Species Exploration: What are those strange creatures in "Longling Mystery Cave"?

Author: Zhao Xumao

The article comes from the Science Academy official account (ID: kexuedayuan)

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You must have watched a lot of TV series while staying at home, such as the popular "Longling Mystery Cave"~~

(Photo source: Weibo @网剧鬼吹灯)

However, this drama has also aroused the curiosity of netizens: there are many strange creatures in the drama, such as various strange fish, poisonous insects... What are they? Let's take a look at them below~

What kind of fish is this strange fish that can capsize a boat?

In the second episode, Hu Bayi and his group arrived in Shaanxi, but the car got stuck in a mud pit and they had to go by water. When the boat reached the river, there was a loud "click" and the boat body shook violently. It turned out that it hit a big fish in the river. In a hurry, Hu Bayi and the big fish started a life-and-death struggle. So what is this big fish?

Hu Bayi was in Shaanxi and traveled by water, so he must have been in the Yellow River Basin. So what large aquatic creatures are there in the Yellow River Basin that can capsize a boat?

In history, there have been real cases of fish knocking over ships. During World War II, the British ships Barbara and Leporit were both hit by swordfish "swords" that poked large holes in their metal hulls. At the time, the crew thought they were attacked by torpedoes. In 1948, the American four-masted sailing ship "Elizabeth" was also attacked by a swordfish. The crew saw this "live torpedo" suddenly aiming at the sailboat and rushing towards it. Even if they wanted to hide, it was too late. The sailors on the ship quickly caught the swordfish on the deck. The swordfish weighed 700 kilograms and was 5.5 meters long. Its "sword" was 54 centimeters long.

Although there are no swordfish as large as those in the ocean in the Yellow River Basin, the boat that Hu Bayi and his crew were riding on does not have the tonnage of ships in the ocean, so it does not take such a large fish to overturn the boat. The Yellow River Basin forms a large alluvial plain in the Shaanxi section, with gentle water flow and abundant fish resources. It is a low probability event for Hu Bayi's boat to be hit by a large fish in the Yellow River. If it is hit by some rare species, the probability is even lower. Logically, they are likely to be hit by a large fish that is common in the Yellow River, but what kind of fish is it?

The first possibility: Carp

The main economic fish in the Yellow River are carp, crucian carp and catfish, among which the Yellow River carp is the most famous. The Yellow River carp is an important economic fish in the Yellow River. It has strong adaptability, mostly lives in the lower layer of water, and has a mixed diet. In Chinese history, the Yellow River carp, Songjiang perch, Xingkai Lake bream, and Songhua River salmon are known as the four famous freshwater fish in China. Since ancient times, there has been a saying in my country that "if you eat fish, you must eat river carp." The Yellow River carp is not only delicious, but also large in size. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was not uncommon to see carp weighing 40-50 kilograms in the Yellow River. Especially before the 1950s, Sanmenxia, ​​Lingbao, Luoyang, Gongyi, Zhengzhou and Kaifeng all had professional fishing teams fishing in the Yellow River. A boat could catch 600-1150 kilograms a month, of which the Yellow River carp accounted for 45%-50% of the total weight. The Henan section of the Yellow River can catch 150 tons of Yellow River carp every year.

So is it likely that Hu Bayi will encounter Yellow River carp? Not very likely.

Judging from the time, Hu Bayi was born in 1950 and came to Ganggangyingzi Village, Xing'an League, Inner Mongolia in 1968. Therefore, he may still encounter large Yellow River carp in the 1970s and 1980s, but the chance has obviously decreased compared with the 1950s. Compared with the 1950s, the monthly catch per boat in the same season in the same operation method in the early 1980s did not exceed 125 kilograms. The production of Yellow River carp has declined more seriously, and the annual catch is less than 10 tons. Subsequently, various hybrid carps were mixed into the waters of different tributaries of the Yellow River, which caused serious damage to the Yellow River carp population in the river, and a mixture of various carps appeared. The traditional Yellow River carp is becoming less and less.

The second possibility: catfish

If Hu Bayi was hit by a fish before the 1980s, he would have had a higher chance of encountering an Asian carp. If he crossed the Yellow River after the 1980s, his boat would have had a higher chance of being hit by another large fish, the catfish.

As Asian carp faded out of the Yellow River Basin, catfish began to catch up. Yellow River catfish belongs to the order Siluriformes, family Siluridae, genus Siluriformes, commonly known as Mianbulang and Mianyu, is a bottom-dwelling carnivorous fish that likes to eat small fish and bottom-dwelling animals. It is mainly distributed in the Yellow River Basin of my country. It usually lays eggs in shallow water grass on the shore, and the fertilized eggs adhere to the water grass to hatch.

Catfish is a slender bottom-feeding omnivorous fish with a big mouth and a huge appetite. In the Yellow River, where the water is vast, food is abundant and it is easy to hide, it is easy for catfish to grow to 1.5 meters to more than 2 meters long. According to Zhang Lixun, a senior engineer at Lanzhou University, a 1.2-meter-long catfish specimen is displayed in the Lanzhou University Museum, which was collected from the Yellow River in the 1980s. A catfish a little over one meter long only needs two meters of acceleration space to break a fishing net and break a person's ribs. Since 2002, the Yellow River Fisheries Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences has conducted preliminary surveys of aquatic biological resources in sections such as Liujiaxia, Longyangxia, Qingtongxia, Tianqiao, Hukou, and Sanmenxia Reservoir. Comparison with historical data shows that catfish ranks first among the catches, while the famous Yellow River carp is now difficult to catch.

Can you kill the bats in the bat cave?

In the sixth episode, Da Jin Ya, Wang Pangzi, and Hu Bayi fell into a collapsed earth shell. Hu Bayi pointed his flashlight upwards and saw a black group of bats gathering above their heads. They had never seen such a dense group of bats before. They fled in a hurry and finally got rid of the bats chasing them.

Bats belong to the order Chiroptera, the second largest order of mammals after Rodentia. Most species are cave-dwelling creatures, and are the dominant group in cave communities. From the analysis of the play, Hu Bayi and his companions are likely to have accidentally fallen into a bat cave. Bat caves are named because of the natural caves formed in nature where bat groups live. The main bat caves in China are Shennong Palace in Jiangxi, Hangzhou Bat Cave and Henan Bat Cave. Zhang Shuyi, a famous bat research expert in my country, once found in Xixia Cave that there are more than 100,000 bats in the cave, of 7 species.

(Photo source: Weibo @网剧鬼吹灯)

The reason why Hu Bayi and others are full of fear of bats, in addition to their scary appearance, they may be more aware of the severity of the viruses in bats. At present, scientists have found more than 4,100 viruses in nearly 200 species of bats, including more than 500 coronaviruses. The three major plagues caused by coronaviruses in the 21st century: SARS, MERS, and this COVID-19, are all inextricably linked to bats. Bats are not only the main host of coronaviruses, but also the natural host of many viruses, including Ebola virus, Marburg virus, rabies virus, Hendra virus, Nipah virus, etc. It can be said that bats are one of the largest virus reservoirs in nature. However, due to their own physiological characteristics and special immune system, bats show strong tolerance to most viruses (click: Why do they carry viruses but do not get sick? We interviewed bats specifically).

Bats are like a Pandora's box filled with all kinds of viruses. In this case, can Hu Bayi and others eliminate bats? Just like many people's questions during the COVID-19 epidemic, can eliminating bats solve the problem once and for all?

In fact, bats are just carriers of the virus. The viruses on them cannot be directly transmitted to humans. However, after humans destroyed their populations and habitats, bats became homeless and came into close contact with humans or wild animals around humans. The virus mutated during the contact and was able to spread among the population. Therefore, bats are not the culprit. This simple and crude method of eliminating bats is not only useless, but may lead to a more serious virus epidemic. Back then, Uganda in Africa eliminated 100,000 bats in a gold mine. A few years later, the bats came back, and the proportion of new bats carrying the Marburg virus more than doubled. Immediately afterwards, the largest Marburg hemorrhagic fever in Uganda's history broke out here. Facts have proved that eliminating bats can only increase human health risks. The best way is to stay away from wild animals such as bats. Therefore, it is undoubtedly a wise approach for Hu Bayi and others in the play not to kill bats but to leave on their own initiative.

In addition, bats play a very important role in the ecological environment.

Bats are the main controllers of nocturnal insects in the ecosystem, catching large numbers of insects every night. In North America alone, bats reduce crop damage and avoid the use of pesticides, which is worth about $22.9 billion per year. Bats also provide key ecosystem services by pollinating and spreading seeds of many plants. In nature, many plants rely on bats to reproduce to varying degrees, including a variety of cash crops such as bananas, mangoes and guavas.

What kind of trouble do spiders and venomous insects cause?

If the strange fish and bats that Hu Bayi and his crew encountered earlier were just a false alarm, it is said that in the subsequent plot, they will encounter two more creatures, which will be a big trouble.

The first type is countless black poisonous insects that will attack humans.

Partridge Whistle and Liaochen went to Blackwater City. In the treasure house of Tongtian Giant Buddha Temple, Partridge Whistle found countless black poisonous insects like black fog. Partridge Whistle's left arm was entangled by the poisonous insects. He hit the copper lock, triggering the mechanism, and the quicksand swallowed the poisonous insects.

There are not many animals in the natural world that dare to target humans. Even fierce animals like tigers and lions only eat humans by mistake in extreme cases. These "poisonous insects" are an exception. They really target humans. In their world, there is no essential difference between "two-legged animals" and cattle and sheep running on the ground. As long as there is blood flowing in the body, it is enough.

The second type is the big spider.

Hu Bayi, Ma Dadan and others went to the Fishbone Temple. After walking for a while in the tunnel, someone suddenly shouted that he saw a ghost face. At this time, a dense group of spiders suddenly appeared, and the patterns on their bodies looked like a human face...

Spiders are a large family, and their hunting methods vary greatly. 90% of spiders feed on insects, and a few will hunt birds, snakes, lizards, bats, etc. Among the 45,000 species of spiders, 13% of spiders take the initiative to attack, approaching their prey, jumping to defeat their enemies, like eight-legged tigers. According to statistics from biologists, there are about 45,000 species of spiders in the world, and they can eat about 400 to 800 million tons of food every year. This figure has exceeded the total weight of all humans in the world! In comparison, whales, which are known as the largest mammal group, consume about 280 to 500 million tons of food each year, which is less than spiders.

What kind of threat will these poisonous insects and spiders bring to Hu Bayi and his crew? What species are they? How to prevent them? Stay tuned for the next episode (wait for the author to finish reading the subsequent updates~).

There is only the nature you can't imagine, no unexpected plot

"Longling Mystery Cave" is a web drama focusing on fantasy and adventure. In the first few episodes, there are many rare nouns, idioms, local names, strange creatures... Behind these are hidden various mysteries such as paleontology, meteorology, geography, botany, legends, folklore of ethnic minorities, etc., which integrate myths and imagination on the basis of science, making you want to follow the protagonists to explore these unknown magical things.

Why are people so curious about the many strange creatures that appear in the film? In fact, there are also a lot of "ancient mythical beasts" in the legends handed down from ancient times. We can also see many magical creatures in some novels. However, since they are novels rather than historical records, there are many doubts about their authenticity and appearance. It is worth our careful exploration: for example, is Suanni a real lion? Is Qilin a real giraffe?

However, this drama is a little different. All the imagination is rooted in reality. No matter how absurd and weird the creatures in the drama are, most of them can be found in reality, such as the big fish, bats and poisonous insects that Hu Bayi met.

The Earth is home to a rich diversity of species, which form the Earth's safety net and protect human health. Maintaining species diversity can reduce the risk of human infection. The higher the species diversity, the lower the risk of human, wild animals or domesticated animals contracting diseases.

Not only that, these rich species diversity is also the source of human imagination. There is only nature you can't imagine, and no plot you can't imagine. However, these species are leaving us one by one because of human destruction. It is difficult to find the big fish that caused trouble for Hu Bayi in the Yellow River now, and you can no longer find the swarms of bats in the caves now... If that time really comes, humans will not only lose their health, but also their imagination!