Zouyu
The , also called or , is a legendary creature mentioned in old Chinese literature.
Attestations
The earliest known appearance of the characters 騶虞 is in the Book of Songs, but J.J.L. Duyvendak describes the interpretation of that little poem as referring to an animal of that name as "very doubtful".The ' appears in a number of later works, where it is described as a "righteous" animal that, similarly to a, only appears during the rule of a benevolent and sincere monarch. It is said to be as fierce-looking as a tiger, but gentle and strictly vegetarian, and described in some books as a white tiger with black spots.
In 1404, during the reign of the Yongle Emperor, Prince Zhu Su, his relative from Kaifeng sent him a captured ' spotted and captured in ; an anonymous painter later painted that ', which was evidently a rare white tiger. Another ' was sighted in Shandong. The sightings were mentioned by contemporaneous authors as good omens, along with the Yellow River running clear and the delivery of a by a Bengal delegation that arrived to China aboard Zheng He's fleet.
Identity
Puzzled about the real zoological identity of the ' said to be captured during the Yongle era, Duyvendak exclaimed, "Can it possibly have been a Pandah?" Following him, some modern authors consider ' to refer to the giant panda.Sinologist and linguist Wolfgang Behr includes the ' ~ ~ among several leophoric names in ancient Chinese texts, such as wikt:獅子 and wikt:狻猊, which denoted lions.
Riordan & Shi propose that ' and other words for some enigmatic pantherine predators in ancient Chinese texts possibly denoted snow leopards.