Abstract: To address the problem of high digging resistance during the excavation of Ning-guo Radix peucedani, a bionic digging shovel was designed with the shark dorsal fin as the research object; according to the soil stress analysis in Moore-Coulomb theory, the soil was more likely to reach the rupture state when the shark dorsal fin structure was selected as the raised structure of the bionic shovel. The shark specimen was scanned by 3D scanner, the shark dorsal fin 3D model was got, the projection structure of the bionic shovel was determined according to the dorsal fin 3D model, and the bionic digging shovel 3D model was created by NX12.0; the shape profile characteristics of the rootstock of Ning-guo Radix peucedani were obtained by 3D scanner, and the discrete element model of the rootstock of Ning-guo Radix peucedani was created, and the discrete element composite model of Ning-guo Radix peucedani rootstock-soil was established by Hertz-Mindlin with JKR; through the discrete element simulation comparison, the average values of particle displacement and excavation resistance in X, Y and Z directions were obtained from the simulation test, the drag reduction mechanism of excavating shovels was analyzed, and the resistance of the bionic shovel was reduced by 14.37% compared with the plane shovel in the excavation process; by conducting soil trench tests and comparing the rhizome excavation effect, it was basically consistent with the better displacement performance of Ning-guo Radix peucedani rhizome in X, Y and Z directions after excavation with the bionic digging shovel derived from simulation tests, and the average values of excavation resistance of the bionic shovel and the plane shovel were 1 342.28 N and 1 622.73 N, respectively. The resistance of the bionic shovel was 17.28% lower than that of the flat shovel in the excavation process, which was very close to that of the simulation test and met the requirements of resistance reduction in the excavation process of Ning-guo Radix peucedani.