Winter Olympics mascot: I was almost able to recognize the prototype!

The mascot of this year's Winter Olympics, "Bing Dwen Dwen", is a panda covered in a high-tech ice crystal shell.

However, the designers did not have a place for the "national treasure" in their first draft. They originally designed a candied haws, but later, at the suggestion of the Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, they replaced the hawthorn in the ice shell with the current panda.

The mascot of this Winter Olympics, "Bing Dwen Dwen" | Olympics.com

Choosing animals as mascots seems to have become an international practice. However, the Winter Olympics, which has a history of nearly a hundred years, did not have its first mascot until 1968, Schuss, a little man skiing.

Even counting the Summer Olympics, it's the first | Olympics.com

The first animal-based mascot appeared at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, USA. Since then, animals have gradually occupied half of the Olympic mascots.

Roni the raccoon at the Lake Placid Olympics | Olympics.com

However, some of these mascots are species that only know how to sleep in the winter, while others have been so manipulated by designers that even their mothers cannot recognize them.

I almost recognized it.

These are the mascots of the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Guess what their prototypes are👇

Today's No Prize Contest ~ | Olympics.com

Answer: Owl.

Take a closer look - big round eyes, a pointy nose and small ears, just a little different from an owl. Did the designer draw the owl like this because he has a grudge against it?

Although owls are often considered bad omens in traditional Chinese culture, such as the poem "The Book of Songs·Chen Feng·The Tomb Gate" which says: "There are plum trees at the tomb gate, and owls gather there", linking owls with tombs. However, in Japanese culture, it is the opposite. The Japanese pronunciation of owl is "Fukurou", which sounds the same as "no hard work" and "fortune and old age", and is extended to mean good fortune. In Greek culture, owls symbolize wisdom. The favorite bird of the goddess of wisdom Athena is an owl - the little owl with vertical stripes on its belly (Athene noctua).

The wise gaze of a Little Owl | Artemy Voikhansky / Wikimedia Commons

The government did not specify which owl became the mascot, but the pointed horns on their heads at least prove that this is an owl with "ear tufts." There are 13 species of owls living in Japan, and many of them have ear tufts, such as the long-eared owl, the northern scops owl, and the hairy-legged fish owl.

The tufts of owls' ears are not for beauty, but a means of camouflage. When disturbed, they will erect their ears, breaking the outline of their round heads, and stiffen their bodies like a dead tree stump.

Long-eared Owl: Am I pretending well enough? | Timo Ze / Wikimedia Commons

The most famous owl in Japan is the Hairy-legged Fishing Owl that lives in Hokkaido. It has a wingspan of more than 1.7 meters and feeds on fish. The local Ainu people regard them as the "guardians of the countryside."

Pictured: Long-tailed Wood Owl | Peapix

However, in recent years, the large trees suitable for the owls to build nests have been cut down in large numbers, and the deterioration of water quality and the reduction of migratory fish have led to a sharp decline in the number of owls. Locals have had to build artificial nesting boxes so that they can have a place to live during the breeding season.

What you haven't seen, nature may not have seen either.

Mascots for the Vancouver Winter Olympics in Canada | Olympics.com

This is the mascot of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics in Canada. On the left is Quatchi, a prototype of the North American Bigfoot, on the right is MukMuk, a groundhog, and the one in the middle... Don't think it looks like any animal? That's not surprising, because it's a mix of a killer whale and a black bear.

The mascot named "Miga" has the appearance of a bear, but the bright black and white color scheme is exactly the same as that of a killer whale, and the horns on its head correspond to the long dorsal fin of a killer whale. In the legends of the Canadian Aboriginals, this animal is called a "Sea Bear".

Groups of killer whales can often be seen in the waters near Vancouver, and the longest-lived killer whale "Granny" once lived here.

Whale watching is a popular tourist attraction in the area | wolfganglucht / Pixabay

Killer whales are found in all oceans around the world, and those that live here are "residential" -- they have no habit of migration, have a stable family structure, and the oldest female whale is the leader. "Granny" is the leader of the family, and she may have been 105 years old when she died.

Another species that makes up the sea bears is the Kermode bear (Ursus americanus kermodei), also known as the "spirit bear", a subspecies of the American black bear, mainly distributed in British Columbia, Canada. Generally speaking, the hair of the Kermode bear is black, but there is a 10% to 20% probability of white individuals in the population.

White Kermode bear (not a polar bear) | Maximilian Helm / Wikimedia Commons

These white individuals are not suffering from albinism, but a recessive mutation in the gene of a melanocortin receptor MC1R in the body. Therefore, only when both parents carry this gene at the same time can a white Kermode bear be born.

No skiing, I'm hibernating

In addition to the Vancouver Winter Olympics, the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics also used the American black bear as a mascot.

The black bear is named "Coal", and his two friends are a white-shoe hare (Lepus americanus) named "Snow" and a coyote (Canis latrans) named "Copper". All three animals are native species in Utah. Unlike white-shoe hares and coyotes, American black bears are unlikely to appear in the vast snow because they were hibernating at that time!

Yancheng Winter Olympics mascot | Olympics.com

American black bears hibernate for 5 to 7 months, during which they do not eat, drink or excrete. Their metabolic rate drops to 25%, their heart rate drops from 55 beats per minute to 9, and their body temperature is adjusted from the usual 37 to 38°C to around 33°C.

Life lies in stillness, and it seems this is true even at the Winter Olympics.

Although American black bears are sleeping soundly during the Winter Olympics, polar bears are trying their best to catch seals on the ice. Polar bears usually do not hibernate, only pregnant female bears will go into caves made of snow from late October to early December each year to hibernate and feed their offspring.

Polar bear mother with cub | Alan D. Wilson / WIkimedia Commons

Polar bears are undoubtedly the representatives of ice and snow. They are tied with black bears as the most frequently appearing Winter Olympic mascots. The 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia both used polar bears as mascots.

Canada's "Panda"

Another winter athlete forced to work is the Vancouver Island marmot (Marmota vancouverensis). The "Mukmuk" is based on this animal and is the "sea bear's" little friend. They appeared together at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Mukmuk | gkwan87/Flickr

The Vancouver Island marmot has a white nose and irregular white areas on its chest, making it very recognizable among other marmots. They are also the largest marmots in the world, with adult males weighing up to 7 kilograms.

This marmot is endemic to Canada and is only found on the alpine meadows of Vancouver Island. It likes to build nests in soft soil. From September to the end of April of the following year, they hibernate in caves up to 1 meter deep.

Winter Olympics? I just woke up... | Alina Fisher / Wikimedia Commons

With the rise of forestry on the island, many forests were cut down, and meadows suitable for marmots to survive seemed to increase all of a sudden, and many marmot populations were attracted here. But the marmots who settled here did not know that these artificial habitats would be replanted with economic forests before long, and they would lose their homes. The process of planting trees and cutting trees was repeated, and the rapid renewal of forests caused the number of marmots to decrease sharply. A survey in 2003 showed that there were only 21 wild marmots left on Vancouver Island.

Fortunately, major zoos in Canada have begun to save marmots, first breeding them in captivity and then releasing them into the wild. In 2013, the number of marmots in the wild increased to 350-400.

The Snow Leopard Myth

Some cities choose to use endangered animals as mascots to raise public awareness of animal protection, such as Sochi, Russia in 2014.

In 2011, Russia held a referendum to select the mascot for the Sochi Winter Olympics, and the mascot based on the snow leopard received the most support.

Snow Leopard in the Final Showcase Video | youtube

Snow leopards are mainly distributed in Tibet, Qinghai, Xinjiang and other provinces in my country, with 60% of their habitats in my country. The Altai region of Russia is the northernmost distribution area of ​​snow leopards.

Due to rampant poaching and habitat loss, the number of snow leopards has dropped sharply. According to IUCN estimates, the number of snow leopards in the world is between 2,710 and 3,386, and there are only a few snow leopards in Russia. The Russian authorities also hope to draw people's attention to this endangered population.

However, when the mascot of this Winter Olympics was officially unveiled, it was a brown leopard, and the official website of the Olympics also wrote "leopard".

In the picture on the official website, the leopard has turned brown | olympics.com

In fact, in Sochi, which is located on the Black Sea coast and west of the Caucasus Mountains, the probability of seeing snow leopards is almost zero. The Persian leopard (Panthera pardus ciscaucasica) is distributed here. This is a subspecies of leopard, and their survival status is not optimistic. There are only about 1,000 adult individuals in the world, and the number is declining. It is assessed as "endangered" by the IUCN.

At the beginning of this century, the Persian leopards in the Caucasus were almost extinct. It was not until 2009 that the Sochi National Park established a breeding center for Persian leopards, and introduced Persian leopards from Turkmenistan, Iran and other countries. As of 2016, a total of 14 cubs were born here. After wild training, they will be released into the mountains and forests to rebuild the Persian leopard population in the Caucasus.

Putin visits leopard breeding centre ahead of Olympics | bbc.com

Fortunately, through strict prohibition of poaching and habitat reconstruction, the number of snow leopards in Russia is gradually recovering. In 2017, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) found a total of 61 snow leopards in the Altai-Sayan region, including 23 cubs, indicating that the snow leopard population is still growing.

Whatever species becomes the mascot, they should not be lost in the wilderness.

References

[1]Ritland, Kermit, Craig Newton, and H. Dawn Marshall. "Inheritance and population structure of the white-phased “Kermode” black bear." Current Biology 11.18 (2001): 1468-1472.

[2]Tøien, Øivind, et al. "Hibernation in black bears: independence of metabolic suppression from body temperature." Science 331.6019 (2011): 906-909.

[3] Dou Ruijin. "A comparative study of owl culture." Literature and Culture. 04(2017): 130-136. doi:10.13896/j.cnki.wxywh.2017.04.018.

[4]https://www.hellobc.com.cn/stories

[5]https://naturecanada.ca/discover-nature/endangered-species/vancouver-island-marmot/

[6]https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22732/50664030

Author: Jian Er

Editor: Mai Mai

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