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@Marakus @MelGibsonafter4Beers @Rhodesian_YuKari @kaia @grillchen Fun enough no, the beast of gevaudan was a real living creature that was hunted down, killed and taxidermied, is just that the taxidermist did such a shoddy job that the thing rotted away

As for what it was, everyone agrees it was a large canid looking thing however there are 2 main theories:

1. Giant wolf, after examinig the taxidermied corpse, naturalist georges-louis lecrerc coumte de buffon, concluded the beast was an unusually large wolf, this would point to a wolf with giantism, altho we associate giantism as a human condition going as far back and recently in human history (from goliath to grutte pier and andre the giant) giantism is not exclusive to humans and is probably animals with such malleable genetics like wolfs can present the condition, this however assuming the taxidermist did succeed at preserving the creature's body and form (something we know he failed at).

2. The Hyena and the Sadist, the other theory is that some sadist french noble used his wealth and connections to import a spotted hyena and train it to attack on command and avoid hunters, which would explain the many desctiptions of the beast's fur and unusual behaviour when attacking and escaping expert wolf hunters for so long, the french are known for many things but love of their fellows is not one of them less alone when it comes to their nobility, knowing there was no lack of individuals like the infamous gilles de rais among french noblemen the idea that the beast of gevaudan was the work of a noble whom amused himself seeing the commonfolk turned to shreds by a an exotic african creature is not out of the question.