The animals in Shan Hai Jing exist in reality. How much real content does it have?

There are many rare animals recorded in Shan Hai Jing, most of which are real. Because people's imagination must be based on reality, even though the content in Shan Hai Jing is absurd, it has been artistically processed on the basis of reality. Many of these animals can't be studied today, because they are too old. Some animals change with the change of environment, and some may not adapt to the environment and have become extinct.

But there are still many animals that still exist today. Dang Kang is mentioned in Shan Hai Jing, saying that it looks like a pig and has fangs. This is actually a warthog today, in Africa. Warthog is a kind of wild boar. Its head is so big that it can occupy one third of its body. It looks strange, with sparse hair.

An animal recorded in Nanshan Jing is called Yingying, saying that it is a kind of god beast, mainly because it knows what happened in the past, but can't predict the future, a bit like today's fortune teller. Its most striking feature is that it has a pair of white ears and can stand up and walk. According to textual research, this animal is what we call Yunnan golden monkey, which is located in Yunnan, just in line with the position recorded in Nanshan Jing.

There is also a record of the giant salamander, whose characteristics are too obvious, its voice is like a baby crying, and it has four feet, which is obviously the giant salamander today. Parrots are also recorded in Xishan Classic. "Green feather and red beak" refers to green feather and red mouth, and "human tongue can speak", which can imitate human speech. This is a parrot.

Many animals in Shan Hai Jing have also been confirmed, but many of them are now located in Africa, and the earliest humans also originated in Africa. Therefore, some scholars believe that Shan Hai Jing is an accurate record of African immigrants. However, this statement remains to be verified.