd-ungulate and is closely related to rhinos and tapirs. However, in the change of natural environment, the animal gradually lost its habitat and food, and finally became extinct 2 million years ago.
Maybe Sha Yan is the true face of the donkey-headed wolf?
From the description point of view, the sand horse uses a metatarsal, the claws are bent backwards to the wrist, and the appearance is more in line with the description of the donkey-headed wolf.
The most important point, though, is that the animal's upper jaw has no front teeth, and the back teeth do not show excessive wear marks.
So from this point of view, they cannot be ferocious predators, and in the relevant skeletal fossil studies, the sand horse is a vegetarian animal.
So what exactly would this creature be?
Sargass is a vegetarian animal
Shennongjia "four different"
Later, relevant experts re-locked the donkey-headed wolf on an animal in the observation records of Shennongjia, the iguana.
It is an animal that resembles a donkey and sheep and has other herbivores characteristics, and people prefer to call it "four unlikes."
In 1831, British animal researcher Brian Hodgson first described in his own records an antelope between the Satlej and Tista rivers.
It is covered with hair and has spiny or coarse hairs, and the sideburns extend from the horns to the shoulder blade part in the middle of the animal's back.
"Four is not like" an iguana
In addition, this horned antelope is very large, weighing more than 150 kg as an adult, with a body length of 1.8 meters and a shoulder height of about 90 cm.
From the distribution point of view, they are mainly active in hilly forests above 300 meters above sea level, and are more common at altitudes of 2500 to 3500 meters.
They are also found in central and southern China, as well as in Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
Because the iguanas are hidden, it is difficult for the average person to see them. Similar to the habits of mountain antelopes, they also like to stay on the cliffs and lick the salt on them.
From a habit point of view, they belong to the solitary animal, except for the mating period, generally speaking, the iguana does not interact with other iguanas, and rarely makes a sound.
According to the relevant images recorded by infrared photography in the Shennongjia area, they prefer to eat wild mushrooms and herbs in terms of diet.
Another biggest feature of the iguana is that they are very neurotic, any alarm and sound will make them flee quickly, and it is likely to cause excessive stress to cause their behavior to get out of control, and in severe cases, even induce death.
Combining various factors and natural development in recent decades, the iguana has become very rare in China and is listed as a national key protected organism.
At this time, some people may say that the iguana is very similar to the rumor of the "donkey-headed wolf" in behavior and appearance, but its habits do not conform to the description of the donkey-headed wolf in all aspects.
In fact, this is true, whether it is an iguana or a sand mast, these animals have been shown to be inconsistent with the description of donkey-headed wolves.
Combined with relevant descriptions and rumors, donkey-headed wolves are concentrated in the 1970s and 1980s, when communication was underdeveloped, and donkey-headed wolves may have been misreported or inadvertently added details of events in the spread of many people.
Perhaps it is the memory illusion combined with cognitive errors that lead to the appearance of donkey-headed wolves
In addition, Shennongjia wild animals are also very rich in population distribution, and many wild wolves and black bears are regular visitors to the Shennongjia area.
Due to cognitive errors, there may have been misinformation in the relevant reports.
On the one hand, the iguana can prove the protection of natural forests on the mainland, and on the other hand, it also shows that similar and exotic creatures do exist in the Shennongjia area.
In general, Shennongjia is a natural ecological area under key protection in the mainland, where many animals live, and new animals and plants are still found today.
The mystery of nature and the cultural heritage of Shennongjia may be what make Shennongjia the most legendary area.