There are many precious cultural relics in the collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei, and one of the paintings that attracted my attention is "The Picture of The Crossing of the Toes". The painting was completed in the twenty-sixth year of Qianlong, that is, in 1761 AD, and was written by the Italian painter Lang Shining, and also contains the imperial poems mentioned by the Qianlong Emperor:
"Yu belongs to the genus to cross his toes, and calls himself a name for sure." Happy and difficult to share, small after the big in front. Liu Yi Wang Sun Evil, Guo Qi Junzixian. Not because of the skin suitable bedding, Lin Zhi ordered rather donate. ”
Lang Shining's "Cross-Toe True Figure". Image: Wikimedia
"Sure enough", also known as "猓 (犭然)", is an animal recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, which is also described in the Song Dynasty's Taiping Imperial Records:
Sure enough, the beast resembled a macaque and called itself by its name. The color is pale black. The group walks, the old man is in front, and the less is in the back. It seems that there is righteousness in the fruit and food with the old man. There are mountains of crossed toes. The beast shoots it, and its fur is a fur, and it is very warm. ”
According to this description, in the eyes of the ancients, it was a primate living in the Indochina Peninsula, living in groups, with elderly chiefs, and was a vegetarian animal.
However, readers of the species calendar will probably recognize at a glance that this is not a ring-tailed lemur drawn by Uncle Lang!
Ring-tailed lemur catta. Image: pixabay
Lemurs are found on the island of Madagascar. This Madagascar is a great place to be, and it can be said that it is a paradise for us naturalistic enthusiasts. It is an African island country located in the western Part of the Indian Ocean, across the Strait of Mozambique and the African continent, and is the largest island in Africa and the fourth largest island in the world. Not only are there 108 species of lemurs, but there are also many exotic creatures unique to the Falklands, such as the Falklands badger, the Falklands hedgehogs, and the Falklands Nichijo Shrine.
The black one is the island of Madagascar. Image: shosholoza /wikimedia
From top to bottom are the Horse Island Badger, the Horse Island Hedgehog, and a certain Kind of Horse Island Day Keeper. Images: Needpix, Thierry Caro/wikimedia, pixabay
About tens of millions of years ago, due to geological activities, Madagascar and the African continent were separated, and the creatures living on the island were separated from their friends on the African continent, and since then they have embarked on an independent evolutionary path, including the ancestors of lemurs.
Lemurs are more primitive primates, competing with some of the more advanced mammals, and gradually the african continent will no longer see lemurs. For lemurs, Madagascar is their hideaway.
Lemurs that monopolize The largest island in Africa. Image: pixabay
After tens of millions of years of evolution, lemurs have shown a very rich diversity - there are archaeoindris (extinct) ancient lemurs weighing up to 160 kilograms, ancient lemur palaeopropithecus (extinct) that looks like sloths, megaladapis (extinct) of cosplay koalas, and daubentonia, a finger monkey whose appearance is considered to be the embodiment of a demon Madagascariensis, a large bamboo lemur simus with a decaying face and specializing in bamboo, etc., and the most easily seen is the protagonist of today's story: the ring-tailed lemur catta.
图片:veszprémi AnimalKer、frank vassen、c. michael hogan、smokeybjb、arjan haverkamp、maky / wikimed
From left to right, from top to bottom: ring-tailed lemur, crowned lemur, finger monkey, ancient lemur, bougainous lemur, brown-tailed weasel lemur, red-fronted lemur and collared lemur.
Ring-tailed lemurs are kept in many zoos, and the number is not small, mainly because the ring-tailed lemurs are more adaptable, as the saying goes, "skinny".
But in Madagascar, ring-tailed lemurs, like other lemurs, face the threat of poaching, habitat destruction and other problems, and the number continues to decrease, and even the number of wild ring-tailed lemurs is not as large as that of their kind living in zoos.
"What to see!" Image: wallpaperflare
Unlike many social primates, which are led by males, females are the dominant group of ring-tailed lemurs, with an older female in each group as the "queen". The queen and her descendants have various privileges in the group, such as prioritizing access to the best food, while other females in the group will challenge the queen whenever they have the opportunity to compete for the leadership of the group.
On the contrary, the males will only fight for the right to mate during the breeding period, and they can live in peace at ordinary times.
Female ring-tailed lemur with cubs. Image: Pikist
Back to the beginning of the "Cross Toe True Picture". If you look closely at this painting, you will find that this lemur painted by Uncle Lang is strange. If you think about it carefully, you will find that the ring-tailed lemurs in the zoo seem to have more rings on their tails? Flipping through the photos taken at the zoo, I found that there were usually 13 to 14 rings on the tail.
Count the rings on the tail and relax. Image: pxhere
Uncle Lang's paintings have always been known for their rigorous realism, so why is it that the tail in "Cross-toe True Picture" only has 6 rings? Later, I consulted several gods to learn the truth: it turned out that the ring on the tail of the ring-tailed lemur was a symbol of status, and when fighting with the same kind, they would try their best to pull the tip of each other's tail, as long as the tip of one side's tail was pulled off, it meant that it lost.
So the truth is that the one that Uncle Lang painted is likely to be a ring-tailed lemur with a broken tail.
Perhaps, this ring-tailed lemur was very unfortunately caught by hunters, and together with many rare birds and animals also living in Madagascar, it was loaded on a cargo ship, transported to the jiaotong country, and sent to the Heavenly Dynasty as a tribute. At that time, the great officials in the imperial court had not studied taxonomy, and naturally did not know what kind of monkey the lemur was, so this ring-tailed lemur was regarded as the "true fruit" in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, which left Uncle Lang's "Cross-toed True Picture".
This article is from the fruit shell, welcome to forward
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