Letters from Rémusat

Mo was the Chinese name for the giant panda from the 3rd century BCE to the 19th century CE. In 1824, the French sinologist Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat misidentified the mò as the black-and-white Malayan tapir. Chinese woodblocks depict the mò (貘) as having an elephant trunk, rhinoceros eyes, cow tail and tiger paws, following the description of 9th-century Tang poet Bai/Bo Juyi. Abel-Rémusat's interpretation was adopted in Western zoology, and later accepted as modern scientific fact in China and Japan. In the 20th century, since mò had lost its original meaning, the giant panda was given a new Chinese name da xiongmao.