In previous posts I have described collecting and game shooting trips into the mountains of central China from which specimens were sent to the Natural History Museum in London in the years before the First World War. As a result of the first Oldfield Thomas at the Museum named as a new species a Takin, now known as the Golden Takin. I will return to the question of whether it is a ‘good’ species later. The first specimens, two females and a male, to reach London were from the later phases of the Duke of Bedford’s Exploration, almost immediately followed by George Fenwick-Owen’s travels with his companions over much of the same ground.
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| Golden Takin photographed in Shanghai Zoo by J Patrick Fischer in 2011 (shown on Wikipedia) |
In China
The leader of the Exploration, Malcolm Playfair Anderson, had an article published posthumously in which he described how he and his party, Frank Kingdon Ward and Dr Jack Smith, had obtained the skins and skulls in January 1910. They were in the Qinling Mountains, west-south-west of Xi’An when they heard reports of a strange animal called a ‘pan-yang’. Being busy with collecting small mammals and birds they hired a local hunter to shoot specimens. This the hunter did and sent a messenger with the news that two females were ready to be skinned. The next day Anderson, Ward and Smith along with porters set off on the steep, ice-bound climb. A village blacksmith had made some heavy iron crampons and these they needed. Ward could not keep up and eventually after a very cold night made his way back down. Anderson and Smith continued. By this time they had climbed from the village at 3,000 feet to above the tree-line at 10,000 feet. They stayed the night with sawyers who gave them food since Ward had been carrying all the provisions. The next day they reached the hunter and the animals. Anderson had no idea what the animals were, with Smith guessing a muskox. The cadavers were in thick ‘bamboo-grass’ on a steep slope and being frozen took a long time to skin. The party then retreated leaving the hunter to bring down the skins and skulls the following day. The descent was difficult in the freezing cold and high wind but a full moon enabled them to continue:
To right and left rose snowy peaks, at our feet was a precipice, and far below us lay vast cañons filled with dark forest. By daylight it would not have appeared an unusual mountain scene, but in this enchanted light it was indescribably majestic. We paused awhile, forgetting that we were tired, shivering, and famished.
They reached the inn in the village at midnight.
Anderson, Ward and Smith also, said Anderson, attempted to hunt for specimens themselves with the assistance of local hunters. They slept in a cave, more an overhanging rock, which is clearly the cave which Fenwick-Owen, Wallace and Smith occupied in considerable discomfort on their trip in 1911. The party did see takins and got within range for Anderson to have a number of shots shots. However, he missed. Then the hunter appeared to announce he had shot a male just below their ‘cave’. That was the third specimen to reach London.
From the dates in the accounts it would seem that Anderson reversed the order of the two occasions for his magazine article. He states that the party set off to shoot a Takin themselves on 8 January. In his description of the type specimen, one of the females, Thomas gives the date it was shot as 15 January 1910. To add to the confusion, Wallace in describing the other ‘sportsmen’ who had shot takins in China notes that Smith, ‘our companion’, killed one in Shensi in 1910. So were takins, in addition to those sent to Thomas in London, collected during the Duke of Bedford’s Exploration?
In London
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| The 'cave' in the Qinling Mountains used by both expeditions (From Wallace's book) |
In London
Oldfield Thomas was obviously delighted with the skins and skulls received from Anderson.
Of the majority of the Shen-si specimens there is little new to record, as Mr. Anderson had obtained the same species on his previous visit to the more northern part of the province. But in any case their interest is dwarfed by the discovery on Tai-pei-san of a magnificent species of Takin, quite different from the known W. Chinese species Budorcas tibetanus, and both in interest and beauty one of the most striking mammals that it has ever been my good fortune to describe.
He first described it to the Zoological Society of London which was published as an abstract on 2 May 1911. Then in a fuller paper he described the specimens more fully. The type specimen for his new species, Budorcas bedfordi, was one of the females. He went on:
The discovery of this splendid animal, whose golden-buffy colour renders it by far the most beautiful of its genus, is of the highest interest, and it is with great pleasure that I name the species in honour of the Society's President, during whose exploration of Eastern Asia it has been obtained. Mr. Anderson himself seems to have thought the occurrence of Takin on Tai-pei-san of special interest, and believed that they would probably prove to be new. He says: "The herds on Tai-pei-san are isolated by some hundreds of miles from the nearest others we could hear of, and as I could not learn that any other foreigner has hunted them on Tai-pei, I believe the chance for a new species is good.”
As a matter of fact, however, specimens had previously been obtained and had passed into the possession of the American Museum of Natural History at NewYork. But these were quite young, and showed, as it was not unnatural that the young should show, more or less of the normal coloration of the group, with blackish muzzle and extremities, and therefore in recording them Dr. Allen saw no reason to suppose them different from B. tibetanus. The practically unicolor condition of B. bedfordi proves therefore to be a characteristic of the adult, a fact which, in view of the peculiar specialization of such a colour, is not at all surprising.
Wallace writing in 1913, stated that the New York specimens had been purchased from a local hunter.
Is the Golden Takin a separate species?
The Golden Takin since its description by Oldfield Thomas has been lumped or split according to the views, whims or philosophies of taxonomists over the past century. Thus all the forms of takin, from the Himalayas in the west to the Qinling Mountains of China in the west have been lumped into one species, Budorcas taxicolor. Alternatively, the subspecies, for example B. t. tibetana (from the mountains of Sichuan) and B. t. bedfordi have been regarded as full species, as Thomas maintained. Generally, the lumpers held sway, the differences between the geographical forms being in coloration. The Takin appears as one species, for example, in the 4th edition of Walker’s Mammals of the World from 1983 and in A Guide to the Mammals of China from 2008. Recently however, those adhering to the phylogenetic species concept (PSC) have all the forms split as four species, with B. bedfordi resurrected, for example, in Volume 2 of Handbook of the Mammals of the World. Readers may be aware that I regard those who adhere to the PSC and not the biological species concept as akin to the man searching for his keys under the street light even though he did not lose them there on the grounds that is the only place where he can see. So, yes, you can take it that I see no reason to regard the Golden Takin as a ‘good’ biological species.
I cannot help wondering if Oldfield Thomas may have just got carried away when he erected the golden-coloured takin as a full species. After all, what better way than to recognise a benefactor, whose funding had really pushed forward knowledge on the mammals of China, by naming a most spectacular animal after him?
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| Takin distribution from IUCN's Red Data List (here). The RED line shows the approximate site of collection of specimens by the Duke of Bedford's Exploration in January 1910. The BLUE Line shows the approximate site of Tangjiahe in Sichuan where the videos and photographs were taken in November 2017 |
What is a Takin?
The Takin is undoubtedly a strange looking animal. For years it was thought to be closely related to the Muskox. However, it was eventually realised—and recently confirmed by analysis of the entire mitochondrial genome—that the Takin belongs to the sheep and goats tribe, the Caprini (or the subfamily Caprinae, if following that scheme of classification) sharing immediate common ancestry with the true goats (Capra) and blue ‘sheep’ (Pseudois).
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Takins are animals of the mountains, moving up and down steep forested slopes with ease. In the summer they are most active at dusk and dawn but in winter may feed all day. Similarly, they move to higher altitudes in summer but in winter can be found in the valleys. They are mostly browsers. I have written about our encounters with Takins at Tangjiahe National Reserve in Sichuan previously (link here). The Takin here is usually referred to, not surprisingly, as the Sichuan Takin, Budorcas taxicolor tibetana, or by PSC devotees as B. tibetana. That article has a link to one of my videos. Another, showing Takins at night as well as by day is below. Clearly, as you will see, fallen, ripe persimmons are irresistible.
I have heard but seen little written that Takins are the most dangerous wild animal in China in terms of loss of human life and limb. They will certainly charge at perceived danger. When we tried to see the Takins in the the park in Thimpu, Bhutan, where a number are kept, we could not. The park was closed because one of the males was so aggressive that it had been charging at visitors through the wire fence to the detriment of the fence.
Finally, some photographs by Tim Melling of the same animals I videoed in Sichuan in November 2017. They can also be seen on Flickr along with Tim’s other photographs.
Links to previous articles:
Links to previous articles:
Oldfield Thomas here
Fenwick-Owen’s Expedition here
Anderson MP. 1920. The discovery of the Chinese Takin. Natural History 20. 428-433.
Nowak RM, Paradiso JL. 1983. Walker’s Mammals of the World. 4th edition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Smith AT, Xie Y (editors). 2008. A Guide to the Mammals of China. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Thomas O. 1911. The Duke of Bedford’s zoological exploration of eastern Asia.—XIV. On mammals from southern Shen-si, Central China. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1911, 687-695.
Wallace HF, 1913. The Big Game of Central and Western China. Being an Account of a Journey from Shanghai to London Overland Across the Gobi Desert. London: John Murray
Zhou M, Yu J, Li B, Ouyang B, Yang J. 2019. The complete mitochondrial genome of Budorcas taxicolor tibetana (Artiodactyla: Bovidae) and comparison with other Caprinae species: Insight into the phylogeny of the genus Budorcas. International Journal of Biological Macromolecules 121, 223-232.
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