The body of the first animal claimed to be the Beast of Gévaudan.
18th Century illustration of the Beast.
Beast of Gévaudan is the name given to what appear to be two distinct mystery predators which killed a number of people in southeastern France between June 1764 and June 1767.[1]
The animal believed to have been responsible for the killings was shot dead by François Antoine on 21 September 1765, and appeared to be an enormous black wolf, dubbed the Wolf of Chazes. Some modern researchers suggest that the "wolf" may in fact have been a wolf-dog hybrid.
However, the killings did not stop with the death of this animal, but continued for a further two years. Numerous animals suspected of being the beast were killed, until, on 19 June 1767, a large dog-like animal was shot by local hunter Jean Chastel. The body of this second beast was sent to the Paris Natural History Museum, where it was formally identified as a striped hyena (Hyaena hyaeana), but the specimen was lost or destroyed sometime after 1819,[2] and the identification has been contested by some modern researchers.[3]
Notes and references[]
- ↑ Eberhart, George M. (2002) Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology, ABC-CLIO, Inc., ISBN 1576072835
- ↑ Shuker, Karl P. N. ShukerNature: THE BEAST OF GÉVAUDAN - WOLF, MAN...OR WOLF-MAN? karlshuker.blogspot.com [Accessed 19 June 2019]
- ↑ Romero, Gustavo Sánchez & Schwalb, S. R. (2016) Beast: Werewolves, Serial Killers, and Man-Eaters: The Mystery of the Monsters of the Gévaudan, Skyhorse, ISBN 9781632207807