Recently, the Yangtze crocodile has caught fire. Popular videos of "watching grandmothers wash their clothes and being knocked on the head" and "eating half a Wangwang snow cake in one bite" have aroused people's attention to this "national treasure" level animal.
As a crocodile unique to China, the Yangtze crocodile has survived from the age of dinosaurs to the present and is known as a biological "living fossil". So, is it really as "stupid" as in the paragraph? In their long-term relationship with humans, how does the Yangtze crocodile influence our cultural traditions? How did the Once Endangered Yangtze Crocodile reborn in the Jedi?
The "Thor" of the Ancestors
Yangzi crocodile ancient name of the mole, commonly known as pig porcosaurus, earth dragon, is the only close relative of the Mesozoic dinosaur class.
In China, the image of the dragon is often associated with praying for rain. In fact, the roar of the Yangtze crocodile was once the forecast of the thunderstorm weather of the ancestors.
The Yangtze crocodile can make five types of calls, of which the "coax-coax-boo- coax- " sound is a symbol of the coming of mountain rain. This monotonous roar often rings when the weather is sweltering, the air pressure is dropping, and the wind and rain and thunder and lightning are approaching.
Because the Yangtze crocodile will sing on rainy days and is good at night, its sound is like beating a drum, so people in the Jianghuai area often call the shrew "shrew drum" or "shrew". It is recorded in the Huainanzi Fallen Form Training: "Lei Ze has a god, a dragon body and a human head, and will drum its belly and xi." After research, the "god" mentioned here is the Yangtze crocodile.
The mole in The Sea Fault Map
In ancient times, people's understanding and utilization of the Yangtze crocodile were sufficient.
In the Book of Poetry, Daya, "the drum is everywhere, and the drum is played" is an earlier description of the drum in the mainland. It is precisely because the sound of the shrew is like the sound of the drum that the ancients thought of using its skin to open the drum or cast the mole on the drum surface. The "shrew hunting drum" can be traced back to the clan period, after which it gradually evolved from a percussion instrument to a ceremonial instrument and a snare drum. It is mentioned in the "Chronicle of Sima Xiangru" that there are six-sided spiritual drums in the Shanglin Garden in Chang'an.
The ancients also loved to eat shrew meat. According to the Book of Rites, the Book of Materia Medica, the Bu Ya, and the Compendium of Materia Medica, the Yangtze crocodile is: "shy (bun) thing", "combined medicine mole shell", "mole body with zodiac meat", "southern people marry, will be eaten". Combined with the remains of the Yangtze crocodile found at the site of the ancestral settlement about 7,000 years ago, it can be seen that people have been preying on it for a long time.
By the time of the Three Kingdoms, the skin and flesh of the Yangtze crocodile began to be medicated. According to records, shrew meat is mainly used to treat scabs, ulceration of bad sores, and slugs are mainly used for stasis, elimination, insecticide, accumulation of symptomatic fistula, collapse in the middle of the belt, scabies and diseases.
However, due to the simple environmental protection thinking and respect for the dragon, the ancients' hunting and utilization of the Yangtze crocodile can still be controlled within a certain range.
In the Quan Tang poems, we can also see a large number of verses describing the mole. When Du Fu traveled to Shandong, he had "the roar of the wind and the waves, the fish jumping on the sun and the mountains", and Li Shangyin had "distant thunder and thunder" in "Sui Palace Shou Nian". It can be seen that the distribution range of the Yangtze crocodile at that time was wide, and the relationship with humans was relatively harmonious.
From endangerment to "desperate"
However, the continuous expansion of human activities has dealt a heavy blow to the living environment of the Yangtze crocodile.
Three large-scale migrations in the late Western Jin Dynasty, the middle of the Tang Dynasty, and the war between the Song and Jin dynasties caused the population of the Jiangnan region to surge, and by the Southern Song Dynasty, the scale of reclaiming wasteland and surrounding lakes and cultivating land reached an unprecedented level. The living space of the Yangtze crocodile has been severely squeezed.
After the Ming and Qing dynasties, the population of the mainland continued to rise, and the contradiction between humans and crocodiles became more and more acute. Once, the crocodile roar, which was common like the frog's song, gradually disappeared, and the river beach waters suitable for the survival of the Yangtze crocodile were gradually replaced by farmland and villages.
In addition, according to the Ming Dynasty scholar Lang Ying's "Seven Revision Drafts", in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang associated the Yangzi crocodile, which was also known as the Pig Polong at that time, with his surname "Zhu" and ordered the extermination of the Yangzi crocodile, so that the Yangzi crocodile in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas suffered a "catastrophe".
In modern times, multiple factors such as habitat destruction, man-made hunting, environmental pollution, and natural disasters have made the situation of the Yangtze crocodile more difficult.
In the 1950s and 1980s, large-scale farmland reclamation reduced the habitat area of the Yangtze crocodile by more than three-quarters. The use of sodium pentachlorophenolate to eliminate snails in ditches and ponds during the campaign to eliminate schistosomiasis also caused the Yangtze crocodiles to die due to lack of food or eating poisonous snails.
Fortunately, with the increase of people's awareness of ecological protection, the mainland has taken many practical measures for the protection of The Yangtze crocodile. In 1979, the State Forestry Department and the Anhui Provincial Government jointly established the Yangtze Crocodile Breeding Research Center, and in 1984, the scale incubation of the Yangtze Crocodile was successful. Since then, the population of the Yangtze crocodile has increased rapidly.
In the incubation center of Anhui Yangzi Crocodile National Nature Reserve, the eggs of yangzi crocodiles have been artificially bred and broken after nearly two months of incubation.
In 2002, the State Forestry and Grassland Administration listed the Yangtze crocodile as one of the key rescue projects for wild animals and plants in China, and approved Anhui Province to implement the yangzi crocodile protection and release natural project, and quickly restore the wild yangzi crocodile population by releasing the artificially bred yangzi crocodile into nature.
Since then, people have begun to be able to see the free and free Yangtze crocodile in their daily lives.
Still mysterious "little cute"
From 2003 to 2020, the mainland has released 17 Yangzi crocodiles, a total of 1038. In Shanghai, Dongtan Wetland Park has a history of more than 15 years of Wild Crocodile Release.
Dealing with Yangzi crocodiles, the staff of Dongtan Wetland are experienced, and they introduced to reporters: "In the video, we usually see them lying on the reeds on the riverbank in the park in the spring, basking in the sun for several hours, which gives people a very lazy and gentle feeling." But in fact, the explosive ability of the Yangtze crocodile is still very strong. "Data show that adult Yangtze crocodiles can erupt into bites of up to 600 kilograms.
Yangzi crocodile juvenile crocodiles are active in ponds in the juvenile crocodile feeding area of the incubation center of Anhui Yangzi crocodile national nature reserve.
As one of the smallest crocodile species in the world, the Yangtze crocodile is generally about 1.5 meters long and weighs about 36 kg, and its main food is small aquatic animals such as river mussels, fish and shrimp, crabs and so on. "They're not interested in humans at all, they leave when they see us, and as long as people don't provoke them, they're very gentle," the staff said. ”
At present, there are about 20 Yangzi crocodiles in Dongtan Wetland Park, in order to make them have a stable food source and a good habitat, the park needs to regularly salvage the ground cages that may exist in the water to prevent theft. Once a decrease in food sources is found, it is necessary to replenish food in time. During the breeding season of the Yangtze crocodile, the park also needs to adjust the water level to prevent the crocodile nest from flooding.
"The Yangtze crocodile is generally a nocturnal creature." Therefore, in terms of Yangzi crocodile science, the park regularly holds "night patrol Yangzi crocodile" activities. At night, the eyes of the Yangtze crocodile will have a red reflection under strong light, which makes it easier and more fun to find the Yangtze crocodile.
The relevant person in charge of Dongtan Wetland Park told reporters: "In recent years, the public's attention to the Yangtze crocodile is quite high, which stems from the improvement of the public's awareness of wildlife protection, on the other hand, the Yangtze crocodile, as a national-level wild protected animal, still has many mysterious and unknown characteristics of the public." ”
From "weather forecasters" to "plate food" to the "little cute" that has attracted much attention today, the fate of the Yangtze crocodile also tells the story of Chinese constantly exploring the way of harmonious symbiosis with nature.
Column Editor-in-Chief: Gong Danyun Caption Source: Xinhua News Agency Photo Editor: Shao Jing
Source: Author: Xiao Yawen