Historical Mysteries

[SpuriusMaximus]

Between 1764 and 1767, the French province of Gevaudan was TERRORIZED by a giant "wolf" being completely solo, killing people left and right, getting more aggressive when shot, etc. He was even reported killed once, but then healed up and resumed its rampage.

Which had led many to speculate that he was a juvenile lion without a mane escaped from a zoo. The behaviour would match.

But I don't entirely buy it. In 3 years it would have grown up and grown a mane. And they bloody knew what a lion looks like.

I present to you my own (uninformed) hypothesis: a tigon. That is the offspring of a male tiger and a female lioness. They are often somewhat smaller than a male lion, but often not by much, and sometimes not at all. They lack a mane. And often, but not always, lack the tiger stripes. And those big cats will pretty much screw any other big cats if left in the same enclosure in some noble's menagerie. And they're actually more aggressive than a liger. (Opposite combination.)

So what do you think?

Also please do offer your own examples.

 

[EHocking]

I think that this might be in the incorrect forum?

Also: wolf, hysteria

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I think that this might be in the incorrect forum?

Also: wolf, hysteria

Is there always not money to be made?

Anyway, check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of_Gévaudan

 

[grunion]

Team Wolf here.

 

[Thermal]

I think that this might be in the incorrect forum?

Not if the wolf turns out to be Leonardo DiCaprio.

Regarding OPs offer to bring up other mysteries, I can't find my keys.

 

[grunion]

Although it’s more, I think, a case history of a pathology than a historical mystery, I’ve always found the Kaspar Hauser story rather haunting. When I first encountered it my young brain couldn’t comprehend how someone so unhinged from reality could be taken so seriously by smart people.

Uh, wait..

Well, at least in Kaspar’s case, there was no apparent ulterior motive to his deceit. He stabbed himself on multiple occasions to make his bizarre story hold together.

But yeah, I do think this is in the wrong sub forum.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Yeah, looks like I had clicked on the wrong forum.

 

[arthwollipot]

Are there wild tigons? I thought lions and tigers didn't naturally interbreed because they exist on different continents. I thought the only tigons were the ones where humans artificially brought them together in a zoo.

 

[Darat]

Between 1764 and 1767, the French province of Gevaudan was TERRORIZED by a giant "wolf" being completely solo, killing people left and right, getting more aggressive when shot, etc. He was even reported killed once, but then healed up and resumed its rampage.

Which had led many to speculate that he was a juvenile lion without a mane escaped from a zoo. The behaviour would match.

But I don't entirely buy it. In 3 years it would have grown up and grown a mane. And they bloody knew what a lion looks like.

I present to you my own (uninformed) hypothesis: a tigon. That is the offspring of a male tiger and a female lioness. They are often somewhat smaller than a male lion, but often not by much, and sometimes not at all. They lack a mane. And often, but not always, lack the tiger stripes. And those big cats will pretty much screw any other big cats if left in the same enclosure in some noble's menagerie. And they're actually more aggressive than a liger. (Opposite combination.)

So what do you think?

Also please do offer your own examples.

I'd start with an examination of the claimed deaths. There is in all such historical stories a long, long way to go before you need to find an exotic answer. The most likely explanation if one is needed is that some people got killed by various wild animals. Until the smartphone and its camera became ubiquitous we still had regular sightings of "big black cats" in the UK.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Are there wild tigons? I thought lions and tigers didn't naturally interbreed because they exist on different continents. I thought the only tigons were the ones where humans artificially brought them together in a zoo.

There aren't lions or tigers normally in the wild in France either. The lion hypothesis is also that it escaped from a menagerie.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Regarding OPs offer to bring up other mysteries, I can't find my keys.

<concentrates> They're close to water.

In a pocket, in the laundry pile, next to the washing machine, just like my glasses were.

 

[jimbob]

Is there always not money to be made?

Anyway, check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of_Gévaudan

I was a bit slow in understanding your first line. But I've just ruined it.

 

[jimbob]

<concentrates> They're close to water.

In a pocket, in the laundry pile, next to the washing machine, just like my glasses were.

Sounds like you got them before they went into the wash

 

[Darat]

There aren't lions or tigers normally in the wild in France either. The lion hypothesis is also that it escaped from a menagerie.

Just for the sake of discussion assuming there is any wild animal needed to account for the killings, you seem to have made a slight mistake in assuming all lions have big bushy manes, female lions don't and they are the hunters. And I am almost certain that most of the folk there would have had no idea what a lion looked like regardless of it having a manky, tangled, wet mane or not.

 

[jimbob]

Are there wild tigons? I thought lions and tigers didn't naturally interbreed because they exist on different continents. I thought the only tigons were the ones where humans artificially brought them together in a zoo.

There are still lions in parts of India. And historically a lot wider distribution. But I suspect that they wouldn't usually interact due to different hunting strategies.

But if it was France there were no Lions or Tigers there outside collections where they might have bred.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Just for the sake of discussion assuming there is any wild animal needed to account for the killings, you seem to have made a slight mistake in assuming all lions have big bushy manes, female lions don't and they are the hunters. And I am almost certain that most of the folk there would have had no idea what a lion looked like regardless of it having a manky, tangled, wet mane or not.

Well, the hypothesis that I've seen was that it was a male lion without a mane, based on the contemporary descriptions. So that's what I was basing my own on.

 

[Darat]

Is there always not money to be made?

Anyway, check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of_Gévaudan

Ah that refreshes my memory - it was almost an entire magazine of the Unexplained part-work I got back in the 1980s. There is literally no story beyond that of human behaviour. There is no evidence that there were any "excess" killings by wild beasts at the time in that region. It was rumours and social contagion that created the "beast".

 

[jimbob]

And I am almost certain that most of the folk there would have had no idea what a lion looked like regardless of it having a manky, tangled, wet mane or not.

There's always bad taxidermy.

This is at the Château d'Orion

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Sounds like you got them before they went into the wash

Oh, yes. Check pockets for tissues etc before flinging stuff in the machine.

 

[jimbob]

Oh, yes. Check pockets for tissues etc before flinging stuff in the machine.

Oh yes, I do that
_{unless I don't}