Wakan Sansai Zue
A dissident reading exists, particularly among Japanese sources. The Osaka physician in his "Wakan Sansai Zue" (1712) interpreted the text to read "its knee-cap resembles that of a tiger's forepaw claws". The accompanying woodcut illustration (figure above) depicts this. The artist Toriyama Sekien who consulted Terajima's encyclopedia also drew the creature with the claws on the knees, with the caption: "..its kneecaps are sharp like tiger claws".