Variations: Jiuyu, Jiyu
The slopes of Exceedingly Lofty Mountain in China are home to the Chouyu. It is like a rabbit but has a bird’s beak, owl’s eyes, and the tail of a snake. It falls asleep (i.e. plays dead) when it sees people. If a chouyu is seen it is an omen of a locust plague.
Mathieu identifies this animal as the armadillo, but admits with impressive understatement that China is a bit far from the neotropics…
References
Mathieu, R. (1983) Étude sur la mythologie et l’ethnologie de la Chine ancienne. Collège de France, Paris.
Strassberg, R. E. (2002) A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the Guideways Through Mountains and Seas. University of California Press.
Seems like an Opossum would be a more likely candidate than an armadillo.
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Still, not in China
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me when I see “free tacos”
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I think it’s cute.
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Sometimes people just need to stop trying to fit mythological entities into established ‘real-life’ categories.
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Cryptozoology dies hard.
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The Guangyun Dictionary states that the Chou-yu: “Resembles a fish, with a snake’s tail and pig’s eyes, fakes death when encountering humans.” No wonder by the late Qing Dynasty, when China opened up contact with foreign nations, translators were identifying the Armadillo with the Chou-yu. Fish scales? Long tail? Long ears? Curls up when in danger? Fellahs, we have ourselves a Chou-yu!
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