How fierce is the jackal?

In fact, jackals are not an animal, but a general term for jackals and wolves. That is to say, "jackals and butchers" are four kinds of animals, and their arrangement order should not be random, nor to be more smooth (butchers, wolves, jackals and leopards are also smooth), but once these four animals meet people, jackals and leopards.

But this statement is somewhat contrary to our cognition, because compared with combat effectiveness, it is obvious that tigers are stronger than leopards, leopards are stronger than wolves, and wolves are stronger than jackals. Why is the order just the opposite? This will start with the habits of these animals. Although tigers and leopards have strong fighting capacity, they are solitary animals, and their initiative to attack humans is not strong, which is why leopards and tigers hurt people less. They usually run away when they smell human beings from a distance, and rarely attack people actively. But wolves are different. They are social animals and opportunists. When they meet people who are alone, the probability of wolves besieging people is high, that is to say, wolves are more aggressive to humans than tigers and leopards.

Finally, the jackal is the smallest and most mysterious of the four animals. Its mystery is mainly because the number of jackals is very rare and has become an endangered species, so most people don't know much about jackals now.

However, once jackals spread all over the country, outnumbering wolves. Although they are small, this animal is very fierce, because most carnivores eat prey, but unlike jackals, they can't wait to start tearing their prey to eat when they besiege it. Therefore, prey besieged by jackals will generally be bitten to death in pain.

In addition, jackals are extremely flexible. They can jump 2 meters high and 3 meters away without running in place, which allows them to avoid the kickback of large animals and jump on each other's backs to bite people. Moreover, "gouging out anus" is not a unique skill of hyenas, and jackals are also very good at gouging out anus. When besieging their prey, they will also separate a few in front to attract their attention, and the jackals in the rear will also share the food.

The most important thing is that jackals are fierce. They dare to fight with large carnivores, which wolves can't match. The quote is Anderson (1954), which records the incident of jackals besieging Bengal tigers. The number of jackals is 30, and Bengal tigers are adult tigers. As a result, the jackal

According to the current literature, wolves have never killed adult tigers, and they live in groups, and the number of jackals is at least three times that of wolves. Therefore, among jackals, tigers and leopards, jackals rank high. So, since jackals are so fierce, what kind of animals are mandrills that can make people so scared?

What is a mandrill?

The earliest statement about mandrill is considered to appear in Shan Hai Jing, which is a marine classic in the south:

In the south, there is a Jiangxi giant with long arms and a furry black body. When people laugh, their lips will cover their faces, so they will run away.

It's just that the word mandrill is not mentioned here. Later, the description of "one foot in Lu Yu, the national jade, the more people call it Shan Sao" is also considered as a mandrill, but it usually refers to the water god. In ancient records, the word "mandrill" really appeared in Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio. In this book, there is an article called "Mandrill" to the effect that Sun Taibai once recalled his experience of meeting Mandrill in the middle of the night and described it in detail:

Ignore it, GREAT GHOST bowed to it and suddenly stood in front of the couch, almost standing with Liang Qi. His face looks like an old melon skin, his eyes are shining, he looks around the room, his mouth is like a washbasin, his teeth are three inches long, his tongue is moving, his throat is hoarse, and his voice resounds all over the wall, which makes him extremely afraid.

From this description, we can find several characteristics of Mandrill: standing, tall (almost as tall as Liang Qi), green-yellow face (old melon skin color), bright eyes, big mouth, sparse teeth, about 10 cm long, and able to make a sharp cry.

Through these characteristics, it can be preliminarily judged that it should be a primate. After all, there are not many hairy and tall animals that can stand, usually primates, Xiong Ke animals and cats, but bears and big cats (tigers, leopards, etc.). ) is familiar to the ancients, so it is a primate with a high probability.

Through the color characteristics of teeth, mouth and face, it can be basically recognized as a colorful baboon. Colorful baboon, also known as mandrill, is a large primate, belonging to the genus Mandrill of the family Monkeys, and is also the largest living monkey.

Adult mandrills have large and long heads, green facial skin and bright red spine, which are basically consistent with the facial features of mandrills in Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio, except that the length of mandrills is usually around 1 m, and the maximum weight is 30 kg, which is slightly different. But the mouth is big and the teeth are sparse and long, which is more consistent, because the length of mandrill's canine teeth can reach more than 6 cm, and its teeth are really sparse.

The most important thing is that mandrill is the fiercest monkey. First of all, mandrill is not a vegetarian, but an omnivore. Besides fruit, they also like meat very much. In their meat, besides insects and amphibians, they also include small mammals. When killing mammals, they will catch animals and then kill each other with sharp canine teeth.

Secondly, mandrill is a very aggressive social animal. Its biggest natural enemy is leopard, but it is also one of the animals that kill leopard the most in Africa. According to scientists' observation, in about 30% of the conflicts between leopards and mandrills, mandrills killed leopards (group attacks). Because of this, leopards usually only kill fallen leopards.

Of course, jackals can also kill leopards, and the reason why mandrills can make the ancients so scared is mainly because mandrills only exist in people's legends, and almost no one has seen them. So in the case of misinformation, mandrill was demonized. Why do you say that? Because Mandrill is a unique animal in Africa, its appearance in Pu Songling's book may be seen in Africa when Zheng He went to the West, or it may be heard or seen by other explorers in Africa, and then this animal was exaggerated and sent back to China. With the passage of time, mandrill has become a more powerful existence than jackal.

Another factor is the appearance of mandrill. Even though we have never seen the fighting power of mandrill, just because of its "ghost face" and "fangs" is enough to make people classify it as a "beast".

abstract

From the ancient description, mandrill should be African mandrill, that is, colorful baboons. It's terrible because most people have only heard of it, but have never seen it. Moreover, those who brought the description of this animal back to China must have been frightened by the appearance of Mandrill, thus exaggerating its horror. Over time, it was in the mandrill.