The lost big cats of Japan

The lost big cats of Japan

A news story which has been disseminated today, may have provided an answer to a mild cryptological mystery which has intrigued me for many years. The provenance of the so-called “Indian lions“ of the Gir forest in Western India has been thrown into doubt by a book called Exotic Aliens by Valmik Thapar et al, but nobody has ever claimed that lions have been found east of the subcontinent. However, animals described as “lion dogs“ have been a major part of Chinese iconography for many years, and when I was a child in Hong Kong, I was told fairy stories about them. Indeed, there is a locally famous landmark in Hong Kong known as “lion rock“, which suggests that the people of the Orient were familiar with lions at some time.

Thapar et al shed light onto a historical trade in lions from East Africa for gladiatorial style combat in Japanese arenas, but I never thought that this could be enough to explain the main mystery cat like creatures which abound in Chinese historic art. Now, it seems that a distinct species of big cat, related to the lion, existed in prehistoric times at least in Japan. Could this be at least part of the answer to my lion dog conundrum? There is also, a very obscure reference to a “Japanese leopard“ which is only known enough for a handful of skins. It is generally believed that these were pelts that had been imported into Japan for commercial reasons, but I feel it should be noted here.

Could the Japanese lion (which is what I’m calling it although, as far as I know, it has received no official tax economic English name) have lived into early historic times? Could it even have been found on the mainland, perhaps in Manor? As always, new discoveries ask more questions than they answer, but that is half the fun of being a cryptozoologist.

Jon Downes

Director, CFZ
cfz.org.uk

Japan’s lost ‘tigers’ were actually a different big cat species, study reveals | The Independent