How did a good lion specimen become an Internet celebrity?

In the Shanghai Natural History Museum, you can see a lion specimen with a unique appearance. Its expression is very vivid, with two round eyes staring, neck stiff, and an anxious and angry look, as if saying: "Are you kidding me?" Some people say it looks like Kang Hui, while others say it looks like Guo Degang. With such a special temperament, it is no wonder that it can stand out from the numerous collections of the Shanghai Natural History Museum and become an Internet celebrity.

But this is not the most outrageous specimen. In the 18th century, someone gave the Swedish King Frederick I the skin and bones of a lion. The king found an artist who had never seen a lion and asked him to make a specimen. The result was a strange creature with an expression that was even more distorted and exaggerated than the "Internet celebrity lion".

A stuffed lion named Leo at Gripsholm Castle in Mariefred, Sodermanland, Sweden | The Royal Palaces

Government Museum in Chennai | Sailko / Wikimedia Commons

Breathe! From the Histoire Naturelle Muséum Cuvier de Montbéliard | antomoro / Wikimedia Commons

The distorted appearance of the specimens we see is often because they were made a long time ago and the taxidermists do not have enough knowledge of the animals themselves. In any case, making animal specimens is not only a hard job, but also requires careful observation and research of the animals.

The female lion looks for food, while the male lion acts as security guard

Lions (Panthera leo) are one of the largest cats, along with tigers, and are the only cats in the world with distinct male and female sexes. Adult male lions usually have a long mane around their necks, which adds to their majesty, while female lions and young male lions do not have manes. In addition, male lions are much larger than female lions. Wild male lions weigh 138 to 275 kilograms and can be up to 3.2 meters long; while female lions weigh 85 to 182 kilograms and can be up to 2.7 meters long.

Lazy lion with a big scarf | Kevin Pluck / Wikimedia Commons

Lions are social animals. A lion pride can consist of 3 to 50 lions, mostly females. In a lion pride, females are mainly responsible for hunting. Although male lions are fat and strong, they are surprisingly lazy. They are mainly responsible for patrolling the territory and scaring away other male lions who challenge them. They are like the security guards of the lion pride. The rest of the time, they sleep.

Female lions are much smaller than male lions | Charles J. Sharp / Wikimedia Commons

When young male lions grow to about 3 years old, they will be driven away from the lion group by adult male lions and make a living on their own. Sometimes, young male lions will try to challenge old male lions, and even if the defeated party survives by chance, they will have to wander around and be displaced.

Lion cubs don't have big necks | John Mackenzie Burke / Wikimedia Commons

There are many subspecies of lions, including the Asiatic lion (P. l. persica) that once spread across Eurasia, the most common East African lion (P. l. nubica), the largest existing Transvaal lion (P. l. krugeri), etc. Some of these subspecies (such as the North African lion) have long been extinct, and there are only about 300 Asiatic lions in the wild, and they are only distributed in the Gir Forest National Park in Gujarat, India.

Lion prides are dominated by females | Rick marin / Wikimedia Commons

The worship of lions is engraved into culture

Lions were once widely distributed in the dry grasslands of the Eurasian continent. They could be seen from ancient Egypt to Babylon, from ancient Persia, Central Asia to ancient India. Lions were worshiped by humans and became cultural totems in many regions. The Sumerians, the first people to enter the civilized era, regarded male lions as a symbol of royal power. Later, Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations also incorporated lion worship into their culture.

In ancient Greek mythology, there is a monster called "Sphinx". It has the body of a majestic lion but a woman's face. It usually sits on the edge of a cliff. When pedestrians pass by, it jumps out and asks them a riddle: "What animal walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs at night?" If the person can't answer, it will be eaten. Later, the Greek hero Oedipus gave the correct answer - "man", and the Sphinx jumped off the cliff in shame and committed suicide.

Lion sculpture on the bell tower of the Greek Evangelical Church | Bernard Gagnon / Wikimedia Commons

In fact, the monster Sphinx first appeared in Egyptian mythology. The famous "Sphinx" was built by the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Khufu based on it. It is the patron saint of the mausoleum.

Sphinx | ​​Mavila2 / Wikimedia Commons

What role did the lion play in Chinese history? In fact, lions have appeared in countries around China from west to south, except in East Asia. Some scholars speculate that this may be because ancient China did not have the arid wasteland environment that lions like, and the ecological niche of "king of beasts" was occupied by another strong beast - the tiger. Therefore, the Chinese in ancient times had never seen a lion, and only heard from hearsay that there was a fast-running beast in the world called "suān ní", which was more terrifying than the tigers and leopards in the Central Plains - this was the original image of the lion in the minds of the Chinese.

Bronze ornament in the shape of a Suanni unearthed in Inner Mongolia | BabelStone / Wikimedia Commons

In the Han Dynasty, Zhang Qian went on a diplomatic mission to the Western Regions and opened up the Silk Road connecting Central Asia and West Asia. Lions came to China as tribute animals for the emperor to enjoy. This mysterious beast, which looks mighty at first glance, soon became a popular "star". People carved stones into the shape of lions to ward off evil spirits and even used them as tomb guardians.

As Buddhism spread in China, lions, which are revered by Buddhism, also became sacred in people's minds. According to the "Taiping Guangji", there was a painter named Gu Guangbao in the Southern Song Dynasty who was good at painting lions. His friend had been ill for many years and doctors could not cure him. After seeing it, he thought it was a ghost, so he used ink to draw a fierce lion and hung it outside his friend's house. The next day, he went to see it again and found that the lion in the painting had blood dripping from its mouth. His friend's illness was cured without treatment. Although this story is a folk legend, it also shows that lions were omnipotent in people's eyes at that time.

Historical Misunderstandings

Until the Ming and Qing dynasties, almost all lions in China were tributes brought by foreign envoys. At that time, there were no trains or airplanes, and it was very difficult to transport such beasts with large appetites over thousands of miles. Lion cubs were prone to die on the way, and female lions were not visually stunning enough, so most of the lions sent to China were adult male lions.

Unexpectedly, this led to a misunderstanding among our ancient Chinese. Everyone thought that all lions were like adult male lions, with long manes around their necks. However, we can't blame the ancients for this. Look at the cats native to China - male tigers and female tigers look similar, male leopards and female leopards are also similar. Who would have thought that male lions, female lions, and lion cubs look so different?

Male and female tigers don't look much different | Madhavi uikey / Wikimedia Commons

The Ming Dynasty painter Zhou Quan had a painting called "Lion Picture", in which the male lion was painted realistically. However, if you look at the lion cubs around the male lion, you will definitely feel that they are strange and do not look like real lion cubs at all. This is because the painter has seen real male lions, but has never seen lion cubs. No one told him what lion cubs look like, so he could only copy the male lion, but he did not expect to leave a laughing stock for future generations.

Lion Painting | Ming Dynasty painter Zhou Quan

In addition, although traditional Chinese stone lions all look like male lions, they are actually divided into male and female. The one stepping on the hydrangea is a male lion, and the one stepping on the little lion doll is a female lion. This may be because everyone thinks that lions are like the traditional human family, where the father only knows how to play all day and it is the mother's job to take care of the children. Interestingly, this happens to correspond to the duties of male and female lions in reality. It can only be said that "widowed parenting" is not just the norm in human society!

This article comes from the Species Calendar, welcome to forward