当你面对游客对于不同寻常、更具异国情调动物的需求时，你是否曾考虑过简单地将一种平淡无奇的动物伪装成更为令人兴奋的品种？
过去，社交媒体上不乏一些引人注目的案例：中国江苏省泰州动物园展示的 Chows Chow 狗被染上了黑白相间的毛色，试图模仿全球最受欢迎的动物园吸引物——熊猫。
动物园管理者对于这样的争议采取了不以为意的态度，声称这就像人们染发一样平常。然而，在最新的情况中，参观者注意到了标牌上的说明，并称这些“大熊猫”为“画狗”。
伪装并非新鲜事。早在2014年，意大利一家巡回马戏团便被指控将 Chows Chow 装扮成摆拍用的熊猫，在表演前与观众互动。该马戏团被迫停业。
不过，狗狗们的模仿能力不仅限于熊猫。在中国的某动物园，一只西藏獒犬曾被误认为是一只狮子；还有一只狗冒充了狼，狐狸则被改造成了豹子（北京青年报提及此事，并通过 NPR 传达）。
如果找不到能改装的动物？可以尝试一个更简单的方法：1984年的休斯敦动物园坦承他们曾在爬行动物展览中展示了一条橡胶蛇。馆长 John Donaho 解释说，真正的蛇很难存活在展览中；与其杀死它们，不如用橡胶模型供人们观赏。
在中国广西省的一家动物园，曾有一场塑料蝴蝶展，但展出的实际上是插有吸管的塑料蝴蝶。英国特福德奇异动物园因为假称遭遇了由鸟类斑疹病毒引发的企鹅短缺问题，在2018年展示了一批塑料企鹅作为替代品。
Ringling Bros. 马戏团在上世纪80年代曾大肆宣传其马戏表演中出现了真正的独角兽，但事实证明这些“独角兽”实际上是通过手术将两角融合在一起的小山羊。2017年后，Ringling Brothers 终止了动物表演活动，并在2023年重启无动物参与的运营。
在中国杭州动物园里有一只站立起来，透过围栏凝望游客的太阳熊，其背部毛发几乎折叠成了一件廉价服装的模样引发了广泛讨论。一段关于它的视频在网上迅速传播，很多人猜测这只太阳熊其实是人类扮装而成。最终，动物园出面澄清，表示这确实是一只真实的太阳熊。
人类变身动物的概念也曾出现在影视作品中。例如，在2020年韩国喜剧电影《秘密动物园》（Secret Zoo）里，管理员通过装扮成动物来拯救了一座濒临失败的动物园。
动物界中也不乏自我伪装的例子：蜘蛛伪装成蚂蚁以显得无害，并接近捕食对象；而某些乌龟则用舌头诱骗饥饿鱼类。但最具代表性的可能就是模仿章鱼了。它们能扭曲身体呈现出海蛇、水母或令人畏惧的狮子鱼等形态。
如今，将一只狗狗装扮成大熊猫这一举动似乎不再那么奇特了。
新闻来源：www.nytimes.com
原文地址：Is That a Panda at the Zoo? Or a Dog in a Disguise?
新闻日期：2024-10-01
原文摘要：
You’re running a zoo. But visitors are clamoring for something different, more exotic. You aren’t lucky enough to possess Moo Deng, the popular pygmy hippo from Thailand. In fact, you haven’t been able to get a hold of anything impressive or cute or charming enough to impress the masses on TikTok. What to do? Have you considered simply disguising a prosaic animal as something more exciting? Before you dismiss the idea as something from a bad ’80s comedy or a stoned late-night rap session, consider that it’s been done. Quite a few times. Social media was awash last spring with images of chow chow dogs at Taizhou Zoo in Jiangsu Province, China, who were dyed black and white to look like pandas, the animal that is probably the world’s biggest zoo attraction. Zoo officials shrugged off criticism at the time, with one telling The Qilu Evening News, via NBC that the subterfuge was akin to people dyeing their hair. More recently, visitors noticed signs fessing up and calling the so-called pandas “painted dogs.” Taizhou Zoo was not the first place to come up with the idea. Owners of a traveling circus in Italy were charged in 2014 with disguising, yes, chow chows as pandas who posed for pictures with customers before the show. The circus was shut down. But dogs can play more than just pandas. In Louhe, China, in 2013, a Tibetan mastiff was passed off as a lion. And at the same zoo, a dog was imitating a wolf and a fox was imitating a leopard, reported Beijing Youth Daily, via NPR. Don’t have an animal to pass off as another? Here’s an even simpler plan. In 1984, the Houston Zoo admitted displaying a rubber snake in the reptile house. “We have had live snakes in the exhibit, but they don’t do well; they tend to die,” John Donaho, a curator, told The Associated Press. “Rather than kill snakes, we put out a rubber one for people to be able to see what they look like.” A butterfly exhibit at a zoo in Guangxi Zhuang, China, in 2017, turned out to be an exhibit of plastic butterflies on sticks. Telford Exotic Zoo in England blamed a penguin shortage caused by avian malaria for its display of plastic penguins in 2018. Ringling Brothers Circus seemed to have pulled off a coup in the 1980s when it advertised real unicorns at its shows. Ringling insisted the unicorns had just shown up at the circus one day, but it turned out the creatures were really goats whose horns had been fused together by a surgical procedure after birth. Ringling stopped performances in 2017 but relaunched in 2023 without animals. That sun bear in Hangzhou, China, sure seemed humanlike: standing upright and peering out of its enclosure. And didn’t its fur in the back look almost folded? Like in a cheap costume? Hmmm. A video of the bear took off on social media in the summer of 2023, and soon you couldn’t go online without seeing chatter on the idea that the sun bear was really just some guy in a bear suit. The speculation became so widespread that the zoo released a statement clarifying that the sun bear was, in fact, a sun bear. But the idea of humans disguised as animals has been floated, at least in fiction. In the 2020 South Korean comedy film “Secret Zoo,” keepers dress up as animals to revive a failing zoo. Less interested in profit, and more in staying alive, some animals disguise themselves as other animals on their own. Some spiders mimic ants to allow themselves to seem unthreatening as they sneak up on their prey. And some turtles use their tongues to imitate worms and lure hungry fish. But the master is probably the mimic octopus. By contorting its body it can appear to be a sea snake, a jellyfish or an intimidating lionfish, among others. A dog disguised as a panda suddenly doesn’t seem quite as odd.
