What mythical dog in Taoism is said to cause solar eclipses?

What mythical dog in Taoism is said to cause solar eclipses? Tiangou is the mythical dog said to swallow the Sun during an eclipse.

Tiangou, literally “Heavenly Dog,” is a creature in Chinese mythology often described as a black dog or a dark celestial being. In traditional stories, its appearance explains an eclipse: people imagined the animal attacking or eating the Sun or Moon.

One popular legend connects Tiangou with Chang’e, the Moon goddess. After Chang’e fled to the Moon with an immortality elixir, a black dog chased her and swallowed the Moon. Other traditions describe the creature more generally as an eclipse-causing celestial dog, without this specific story.

Tiangou is sometimes confused with Japan’s tengu, but they are different beings. The tengu is commonly depicted as a birdlike or long-nosed spirit, while Tiangou is dog-shaped. Modern astronomy explains eclipses through the alignment of the Sun, Moon, and Earth, but the Tiangou story preserves an older mythic interpretation.