Were there lions in ancient China?
The hometown of lions is in Africa, India, South America and other places. However, the image of the lion has long been known to our ancestors: there is a three-dimensional image of the lion in the exquisite painted prints of Zhou bronzes collected in the Song and Qing Dynasties.
It is said that lions come from the western regions. According to legend, in the Eastern Han Dynasty, lions were given as gifts to the emperor of China. With the introduction of Buddhism into China, the lion revered by Buddhism has become a noble and majestic spirit beast in people's minds. China soon learned the carving art of stone lions from India, and the phenomenon of displaying tombs appeared.
The image of the lion began in the Han Dynasty. Lions are not all species in China. It is said that lions come from the western regions.
According to legend, during the Zhang period of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Yue State in the Western Regions presented a golden lion to Emperor China. Later, with the introduction of Buddhism, the lion became a spirit beast endowed with divine power. In the culture of China, the lion is more of a mythical animal than a real animal. Together with Kirin, it becomes the spirit beast of China. Hui Lin, a monk in the Tang Dynasty, said, "Sister-in-law is a lion, and she went out of the Western Regions."
I don't know since when, the lion has become the mascot guarding the portal, and gradually merged with China culture. The shape of the lion has different characteristics in different dynasties. Usually the Han and Tang dynasties were strong and powerful, the Yuan dynasty was slender and powerful, and the Ming and Qing dynasties were docile.
By the Qing Dynasty, the sculpture of lions was basically shaped. "Yangzhou Painting Boat Record" (1795) stipulates: "The lion divides its head, face, body, legs, teeth, buttocks, embroidered ribbons, bells, twisted threads, rolled embroidered beads and chiseled young."
The lion is a big cat. According to its evolutionary trajectory, scientists concluded that this species originated about1.20 thousand years ago. The latest achievement published in the British magazine BMC Evolutionary Biology was completed by researchers from Britain, America, France and Australia.
They took samples from ancient lion specimens distributed in museums around the world, including extinct Babalj lions in North Africa and Iranian lions. The researchers sequenced their genes, and compared the sequencing results with the existing Asian lions and African lions, and obtained the evolutionary road map of modern lions.
The results show that lions originated in eastern and southern Africa about124,000 years ago, and only about 210,000 years ago did lions begin to walk out of Africa and reach India and other places in Asia as far as possible. In terms of branches, modern lions are mainly divided into one in eastern and southern Africa and one in central, western Africa and India. The latter is now on the verge of extinction, which means that lions are at risk of losing half of their genetic diversity.
In the past few decades, the number of lions living in central and western Africa has greatly decreased. This new study shows that this lion should be protected from the perspective of genetic diversity to maintain the survival and development of the entire lion population. ?
The Cape Lion and the Barbary Lion are two extinct subspecies. The lion horn became extinct in the19th century, leaving no reliable record. Barbary lions became extinct at the beginning of last century, but there are still some caged Barbary lions in the zoo, and their manes are more developed, extending to the back and abdomen.
The last position of the Barbary lion is the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. 1922, the last Barbary lion was shot down with a shotgun. Asian lions in India are smaller and have shorter manes than their African brothers. They are also on the verge of extinction.
Asian lions were once widely distributed in Asia, but they were almost extinct due to human killing and environmental damage. Lions living in Asia, especially India, were almost killed by British colonists who conquered India in the early 20th century. Fortunately, Indians, who have always regarded lions as sacred animals, finally saved them and placed them in Gil National Forest Park in Gujarat, northwest India.
There are about 300-400 lions now. After the extinction of Asian lions living in West Asia due to poaching, Jill National Forest became the last habitat of Asian lions. ?
Lions used to live in southeast Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa. It is distributed in all parts of Africa, South Asia and the Middle East except the tropical rain forest area. A subspecies lived in Central Europe and North America during the Ice Age, but disappeared after the Ice Age. According to the reports of scholars at that time, lions still existed in the Balkans of ancient Greece.
It is generally believed that lions in Europe became extinct in 1 century due to human activities. Now lions in other parts of Asia have disappeared except Jill in India. There are no more wild lions in North Africa. Lions are now mainly distributed in the grasslands of sub-Saharan Africa, so they can basically be regarded as a specialty of Africa.
Baidu encyclopedia-lion