Entering 2021, China's animals and plants have shown a blowout situation. Northeast wild brown bear, "Wandashan No. 1", Yunnan bee monkey, holly silkworm moth, pony song, and Liaoning surprise orchid primitive plants such as the orchid orchid and so on. No, then in Guangxi Province, the southern tip of China, there has recently been another "mysterious" creature - the white-tailed bipod. It has to be said that the environment and climate are getting better and better, which is beyond doubt.
This is undeniable, if the environment and climate have not improved, and the protective measures have been in place, there is no reason why so many animals and plants in China have continued to emerge in recent years. And some of them are animals and plants that have disappeared for hundreds of years, disappeared for hundreds of years, and are even called "rarer than giant pandas". With the emergence of more and more animals and plants, we also understand the connection. The newly discovered white-tailed bipedal lizard may be another example, let's take a look at the specific situation of this white-tailed bipod known as "dragon" and "dragon sees the head but does not see the tail".
While patrolling the Jiuwanshan National Nature Reserve in Guangxi, a "earthworm" covered in scales was suddenly found. This new discovery surprised the rangers but calmly took out their cameras to take pictures of it. With many years of patrolling experience, the rangers thought at first glance that it was a hooked blind snake, the smallest snake in the world. But before he could take two more shots, he very flexibly burrowed into the grass and disappeared.
Is it really a snake? Not really! Tan Fei, head of the monitoring section of the perfect protected area, saw this photo, and at first thought it was a hook blind snake, but after holding the enlarged photo, he found that the white "jade ring" at the tail was actually biased from the hook blind snake. So I quickly took the photo to ask the external experts and the experts of Sun Yat-sen University, and finally after identification, it was finally determined that the "mysterious" creature in the photo was the white-tailed bipod that "saw the head and did not see the tail of the dragon".
The white-tailed bipod is hidden underground for many years, and biological information about it is extremely scarce. Its entire body is covered with tile-like round scales, and it has jade white spots on its tail. Males are also known to have a pair of short, flattened fin-like hind limbs. Perhaps if it were not magnified, if it did not have scales and the characteristics of the fin-like hind limbs, many people would recognize it as an earthworm. But it is indeed the same as the "dragon", with scales and horns. Thinking about it this way, do you feel that calling it a dragon is not excessive?
The white-tailed bipedal lizard may think it's a lizard when it hears the name, but it's not. Although not a lizard, it is a close relative of lizards and snakes. There are few records of the white-tailed bipedal lizard, which is rare in China and even in the world. In May 1960, one was found on the mountain road in Jinxiu Yao Autonomous County, but it was dead at the time, and the tail was broken next to the road. In June 1960, a white-tailed bipedal lizard swung rapidly from side to side as it opened its mouth to bite. Other than that, there are almost no records about living!
The rare discovery of the white-tailed bipedal lizard in the 90,000 Mountains of Guangxi is undoubtedly another living biological record evidence for this species, which is very rare. Why are white-tailed bipedal lizards so rare? In fact, there are two reasons, on the one hand, the life habits of the white-tailed bipod is to hide underneath, in a place where the human eye is invisible. Naturally, there are very few cases of seeing them, let alone recorded cases.
On the other hand, the white-tailed bipedal lizard and the gecko are close relatives and have the same broken-tail escape skills as the gecko. The white spots on the tail are a seductive color that attracts the attention of predators and lures birds to peck at the tail and survive by breaking the tail. But perhaps on the one hand, it is still an environmental factor, and there is no suitable ecological environment for the white-tailed bipod. At the same time, the white-tailed bipedal lizard tail is gone, there is no secondary umbrella, and the form is very similar to an earthworm, and the probability of natural survival is even smaller.
The Jiuwanshan Nature Reserve is located in Guangxi and is an important part of the protected area in Guangxi. Because of its exceptionally rich animal and plant resources, it is one of the three plant-specific phenomenon centers in Guangxi. It is not only one of the areas with the richest biological species in China's subtropical regions, but also a key area for biodiversity conservation in the same latitude of the world. With a total area of 13,002 hectares, it is a rare scientific research and experimental base for biology, ecology and ecogeography.
It is worth mentioning that in the daily conservation work of the Jiuwanshan Mountain Reserve, not only the white-tailed bipods, but also many other "mysterious" animals and plants have been found in recent years with the orderly development of the work. For example, the Sino-Vietnamese lip orchid discovered in 2019, which is good at camouflage and "changes its heart", the "ghost orchid" 90,000 mountain snake lip orchid discovered in 2020, and even the pale-throated wren, yangcai arm golden turtle, gecai arm golden turtle and other national protected animals that are not recorded in Guangxi and are very rare in the country.
"Ghost Orchid"
All in all, the conservation of The Ninety Thousand Mountains is certainly commendable. At the same time, the care of the patrol staff is also worthy of praise, and their daily efforts have made significant contributions to the conservation of biodiversity in our country and the exploration of biodiversity. In general, China's environmental protection and animal and plant protection are developing towards a higher and stronger trend, and I believe that there will be more "mysterious" animals and plants that have not been seen in the future.