Most people first saw this word in the text "Mozi Gongluo", which has a sentence: "Jing has cloud dreams, rhinoceros elk manzhi, Jianghan fish turtle shrew shrew for the world's rich." ”
The "mole" here refers to the unique reptile Yangzi crocodile in China, also known as the dragon. The Yangtze crocodile is a type of alligator, so several alligators who are closely related to the Yangtze crocodile are classified as shrews.
We often say that the crocodile is actually a order, called crocodiles, there are 24 species that have been clearly divided, divided into three major families - crocodiles, shrews, and long-snouted crocodiles.
Crocodile family is considered to be an authentic crocodile, so it is also known as the true crocodile family, the English name is Crocodile, like the bay crocodile, Nile crocodile, Ze crocodile, Siamese crocodile are real crocodiles, representative mouth shape is V-shaped.
The difference between the small Nile crocodile with a V-shaped mouth and the large individual Mihe crocodile with a U-shaped mouth is clear at a glance
The shrew family, also known as the alligator family, The English name is allligator, like the Yangtze crocodile, the Mihe crocodile, the Caiman crocodile is the alligator, their mouth is shorter and wider, and the representative mouth shape is U-shaped.
The Ganges crocodile with chopsticks mouth and the Ze crocodile with a V-shaped mouth
The long-snouted crocodile family, also known as the fish-eating crocodile family, the English name is gavial, there are only two species in existence, the Ganges crocodile and the Malay crocodile, their mouths are like chopsticks, thin and long, especially the Ganges crocodile, the slender mouth with the fat body, like a syringe.
From the English name, it can be seen that the crooked nuts divide the mole, the real crocodile, and the long-snout crocodile very clearly, and the ancients in China are also clearly divided, and there are bay crocodiles distributed in a wide range of ancient southern coasts, and there are many Yangtze crocodiles in the Yangtze River Basin.
Zhang Hua of the Western Jin Dynasty recorded in the "Natural History": "There are crocodiles in the South China Sea, resembling shrews, cutting off their heads and drying them, removing their teeth and reborn, so that the three are stopped."
The "Liang Shu Funan Guo Biography" records: "The crocodile is as long as the two zhangyu, shaped like a mole, has four legs, has a beak length of six or seven feet, has teeth on both sides, is as sharp as a sword, often eats fish, encounters roe deer and people, and has foreign countries south of Cangwu." ”
Xu Ke's "Qing Barnyard Banknotes, Animals, And Shrews": "The mole, which is close to the crocodile, is commonly known as the dragon, also known as the pig dragon." It is more than two feet long, four-legged, with scales on its back, resembling a crocodile, but the hind feet are only half-webbed. Born in the jianghu, China's specialty also. ”
It can be seen that the ancients did know the difference between a mole and a crocodile, but modern people collectively refer to it as a crocodile. Let's take a brief look at the members of the family Shrew family.
Small mole stacked arhats, from top to bottom: spectacled caiman, cone-kissed crocodile, black caiman, shield-kissed crocodile adult
There are 2 subfamilies, 4 genera and 8 species in the family Shrew, the alligator subfamily has The Yangtze crocodile and the Mi river crocodile, and the caiman subfamily has 6 species, and the name of the caiman is a bit strange, which is actually a transliteration of Caiman.
Yangzi crocodile, distributed in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in China, is a national first-level protected animal, and the number of wild animals is only a few hundred, but it has long been artificially farmed. The Yangtze crocodile is 2.37 meters and 60 kilograms in size, which is considered a small size among crocodiles.
4.3 meters, 362 kg mi river crocodile
The Mihe crocodile, also known as the American alligator, lives in the southeastern United States, is a close relative of the Yangtze crocodile, looks very similar to the Yangtze crocodile, but is far larger than the Yangtze crocodile, in 2014 in Alabama captured a very large individual, straight line length of 4.5 meters, weight 458 kilograms. The Mi River crocodile is abundant, with more than 1 million in the wild in Florida alone, and often runs to the swimming pools of American homes to take a bath.
Next look at the caiman subfamily.
The genus ancient crocodile has two small crocodiles, the shield-kissed crocodile and the cone-kissed crocodile, also known as the pygmy caiman crocodile, which are too cold to distinguish between the two.
There are three species of caimans in the genus - spectacled caiman, Paraguayan caiman, bottlenose caiman, commonly referred to as caiman is the spectacled caiman, it and paraguayan caiman, it is very different from the Paraguayan caiman, previously considered the same species. The spectacled caiman and paraguayan caiman are not large, with the average female crocodile averaging about 10 kg and the male averaging less than 20 kg; the maximum weight of the spectacled caiman is estimated to be 100-118 kg. Because of their small size, poor hardware, and large numbers, they are often preyed upon by jaguars and forest hoppers.
Bottlenose caiman
Another type of bottlenose caiman is more recognizable because of its short mouth.
Finally, let's talk about the largest species of shrew, the black caiman of the genus Black Crocodile, because of the caiman in its name, is often considered to be a small role like the first three kinds of caimans, in order to distinguish it is generally called black crocodile.
The head of the black crocodile is long and wide, with a raised spine along the back, a yellow stripe on the side of the body, and the body color will become darker as it ages, and some individuals have a black body with a golden head.
The black crocodile is huge, the male progressive total length of 3.6-3.8 meters, the female more than 2.8 meters; adult female crocodile average about 50 kg, adult male crocodile average up to 150 kg, the limit total length of up to 5.5 meters, weight can reach more than 700 kg, is the largest reptile in the western hemisphere rivers, its status and bay crocodile in Asia, Nile crocodile in Africa is equivalent, called it "Amazon freshwater overlord" is not exaggerated.
The black crocodile fights away the jaguar with one tail
When it comes to predators in the Amazon rainforest, many people first think of forest hoppers, jaguars and piranhas, but they are still too weak in front of black crocodiles, and they are not a level in terms of size alone. The maximum scientific expedition is 5.97 meters, 113 kilograms, and the jaguar scientific expedition is only 142 kilograms, and even the average of adult male black crocodiles cannot be reached.
However, the black crocodile grows slowly and is preyed upon by forest hoppers and jaguars when they are underage, but there are very few records, the largest black crocodile preyed by jaguars is 3 meters long and weighs 100 kilograms, and the forest hopper has also preyed on sub-adult black crocodiles, but in general there are few conflicts between the three. Forest hoppers and jaguars still prefer to prey on smaller spectacled caimans, but spectacled caimans are not completely inferior, it can also kill forest nymphs, and even actively prey on forest nymphs and yellow water nymphs, which is a predator of the same level as forest hoppers.
Like other giant crocodiles (with the exception of the Ganges crocodile), the black crocodile is also a notorious man-eating giant crocodile, and most of the crocodile attacks in South America are recorded by the black crocodile, but still not frequently.
The 4.21-meter black crocodile ate an 11-year-old girl
The black crocodile ate a worker
This is incomparable to the bushhopper and the jaguar, and neither of them even has an exact record of cannibalism.
Therefore, the black crocodile is the well-deserved freshwater overlord of the Amazon basin, but under the over-hunting of humans, large crocodiles in South America such as the black crocodile, the Orinoco crocodile and the American crocodile all show a trend of population shrinkage, and it seems that even the most powerful animals are not human opponents.