With Carcasonne crop circles expansion, which meeples count as followers?

Question

When deploying extra followers from a crop circle action, I'm not sure which meeple count as followers. The CAR states that players may take one of their own followers from their supply and deploy it next to another of their followers already on a landscape tile. It also reads that players must deploy the follower to a feature which already contains a follower of the same type (farmer to a farmer, thief to a thief, knight to a knight).

This would exclude the builder or wagon, I suppose. But not the big follower... But the mayor would count as a knight when it's in a city. Does it, however, count as a follower in your supply?

Which meeples can be placed onto the board next to another follower, as the result of an action from a crop circle?

Answer 1

There is a clarification on page 206 of the rules you link to.

Followers

Every normal follower, big follower, mayor, wagon, or phantom follower is just one follower.

Special figures

Builders, pigs, barns, and shepherds belong to individual players but are not followers."

So if you are adding a follower with crop circles you may add any of the followers. The only exception to this being a Mayor can only be placed as a Knight in a city.