The Beast of Gévaudan - Solved! Malcolm's Cryptids
If you are not familiar with the story of this beast, Malcolm Smith's first sentence neatly summaries the case: "Between 1764 and 1767 a huge man-eater terrorised the region surrounding the southern French town of Gévaudan, claiming between 80 and 100 lives." The culprit was variously thought to be a wolf, or a hyaena, or even a werewolf. But now Smith points to a German zoologist named Karl-Hans Taake who makes a compelling case in the book The Gévaudan Tragedy: The Disastrous Campaign of a Deported ‘Beast’ that the man-eater was a juvenile male lion. The Gedauvan beast had probably not been previously recognized as the culprit because the species doesn't dwell in Europe and most people who lived in the French countryside had never seen an animal like it. Most likely the "beast" was an escapee from some traveling menagerie, which had became common by that time. (PH)
If you are not familiar with the story of this beast, Malcolm Smith's first sentence neatly summaries the case: "Between 1764 and 1767 a huge man-eater terrorised the region surrounding the southern French town of Gévaudan, claiming between 80 and 100 lives." The culprit was variously thought to be a wolf, or a hyaena, or even a werewolf. But now Smith points to a German zoologist named Karl-Hans Taake who makes a compelling case in the book The Gévaudan Tragedy: The Disastrous Campaign of a Deported ‘Beast’ that the man-eater was a juvenile male lion. The Gedauvan beast had probably not been previously recognized as the culprit because the species doesn't dwell in Europe and most people who lived in the French countryside had never seen an animal like it. Most likely the "beast" was an escapee from some traveling menagerie, which had became common by that time. (PH)
