Red vole: description and characteristics. The field mouse is the enemy of all farmers and gardeners. What offspring does the bank vole give
Fans of Mozilla Firefox, today we will talk about an animal that is directly related to this browser. Its emblem depicts an animal that looks like a fox. But is it? Firefox translates to "fire fox", that's right. But few people know that the Chinese name for the small (red) panda - "hon ho" - has the same meaning. And it is this animal, and not the fox at all, that is part of the emblem of this browser.
The relationship between the small and big panda is very distant. Many millions of years ago, approximately in the early Tertiary period, their common ancestor lived on Earth, who lived on the territory of modern Eurasia.
There are 2 subspecies of this animal: western red panda ( Ailurus fulgens fulgens), found in Nepal and Bhutan, and Stayana's red panda ( Ailurus fulgens styani), living in the region of southern China and northern Myanmar. The main difference between the two is size and coloration - Stiana's red panda is larger and darker than its western relative.
In nature, red pandas are now found only in a few Chinese provinces (Sichuan and Yunnan), Nepal, Bhutan, northern Burma, and also in northeastern India. Their habitat is coniferous forests (mostly fir), which alternate with deciduous tree species: oak, maple, chestnut and others. They are necessary for the growth of bamboo, the main food of the red panda. Such forests can be found at an altitude of 2000-4000 meters above sea level. Most of the year they are shrouded in clouds, which creates favorable conditions for the development of mosses and lichens. And why we mentioned them, you will find out a little later.
Lesser pandas grow to the size of a large cat, but due to the thick and long hair they seem larger than they really are. The length of the body along with the fluffy tail is about 80-120 centimeters, and the average weight is 4-6 kilograms. The short legs are equipped with strongly curved claws, which are only partially extended forward, and the feet are covered with short hair, which helps when walking on ice or snow. On the front paws there is an "extra toe", thanks to which the panda can hold bamboo branches while eating. Outwardly, males are not much different from females.
Dark belly and legs 
These animals have a very beautiful coloration - dark or light red, but not everywhere, but mostly on the back, sides and tail. The tummy, along with the paws, is colored dark brown or even black. On the red tail there are light rings. The head of the animal is decorated with white areas on the muzzle, on the cheeks, along the edge of the ears and around the eyes.
red striped tail Nature has prepared such a color for this animal not by chance. The red color performs a protective function and allows the small panda to remain inconspicuous during rest or sleep among the red lichens that are strewn with trunks and branches of coniferous trees, in particular fir.
In the habitats of these animals, the average air temperature fluctuates around 10-25 degrees and precipitation is constantly falling - rain or snow. And this means that the wool should retain heat well. In especially cold periods, in order to keep warm, the panda curls up on the branches or in a hollow in a tight ball and covers its head with its tail, like a blanket.
They spend most of their time in the trees, where they feel like fish in water. They come down to earth for food. They are most active in the evening, and during the day they settle comfortably in hollows and sleep. The long tail helps them keep their balance while in the trees. When descending to the ground, they hold it straight without touching the ground.
Each panda, whether male or female, has its own territory, and considerable. In males, this is about 5 km 2, and in females it is 2 times less. They mark it with special marks: a secret from the anal glands, urine or heaps of droppings, thanks to which the animals immediately know which neighbors live next to them.
Adults live alone, uniting in groups only during the breeding season, which begins in January. Sometimes you can meet a small group of pandas even in the off season - this is an adult female with her grown offspring.
The cub is born only 90-145 days after mating, but the "real" pregnancy lasts only about 50 days. This is due to the fact that the fetus begins to develop only after a sufficiently long period of time after conception.
Before giving birth, the female constructs a nest for herself in a hollow or in a rock crevice. Usually, red pandas give birth to 1-2 cubs, sometimes there may be more, but in the end only one will survive. They develop very slowly. Until the age of 5 months, they feed on mother's milk. Initially, the fur of the cubs is colored gray, and only after 3 months they begin to acquire a red color. Next to the mother, the cubs can stay for a whole year until a new generation appears. By this period, most often young animals themselves reach puberty, separate from the female and begin an independent life.
Despite the fact that they are predators, most of their diet is plant foods (almost 95%). These are primarily young and fresh bamboo shoots, mushrooms, berries and fruits. But sometimes they can snack on small rodents and bird eggs.
As a result, their dental system is like that of herbivores - the structure of the molars allows them to grind plant food. As we can see, this panda's food is very low-calorie, and in order to get the required amount of energy, the animal has to eat about 2 kilograms of food per day. In zoos, they are fed with fruits, leaves, bamboo buds, grass, rice boiled in milk and sweet milk.
They have few enemies. This is a snow leopard and a man. The second is much more dangerous than the first. From a leopard, they can quickly climb a tree, but you can’t hide anywhere from a person. Now this animal is listed in the International Red Book under the status of endangered. The main reasons for the decline in the number of red pandas are deforestation and hunting for beautiful fur, which is used to make hats.
Fortunately, red pandas breed well in captivity, as zoos have all the favorable conditions for development. In nature, their life expectancy is approximately 8-10 years, while in zoos - about 15 years.
Early in the morning, as soon as the hostess opened the door, a striped Murka slipped under her feet into the house - and behind the bed, to a box with an old towel in which the kittens sniff warmly. A reddish body - a bank vole - falls into the box with a slight slap. Sleepy kittens poke first into a motionless gray-red lump, then into a more interesting mother's belly. While the future predators are busy with milk, the vole seeps into the holey corner of the box, into the crack between the floorboards, then out into the street, into the raspberry-nettle thickets along the fence and up the slope, to the birches and fir trees of the Arkhangelsk taiga. Lucky!
For Murka, this vole is far from the first in the morning. Here in the north, true mice are rare. The European taiga is the realm of the bank vole. Even in a village hut you will see these animals rather than house mice. However, the little "queen" is full of various enemies. How does she manage to survive among feathered and furry hunters and crackling taiga frosts?
IN THE SUMMER FOREST
The red-backed vole is undoubtedly a forest species. Its favorite habitats are oak-linden forests. In them and in the north of the forest-steppe, this species feels great: voles are numerous here, and years of depression (when there are very few animals) are rare.
To the north, in the taiga, the bank vole has a hard time in winter. Oaks with their large nutritious acorns are very rare, almost all lindens are in the villages. Spruce seeds are nutritious, but small, and the harvest of cones in the middle taiga happens every 4-5 years. In summer, food suitable for the animal can be found almost everywhere - after all, there are more than 100 species of plants on the menu of the bank vole: goutweed, yarrow, plantain, lily of the valley, St. John's wort, elecampane, sorrel, stonecrop ...
In summer, females make nests in old stumps, heaps of deadwood, under roots and ectropions, dragging bunches of dry grass, lichen, and, on occasion, wool and feathers inside. In a good, warm summer, one vole can bring two or even three broods of 5-6 cubs each.
SEARCH UNDER THE SNOW
However, not everyone will survive the first winter: cold, starvation and predators do their job. In the cold, a small body quickly loses heat, and bank voles rarely get out on the snow. However, they make short runs from butt to butt even in 20-degree frosts. Under the snow there is something to profit from. There are many winter-green plants in the taiga, such as lingonberries and wintergreens. Their leaves survive until spring and begin photosynthesis as soon as the snow begins to melt, and die off later, when new ones appear. Blueberries shed their leaves, but the green stems remain. At all times of the year, greenery prevails in the diet of bank voles, but tender young leaves are not found in winter, and the animals gnaw on leathery, darkened lingonberry leaves. If you're lucky, you can profit from a spruce cone dropped from a shaggy spruce top by crossbills or a woodpecker. All the “acidic” (that is, green ones that fell to the ground) cones had long been eaten by the middle of winter, only rods in rags of red scales remained from them. Baskets of cornflowers and nettle catkins, covered with snow, are also ruined. The stock of seeds in the mink is melting... Before spring, more and more often you have to run upstairs, where the opened cones of spruce and pine scatter seeds. And then a flock of taiga titmouse-powders, peeling hard cones of alder, will drop something. But predators are also hungry before spring, and the odorous track of a vole in the snow will not go unnoticed!
TAIGA NEIGHBORS
The bank vole has a lot of rodent neighbors in the taiga. The other two species of forest voles are rare here. Red is found in the real taiga, along coniferous old forests. Gray voles live in fields and meadows: the common voles live where it is drier, and the large root voles live in floodplain meadows with lush grass. In some places, along the curtains of weeds in the fields, there is a field mouse, and in large villages - a brownie. Luckily for the bank vole, it's too north for mice. Further south, in broad-leaved forests, field mice are the main competitors of bank voles.
THE CASE OF TAXONOMY
In 1780, the German naturalist, student of C. Linnaeus I. Schreber, in the fourth volume of the encyclopedia "Mammals in Drawings from Life with Descriptions" gave a biological description of a small rodent caught on the Danish island of Lolland. According to the Linnaean system, it received a double name - Mus glareolus(red mouse). And if the specific epithet, glareolus, has remained the same since then, taxonomists still argue about the generic name.
Pretty soon it became clear that in the genus of mice, voles and lemmings have no place, despite their resemblance. There are many internal differences. The most significant was found in the structure of the skull and teeth. In mice and rats, molars have roots and are covered with enamel, that is, they are limited in growth, only incisors constantly grow. The chewing surface of the teeth of voles is not covered with enamel, it is located on the sides of the tooth and forms loops on the surface. By the way, according to their pattern, you can distinguish the bank vole from its relatives - red and red-gray. The surface of the teeth in voles is worn down, but the teeth are constantly growing. Mice prefer to eat various seeds and fruitlets, voles often feed on the green parts of plants.
What is the name of the genus to which the bank vole belongs? This is a real detective story, and the case has not yet been closed. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, the bank vole was placed in the genus Evotomys, described by the American zoologist E. Couse in 1874. Since 1928, thanks to another American, T. Palmer, the name Clethirionomys. Rechecking earlier European publications, he found that the genus of forest voles had already been described in 1850 by the German scientist W. Tilesius. By right of the "older" (that is, earlier) synonym, the name was fixed Clethirionomys. But Palmer missed that even earlier, in 1811, the famous traveler and naturalist P. S. Pallas described the genus Myodes. This was noticed only in the 1960s, and the controversy resumed. As a result, at the beginning of the 21st century, some zoologists called the genus of forest voles Myodes, others continued to use the name Clethirionomys, challenging the decision on a new renaming. Still others, avoiding the battles of seasoned taxonomists, wrote both names, if only it was clear which species was meant.
Bank vole in the food chain
Voles eat a wide variety of plants: shrubs and herbs, bark, shoots, leaves and fruits of trees and shrubs, mosses, lichens, fungi, insects, worms, and even small vertebrates (for example, frogs).
NUTRITION OF THE POLE VOLE
SPRUCE
Spruce is the main tree of the European taiga, which largely determines the life of all its inhabitants. Spruce cones open in the second half of winter, scattering light brown seeds over the surface of the snow. Then numerous paths of voles appear on the snow, collecting nutritious seeds.
BLUEBERRY
In late July - early August, blueberries ripen. A good harvest happens every few years. But even in a bad year for blueberry jam, the bank vole will find the gray berries hidden under the pale green leaves of the shrub. At harvest time, blueberries become a staple on the bank vole menu.
SLEEP
The soft stems and leaves of this umbrella plant are eaten by everything (young leaves can be used to make a salad). This shade-tolerant plant reproduces vegetatively under the closed canopy of spruce forests, but on the sunny edges it throws out fragrant white umbrellas of flowers and produces seeds. The bank vole eats both the leaves and the flowers of the goutweed.
lichen cladonia
Beautiful whitish "caps" in white-moss forests are formed not at all by mosses, but by lichens of the Shota genus. Alpine, forest and deer cladonias are widely distributed in the taiga zone, and they are eaten not only by the bank vole, but also by other inhabitants of the taiga. During rain, the lichens get wet, acquire a greenish tint and emit a distinct mushroom smell.
ENEMIES OF THE POLE VOLE
FOREST MARTEN
It climbs trees beautifully, often gets a squirrel right in the gaine (the so-called squirrel's nest). One marten squirrel is enough to feed for two days. However, squirrels are not easy prey, and forest voles often form the basis of the marten's diet. The marten willingly eats insects, berries and nuts.
Weasel and Ermine
This pair of small predators from the weasel family are specialized myophages (literally - “ mouse-eating"). Both can chase voles in their moves, especially . Nimble, flexible predators do not miss their prey either among the stones or among the deadwood, they make passages in the snow mass.
KESTREL
During the hunt, this red falcon hangs over one; now over another place, finely fluttering its long wings and spreading the striped fan of its tail. It prefers to hunt in open places, therefore it catches gray voles more often, but it also catches red voles regularly. In winter, the kestrel is not able to get rodents from under the snow, so in the fall it goes for wintering to warmer climes.
Tawny Owl
In size, the Great Gray Owl is second only to the Eagle Owl and the Snowy Owl. This large, strong bird hears the movement of a vole under a thickness of snow about half a meter deep, "dives" into the snow forward with its paws and closes sharp, curved claws on its prey. Thanks to these abilities, the Great Gray Owl successfully hibernates in the taiga.
The forest vole is a small mouse-like rodent that is a relative of the hamster.
Forest voles are an important link in the food chain, as they feed on a huge number of predators.
Description of the forest vole
The body length of the forest vole is 8-11 centimeters, the weight ranges from 17 to 35 grams. The length of the tail is 2.5-6 centimeters. The auricles of forest voles are practically invisible. Their eyes are small.
The color of the back is red-orange or rusty-orange. And the belly is white or gray. In winter, the hair becomes thicker and redder. A distinctive feature of forest voles from other species is that their molars have roots. They have 56 chromosomes.
Lifestyle of forest voles
The presence of a huge number of enemies in forest voles made these animals very secretive. During the day they hide in their burrows, under snags, between roots, under fallen leaves. And at night they come out in search of food. They live from 5 months to 1 year. They are active throughout the year.
Forest voles are difficult to spot, but there are many of these animals. Wood voles live in North America and Eurasia. In North America, they live in the Carolinas, Colorado, British Columbia, Labrador, Alaska.
They are distributed everywhere - in deciduous forests, in the taiga, in the fields. Even in a city park, you can hear the rustling of leaves and quiet fuss at night, these are forest voles. They also live in swampy areas of the forest-tundra. They can climb mountains to a height of up to 3 thousand meters.
Wood vole survival tools
Nature did not equip voles with sharp teeth, large claws, or muscular legs, but these animals have found a way to survive - they are extremely prolific.
Annually forest voles produce 3-4 offspring.
At one time, a vole brings about 11 babies. Already at 1.5 months, young voles are also ready for breeding.
One pair of these rodents reproduces up to 1000 times during its life, giving birth to an entire army. This is one of the best means of survival.
The diet of forest voles
The diet of forest voles consists of plant foods. Seeds, tree buds, grass, berries, nuts, mushrooms are used. And in winter they eat bark and lichens. Forest voles crush rough food with large front teeth, which wear down rather quickly. However, the front teeth grow throughout life.
Voles, like other rodents, are voracious. They do not hibernate, so they have to stock up for the winter.
Each vole collects up to 500 grams of seeds.
They crawl into barns and visit grain fields, causing significant damage to agriculture.
But without forest voles, birds of prey would die of starvation. And birds destroy harmful insects. Therefore, by giving part of the harvest to the voles, people save a large share from insect pests.
Forest voles are an important food item for fur-bearing animals, especially martens. Types of forest voles
In the genus of forest voles, 13 species are distinguished, among them bank voles, red-gray, red-backed voles and Tien Shan voles.
The bank vole or European forest vole does not exceed 11.5 centimeters in length, its weight is 17-35 centimeters. Her back is rusty-brown in color, and her belly is grayish. The tail is two-tone - dark above, and whitish below.
Red voles live in the mountain forests of Europe, in Siberia and Asia Minor. They settle in broad-leaved and mixed forests, preferring linden-oak plantations. They live alone, but in winter they can gather in groups. The bank vole is a numerous species.
The red-gray vole reaches a length of approximately 13.5 millimeters, and its weight ranges from 20 to 50 grams. The upper body of this vole is red-brown, the belly is light gray, and the sides are gray-blue. These rodents live in China, Japan, Finland, Mongolia, Sweden, Norway and Russia. They settle in birch and coniferous forests.
A small rodent can reach 9-10 cm long, with more than half occupied by the tail.
The trunk does not exceed 60 mm. The weight of this pest ranges from 20 to 45 g.
The whole body is covered short fur painted in different colors.
On the back and head it is brownish-red, on the sides it gradually turns into dark gray and steel. The color of the abdomen is light, silvery and whitish hairs are mixed here.
The ears and paws are smoky in color, as are the sparse hairs on the underside of the tail. The top side is much darker. By winter, the fur on the body brightens, acquiring a more intense rusty color.
The head is round, the nose is elongated and mobile, the ears are small and rounded. The body is dense, oval in shape.
The genus is very small, it includes only 12-14 varieties. The most common on the territory of the post-Soviet republics are 2 of them - red and bank voles.
We can also meet the red-gray, and in other places the California, Shikotan, Tien Shan and Gapper vole live.
Video
A small video with a bank vole, made in the Moscow Botanical Garden:
Large "squads" of rodents often cause damage to field-protective plantings, gardens, groves and forests.
It is possible and simply necessary to fight with forest voles!
The amazing fertility and resistance of these rodents to adverse conditions can lead to real disaster in any private sector.
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The coloration of the top of the bank vole is rusty-brownish, of various shades. The tail is relatively long (40-60 mm), sharply bicolored, dark above and whitish below, covered with short hairs, between which a scaly surface of the skin can be seen. Skull length 21.7-26.0 mm. The length of the upper molars is usually less than 6 mm. The base of the alveolus of the upper incisor (visible when opening the bone) is at least half the length of the crown of this tooth from the anterior edge of the 1st molar. 3rd upper molar on the inside with 2, or more often, 3 reentrant angles.
Forest regions of the European part of the USSR and some regions of Western Siberia; to the north to the middle part of the Kola Peninsula, the Solovetsky Islands, Arkhangelsk and the lower reaches of the Pechora, to the south to the insular forests of Ukraine, the Voronezh, Saratov, Kuibyshev regions, the environs of Uralsk; isolated locality is in the southwestern Transcaucasia. The eastern boundary of distribution is not sufficiently clarified: individual occurrences are known near Tyumen, in the vicinity of Tobolsk, in the Vasyugan region of the Tomsk region, in the Legostaevsky region of the Novosibirsk region; on the Salair Ridge, Altai and Sayans. Outside the USSR, it is distributed north to Scotland and Scandinavia, south to the Pyrenees, southern Italy, Yugoslavia and Turkey.
In the Pleistocene on the territory of the USSR, bank voles penetrated far to the south into the open landscape, apparently adhering to forested river valleys, and their remains, usually attributed to C. glareolus, together with the remains of the steppe fauna, were found outside their modern range on the lower Don and in the Crimea; in addition, they are known from the Kanev region on the Dnieper. The earliest finds are known from England in the Upper Pliocene; in the early Quaternary time, forms close to C. glareolus.
The bank vole lives in various types of forests, from coniferous in the north to broadleaf in the south; through forest islands it penetrates far into the steppe zone. In autumn and winter, it often settles in haystacks, omets and buildings. Burrows with several exits and 1-2 chambers; sometimes makes a nest on the surface of the soil. Climbs bushes and trees. It feeds on tree seeds, herbaceous plants, bark, buds, lichens and, in part, also animal food (insects, worms). Reproduction 3-4 times a year, in each litter 2-8 cubs. Harmful in forests, nurseries, gardens and field-protective afforestations. In some places it causes some harm in winter in barns, vegetable warehouses and in residential buildings.
Vole subspecies: 1) Clethrionomys glareolus glareolus Schreber (1780) - the coloration is relatively bright with a significant admixture of reddish-rufous tones on the back; from Belarus and the Smolensk region to the Tatar ASSR.
2) C. g. suecicus Miller (1909) - the coloration is darker than that of the previous form, the dimensions are somewhat larger than those of other subspecies; from the Baltic along the northern regions of the USSR (Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Leningrad, Vologda) to the Ural Range and the flat part of Western Siberia, inclusive.
3) C. g. islericus Miller (1909) - rusty-yellow upperparts, lighter than previous forms; Moldova, Ukraine, Kursk, Voronezh, Saratov, Kuibyshev regions, the Southern Urals, etc.
4) C. g. devius Stroganov (1948) - the color of the summer fur on the back is smoky gray with a fawn-rusty tint; found in the lower reaches of the river. Pechory.
5) C. g. saianicus Thomas (1911) - upperparts are relatively dark, similar to C. g. suecicus Mill.; slightly smaller than the latter subspecies; Sayans, Altai, Salair Ridge.
6) C. g. ponticus Thomas (1906) - the color of the bank vole is intense, gray-brown, with a brownish-rusty tinge; found in the Guria-Adzhar Range south of the city of Kutaisi of the Georgian SSR; was previously known from several points in Turkey (Trapezund, etc.).