The most fundamental reason why the killing industry is repeatedly prohibited is because too many people pursue the ingredient "shark fin soup". Because of this, the number of wild sharks has dropped sharply. But in fact, sharks are not the only ones in the ocean that are endangered because of human hunting.
In the records, the earliest can be extended to china's Spring and Autumn Warring States period of the book "Erya", which records a fish similar to a shark:
"There are two kinds of sharks: large and long-beaked saw-like sharks, famous beard sharks, small and thick-skinned sharks, and famous white sharks."
There is a mention of a creature: a shark with a long beak like a saw, which, from the perspective of today's science, has a long snout like a saw on its mouth, so what is this fish?
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > two species of fish with their own large swords: two species, respectively
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There is indeed such creature in the ocean now, and they have a jagged snout as described in the records, and these two fish species are sharks and the other is a species of ray: sawfish.
Both species of fish carry a natural "big sword" in front of their heads, but there are several differences:
Sawsharks are much smaller than sawfish. Sawfish can exceed 7 meters in size, and sawsharks tend to be about 1 meter.
The "big sword" of the sawshark has different sizes and dense serrations, while the "big sword" of the sawfish has sparse serrations and an average size of the serrations.
Sawsharks are sharks and sawfish are rays. So these two are two species at all, and they are in line with the characteristics of sharks and rays, such as the parochros of sawsharks on the body side, the gills of sawfish on the ventral surface, and so on.
The sawshark's "big sword" has two long whiskers.
And these two kinds of fish, we want to focus on the sawfish. See how the sawfish live with this big sword, and what fate this big sword brings to them.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > sawfish's sawfish's sawn long snouts, making them the focus of human capture
The most unfortunate thing about sawfish is that they live in shallow seas and estuaries. This place is an important area of human activity, and we can imagine: how many animals living in the hot area of human activity have a good ending? This casts a haze over the life of the sawfish.
The reproductive ability of sawfish is weak, and once humans develop, sawfish in all relevant waters suffer. The actual sawfish near the Mediterranean Sea became extinct, and to this day all sawfish in the family sawfish are listed in the highest-level appendix of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. So why are people so interested in sawfish?
We know that people hunt sharks, for shark fins. On the one hand, the hunting sawfish can obtain shark fin soup, but the most sought-after is the big sword.
For example, Indians use the snout of the sawfish as cutting equipment, Filipinos new Zealanders use the snout of the sawfish as a weapon, and Peruvians are popular for cockfighting, so they install the serrated teeth of the sawfish kiss on the chicken feet to increase the lethality. Wait a minute.
In China, people began to use the kiss of the sawfish to engage in "feudal superstition", and the literature records that the fishermen on the coast of the Qing Dynasty caught the sawfish and would cut off the saw-like kiss at the first time:
"Hanging in the shrine, thinking it is a thing of victory."
The so-called victory is to ward off evil spirits. This tradition knows that it still exists today, and in Taiwan Province, there is a "big jumping god" activity that is held with a "shark sword", which is actually the kiss of the sawfish. The caster whipped his body with a shark sword, and the bleeding was said to be possessed by the gods. If you think about it, you can see how foolish this is.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > how many types of sawfish are there?
Saw rays belong to the sawfish family under the order Sawfish, divided into 2 genera and 5 species, we have sharp-toothed sawfish and small-toothed sawfish in China. Once common in tropical and subtropical areas across the globe, sawfish can be seen in ancient art in Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania.
The sawfish used in Taiwan's superstition mentioned above are actually the snouts of the sharp-toothed sawfish. Because the snout of the sharp-toothed sawfish has a section without serrations, it can be held in the hand, and it is similar in length to a sword, so it is the best choice as a hand-held magic weapon.
The saw of the narrow-snouted sawfish and the small-toothed sawfish is thick and long, and it is impossible to hold it, and it is more used as a treasure of the town house temple and enshrined.
And because sawfish are oviparous, their babies hatch in the body, so cruel people will even take out the baby in the female sawfish belly, and make the baby's small sawtooth into a small craft. It can be said that the life of the sawfish is too difficult.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > what exactly does a sawfish kiss do?
The sawfish's serrations look horrible, but what does it mean for the sawfish? There are two meanings.
First: The sawfish's teeth are his perceptual radar. The sawfish has extremely poor vision and the waters living there are relatively turbid, so its snout is actually covered with bioelectric receptors. They rely on signals from bioelectric receptors to sense whether there is food around them.
Second: The sawfish's teeth are responsible for killing prey. When the sawfish feels the prey, it will quickly swing its body and use the serrated teeth to "poke" the prey to death, no mistake, it is to poke to death. The nature of these teeth, according to scientists' speculations, evolved from scales, not from teeth, like the spines of a spiny dolphin. Although it is scaled, it is extremely powerful and tough, and it is a very powerful weapon.
(The image of the sawfish in the records of ancient Western civilization is mostly terrible, above)
Sawfish look terrible, but in fact they are very docile, they will only eat some benthic fish or small animals, eat enough to complete, absolutely not gluttonous. And mild personality, although the body length of six or seven meters, but never take the initiative to attack humans, seeing people they are very intimidating.
Therefore, the records of the Qing Dynasty read: "Fisherman's Cloud: This shark is evil but good in nature." ”
Sawfish reproduce in both sexes and can adapt to saltwater and freshwater life. The larvae of sawfish choose to enter freshwater because freshwater rivers are rich in nutrients, have plenty of food at the bottom of the river, and have no predators in freshwater. Young sawfish grow to about 2 meters in fresh water, and when the food in fresh water cannot satisfy them, they will swim back to the sea and eventually grow into a large monster of six or seven meters.
As early as the beginning of the 20th century, sawfish were still common fish in various waters in the tropical and subtropical regions, but only 70 to 80 years later, sawfish began to show mass extinction. The reason behind this, you don't need to think about it, know: it is all the reason why human beings are too much pursuit of sawfish teeth.
Now these remnants of sawfish cannot even find their mates, and the juveniles they give birth to are getting worse and worse.
We are always using strange needs to make wild animals disappear little by little, and even if there are relevant conventions to control them, there are still a large number of people secretly hunting and selling sawfish crafts. Guess what those viable sawfish are doing when you make crafts made of sawfish kisses to keep you safe?