Text | Whale Detection Institute
Editor | Whale Detection Institute
In the mouths of the older generation, they often say "I would rather meet a jackal than a mandrill" .
You must know that jackals, tigers and leopards are very dangerous animals. If you encounter them in the wild, your life will be endangered.
But what is strange is, what is a mandrill? Why do people think they are more terrifying than jackals, tigers and leopards?
The legend of the mandrill
The legend of the mandrill can be traced back to the book "The Classic of Mountains and Seas".
The mandrill described in the book has great power, can defeat ferocious beasts and even rival mountain gods.
However, these descriptions are more based on people's fear of unknown creatures and awe of nature rather than real scientific observations.
In the writings of the Qing Dynasty scholar Yuan Mei, the image of the mandrill is more vivid.
He recorded the story of a mandrill in his book "Zi Buyu".
In this story, although the mandrill looks ferocious, it has human intelligence and emotions. It can not only imitate human language and behavior, but also understand and respond to human requests.
However, this seemingly friendly behavior did not win people's trust. On the contrary, people brutally attacked and persecuted the mandrill because of their fear and misunderstanding of it.
In the end, the mandrill disappeared without a trace under people's attacks, leaving behind a mess and people's panic.
According to relevant records, the mandrill has two sharp fangs and a long neck covered with colorful hair.
Their hands and feet are long, especially the soles of their feet, which are obviously inconsistent with the proportion of the body. When walking, they sway from side to side and sometimes jump a few times. Their movements appear extremely uncoordinated.
The hands and feet that do not match the body shape make the mandrill look weird and ridiculous when running.
It is said that the mandrill can remain still in a squatting position for a long time, so that it can easily be mistaken for a strange rock or broken wood.
In ancient times, due to the backward productivity level, most people rarely saw strange-looking animals like mandrills. Their colorful faces and vague sounds often reminded people of ghosts, so they also had "mountains". Another name for "ghost".
Many ancient books have exaggerated descriptions of the image and behavior of mandrills, such as being extremely powerful, invulnerable to all poisons, able to speak, and liking to tease humans, etc. This has undoubtedly deepened people's fear.
It is said that mandrills are good at camouflage. They will wear clothes lost or discarded by humans, and wear hats that have fallen off, in order to achieve deception. They also know what is valuable. Occasionally steal gold, silver, jewelry and other property from humans. .
It is said that an official named Sun Yefei once witnessed the whole process of the sudden appearance of the mandrill: late one night, he and others were drinking under the moonlight when he suddenly heard a strange crashing sound. When he took a closer look, he saw it. A strange-looking "thing" blended into the crowd.
Everyone looked at each other for a long time, not daring to say anything. It was only after the "thing" made a piercing cry and ran away that they realized it was a mandrill.
Full of curiosity, Sun Yefei led people to track down the mandrill and found that the mandrill had hidden in a kitchen and seemed to be coveting a sleeping chef.
In order to prevent the mandrill from hurting people, Sun Yefei quickly woke up the chef, and then the mandrill fought fiercely with everyone, and ended up being seriously injured.
Early the next morning, people returned to the kitchen, only to find that the mandrill was missing, leaving only a broken hat and a bloody axe.
It is said that that hat was accidentally lost by someone a few days ago.
Of course, there are also positive records about mandrills. Some texts indicate that mandrills have a gentle personality and do not harm people. As long as they are not provoked, they can be driven away by waving firecrackers.
Even in some areas, people once worshiped the so-called "mandrill god". These records show us another human side of the mandrill.
So, what exactly is a mandrill?
Mandrill: a striking primate
The mandrill, which was described by the ancients as a frightening forest monster, is actually just a large primate living in the African jungle. .
Its big colorful face, coupled with the amazing bony ridges on its temples, does look a bit ghostly.
Although the appearance is similar to that of baboons, they are not closely related to baboons.
Generally speaking, mandrills are mainly distributed in Central African countries such as Congo, Gabon, and Cameroon. These places have warm and humid climates and complex and diverse environments. It provides good conditions for the survival of mandrills.
They generally live in tropical rocky areas, with complex terrain where they can hide.
The mandrill has a burly body and a thick head. The ridged bony protrusions extend from the nose to the top of the head. The green skin around the facial features is in sharp contrast with the ridged protrusions. The entire appearance looks intimidating.
Not only that, the colors on the mandrill are also rich and diverse. Red and purple can be found throughout the body, which is relatively rare among monkeys.
An adult male mandrill can weigh up to 25 kilograms and is the largest primate in the world today. Only some hominids are larger than it.
Female mandrills are much smaller, generally only about half the weight of male mandrills. These burly men are not good at climbing trees, but they can run extremely fast, reaching 40 kilometers per hour.
Mandrills are typical omnivorous animals. Their diet includes more than 100 kinds of plants, and they also prey on insects, snails, bird eggs and other small animals.
If conditions permit, larger mammals such as porcupines will also become prey of mandrills.
It can be seen that mandrills are not purely herbivorous. They occasionally supplement meat protein. This meat-vegetable diet provides them with sufficient nutrition. This may be one of the reasons why mandrills are huge and powerful. .
Not only that, scientists also found that a variety of recipes also fully developed the brain of the mandrill, which is considered to be the most intelligent primate in the world besides humans.
In the wild environment, adult male mandrills often compete with each other through fights as a social activity. These "jokes" often turn into real fights, causing serious injuries.
More importantly, these guys are known to be groupists. There are often more than 600 members in a mandrill group, and the largest one even has more than 1,300 members.
Such a large group will automatically divide into several small groups because the distance between food and activity areas is too far. There are usually 30 to 50 mandrills in each small group.
In the group, the mandrills will select a "monkey king" as the supreme leader. This monkey king must look powerful and burly in order to gain the support of all monkeys.
It will represent the entire group in dealing with the outside world, competing with other animals for food and territory.
The other male mandrills are not idle either. They will volunteer to be the monkey king's right-hand man and confidant comrade. Once they encounter a group of foreign enemies, they will unite to fight against the enemy.
In fact, the status of the Monkey King is not stable. As long as there is a stronger and more powerful male mandrill to challenge it, it will be pulled down at any time.
Like all social animals, mandrills also have a fixed reproductive season. The mating season for mandrills is from June to October every year. Male mandrills will mate with multiple females to give birth to offspring.
During this period, male mandrills are very violent and will fight at every turn. Although their mating time is very short, only more than ten seconds, they can conduct multiple uninterrupted matings to ensure that the female fertilization.
Pregnant female mandrills will give birth after 6 months, and they will also become extremely irritable at this time.
However, the mandrill's aggressive nature has also earned it some criticism.
During the mating season, hormonally stimulated mandrills become more ferocious and bloodthirsty. The "Monkey King" needs to be constantly alert to potential challengers, otherwise he will quickly lose his dominance.
The wild and untamable mandrill
As described in the legend, the mandrill is indeed an extremely ferocious animal.
Their teeth are sharp and their claws are sharp, especially the male mandrills. They are very powerful and can even defeat leopards easily.
During the battle, the mandrill will use its strong arm strength to wave its huge arms to launch fierce attacks on the enemy.
After long-term observation of mandrills, scientists found that this animal has an extremely violent personality and will launch a crazy counterattack once provoked.
Once, a scientific expedition team accidentally broke into the mandrill's activity area. As a result, the mandrills immediately gathered in groups and frantically besieged the scientists.
Although the scientists are well-equipped, they are unable to conduct any more scientific experiments under the mandrill's continuous crazy offensive.
The scientists had no choice but to retreat as a team. However, as they were retreating, the furious mandrills were still chasing after them, and they would not give up until the scientific expedition team was completely far away from the mandrills' territory.
Witnesses have seen hungry leopards preying on mandrill cubs and females in order to fill their stomachs. However, when they meet the eyes of an adult male mandrill, these predators will immediately turn away.
Because for a medium-sized carnivore like a leopard, it is undoubtedly an extremely dangerous and miscalculated move to confront an adult mandrill, which is about the same size but far more explosive.
What's even more deadly is that mandrills not only have super physical fitness, they also have the ability to quickly and accurately judge the situation. can adopt optimal strategies to respond to different threats.
A documentary film once captured a group of lions trying to get close to a mandrill for hunting. However, after seeing the mandrill begin to gather a large number of companions and send out demonstration signals, these predator masters immediately stopped and gave up their plan to hunt.
Because of this, scientists have concluded that the overall danger of mandrills far exceeds that of other carnivores such as jackals.
Therefore, the warning in the local proverb "It is better to encounter a jackal than a mandrill" is not just an exaggeration.
In fact, the aggressive character of mandrills is not only reflected in defending their territory, but also in that they often attack human villages collectively.
When there is a shortage of food for mandrills, groups of mandrills will go to the fields near the village to eat. If they encounter villagers, they will not hesitate to attack. This is far from true. The proverb "I'd rather meet a jackal than a mandrill" can describe it clearly.
