What do the legendary four looks like?

The mythical beast of ancient legend is not like the elk hiding in the wetlands.

The elk is a rare animal in the world that is unique to our country. Elk used to be wild animals. His good swimmer and wide hooves made him ideal for foraging for grass, leaves, and aquatic plants in the muddy open forest swamps, which inhabited the area of today's Yellow River Valley.

The Yellow River basin is a breeding ground for humans, and the elk that live here naturally become the object of people to hunt for food, resulting in a drastic decline in the population of this exotic animal, and its wild population soon ceased to exist. Fortunately, as early as the Zhou Dynasty more than 3,000 years ago, the elk entered the royal hunting garden, and bred from generation to generation in the state of artificial domestication, until the Kangxi and Qianlong years of the Qing Dynasty, there were still more than 200 heads in the Nanhaizi Royal Hunting Garden in Beijing. This is the last herd of elk to live in an artificial environment on the land of China.

Based on a large number of fossils and historical data, it is inferred that wild elk was probably on the verge of extinction during the Qing Dynasty.

In 1865, the French missionary and naturalist Father Armand David, discovered this strange animal while investigating the flora and fauna of southern Beijing, which was the first time that the world learned about the elk from a scholarly perspective. In the decades that followed, live elk were transported out of China and to the West. At this time, the elk in zoos in some European countries are facing the threat of extinction due to changes in the ecological environment.

The 11th Duke of Bedford, who loves animals and plants, bought all 18 elk raised in zoos in Paris, Berlin, Cologne, Antwerp and other places, and kept them in his lush Ubang Temple manor. After careful care and free-range, these 18 elk gradually multiplied.

In 1894, the Yongding River overflowed, breaking through the walls of Nanyuan, and the escaped elk became the food of the hungry people. By 1900, the Eight-Nation Coalition invaded Beijing, and almost all the elk in Nanyuan were killed. It is said that only one pair remained, kept in a royal palace, and later transferred to the Ten Thousand Animal Garden (now Beijing Zoo), also died.

So far, the elk, a special animal in China, has become completely extinct in China. The elk raised in the Ubang Temple Manor have become the only elk herd in the world. Chinese want to see their own special animals, so they have to run abroad.

Although the elk in the wild became extinct, the natural population of the elk was eventually re-established in China through free-range. In August 1985, 20 young elk were brought back from the Ubang Temple in the United Kingdom, and they were herded in Nanhaizi, which used to raise elk in the Qing Dynasty, and an elk ecological research center and elk park were established. In August 1986, the London Zoo in the United Kingdom provided 39 elk free of charge, and they have been kept in the Dafeng Elk Sanctuary so far, and the elk in both places have grown well and bred offspring. For this reason, China has re-listed the elk as a first-class protected animal.

The face of the elk is like a horse, the horns are like a deer, the hooves are like a cow, and the tail is like a donkey, so it is called the four unlikes.

There is no sitting like sitting, no standing like standing, no sleeping like sleeping, no eating like eating. These are the four dissimilarities of human beings, the four dissimilarities of animals, snakes, rats, rats, pigs, pigs, pigs, cows, and cows. Whether it's a person or something else, it's nondescript.

It is a relative of sika deer and red deer, and grows in Henan, Hebei, Shandong and Anhui in China.

Why is it called the Four Likes?

This is because it has antlers on the top of its head that resemble antlers, but does not have antlers; The neck is like that of a camel, but not as long as the neck of a camel; The hooves are like the hooves of an ox, but they are not as thick as the hooves of a cow; Its tail is like a horse's tail, and it is not as big as a horse's tail, which means that the elk has four places on its body like a deer, a camel, a cow and a horse, but it is not a deer, a camel, a cow and a horse, so people call it the four dislikes.

The four are not like an elk, neither like a horse, nor a cow, nor a sheep, nor a deer.

Why is the elk called the four dislikes, and which are the four dislikes? After reading the knowledge!

Four is not like "Four is not like" is the nickname of the elk. Because the elk looks very special, its horns are like a deer, its face is like a horse, its hooves are like a cow, and its tail is like a donkey, but the overall appearance is like a deer but not a deer, like a horse but not a horse, like a cow and not a cow, like a donkey and not a donkey, so it has won the reputation of "four dislikes". According to legend, Jiang Taigong's mount in "Fengshen List" is"Four is not like", adding a touch of mystery to this rare animal.

"Four Likes" is an endemic animal in China, and it is also a rare and rare animal in the world on a par with the giant panda. Because of this, it has had an unusual life.

According to scientists from the unearthed fossil research, the "four dislikes" were once widely distributed in the swampy low-lying areas of North China and the Central Plains in China, and in the Ming and Qing dynasties, began to become a garden animal from the wild, and the last group of "four dislikes" was kept in the "Nanhaizi" royal hunting garden 6 miles south of Beijing, and only 120 were left at the end of the Qing Dynasty.

In 1865, the French missionary David came to "Nanhaizi" during a horseback expedition to the countryside on the outskirts of Beijing, and stumbled upon the "four dislikes" in the wall, which aroused his great interest, and the following year he used bribes to deceive a pair of "four dislikes" for 20 taels of silver to be shipped to Paris. Since then, some "four dislikes" have been shipped to some European countries. In 1900, the Eight-Nation Coalition invaded Beijing, and the "Four Differences" in the "Nanhaizi" enclosure were robbed, killed, and ransacked, and since then the "Four Differences" have disappeared in China.

Later, the Ubang Temple Manor in the United Kingdom raised the "Four Dislikes" and were able to multiply, and by 1901, there were only 18 "Four Dislikes" in the world. In 1981, China sent a scientific delegation to visit the Ubang Temple Manor to inspect the "four dislikes".The owner of the estate, Lord Tavistock, has repeatedly told the international scientific community that he hopes that one day the "four dislikes" will return to China to settle down.

In 1985, with the assistance of the World Conservation International, the first batch of "Four Differences" donated to China by the British Ubong Temple Manor was flown to Beijing on August 24 and kept in the "Nanhaizi" Elk Park, where the ancestors of the "Four Differences" lived for generations. After more than 100 years of displacement, the "Four Differences" have finally returned to their hometown. It was not until August 1986 that 39 elk, provided by the London Zoo in the United Kingdom, returned to their hometown and were stocked in Dafeng City, and its figure reappeared in China.

Through the unremitting efforts of scientific researchers, the number of elk has now bred to more than 500, which is the largest wild population of elk in the world.