The short-eared jumper is a tiny mammal. Elephant jumper Elephant jumper
Jumpers belong to the family of African mammals and can be of different sizes, usually there are three types: large, medium and small.
Depending on belonging to a particular species, the body size of a rodent can vary from 10 to 30 cm, while the length of the tail ranges from 8 to 25 cm. Jumper in the photo looks very cute and unusual, but in real life it is very difficult to see it because of the fast speed of movement.
The muzzle of all jumpers is long, very mobile, the ears of a rodent are the same. The limbs end with four or five fingers, the hind legs are much longer. The coat of the animal is soft, long, the color depends on the species - from yellow to black.
This animal lives mainly on the plains, overgrown with shrubs or dense grass, and are also found in forests. Because of their thick coat, jumpers do not tolerate heat well and that is why they are looking for shaded areas for a permanent place of life.
The forelimbs are designed so that the animal can easily dig solid soil. Sometimes this helps them create their own burrows, but most often rodents occupy the empty houses of other inhabitants of the steppes.
Of course, jumpers can live not only in burrows, a reliable blockage of stones or thick branches and tree roots is also well suited. The peculiarity of these rodents lies in their ability to move using all four or only two paws.
Thus, if animal jumper he is not in a hurry, he, moving with all his paws, slowly moves along the ground “on foot”. However, in case of danger or when catching prey, when the rodent needs to quickly move from place to place, it rises only on its hind legs and jumps quickly. The tail, the length of which is often equal to the length of the body, is always raised up or trails along the ground for the animal; the jumper never drags its tail behind itself.
It is extremely difficult to meet a jumper in its natural habitat, since the animal is very shy, and its mobile ears, sensitive to any sound vibrations, allow it to hear the approach of danger at a considerable distance. These rodents live in Zanzibar. In total, the jumping family includes four genera, which, in turn, are divided into fourteen species.
The nature and lifestyle of the jumper
The choice of a place of life for an animal is determined by its belonging to a particular species. In this way, elephant jumper can live in any terrain, from deserts to dense forests, while short-eared jumper can feel comfortable only in the forests.
Jumpers of all kinds belong to terrestrial animals. Like all small rodents, they are extremely mobile. The peak of activity occurs during daylight hours, however, if the animal is too hot during the day, it also feels good at dusk and in the dark.
Jumpers hide from the heat in any shaded places - under stones, in thickets of bushes and grass, in their own and other people's holes, under fallen trees. You can meet both single-living jumpers and representatives of monogamous couples.
Pictured is an elephant jumper
However, in any case, these rodents actively protect their own home and surrounding area. In addition, in cases where jumpers live in pairs, males protect their own females from foreign males, girls perform the same function in relation to foreign females.
Thus, jumping bugs can show aggression towards members of their own species. long-eared jumpers are an exception to this pattern. Even monogamous pairs of this species can form large colonies and work together to protect the territory from other animals.
As a rule, jumpers do not make any sounds, even during the mating season, fights and stress. But, some individuals can express discontent or fear with the help of a long tail - they knock on the ground with it, sometimes while stomping with their hind legs.
An interesting fact is that sometimes jumpers live next to each other, for example, if there are not enough places in the area to create holes or there is not enough food. However, in this case, rodents living nearby will not contact each other in any way, but they will not attack each other either.
Pictured is a long-eared jumper
Food
These small rodents prefer to feed. It can be ants, termites, other small ones. However, if the jumper meets on the way greens, fruits and berries that are edible for him, he will not disdain them, as well as nutritious roots.
As a rule, a jumper living permanently in the same territory knows exactly where to go in order to eat well. For example, when hungry, the animal can slowly go to the nearest anthill (if the insects have a wakeful period at the given time).
The extraction of such food is not difficult - having eaten enough, the jumper can take a rest nearby, and then continue the meal, or, of course, return to his hole for a long sleep. Such power sources do not disappear from their usual location, and the jumper knows this very well.
Reproduction and lifespan
In the wild, some species of jumpers make up monogamous pairs, others lead a solitary lifestyle, meeting with relatives only for breeding.
The mating season dates from the end of summer - the beginning of autumn. Then, in monogamous couples, the process of copulation takes place, and single jumpers are forced to temporarily leave their usual place of life in order to find a partner.
Pregnancy in a female jumper lasts a long time - about two months. In most cases, two cubs are born, less often - one. The female does not build a special nest in order to give birth to offspring there, she does this in the nearest shelter or in her hole. Jumper cubs immediately see and hear well, have thick long hair. Already in the first day of life, they can move quickly.
In the photo, the cubs of the jumper
The females of this family are not famous for their strong maternal instinct - they do not protect and do not warm the cubs, their only permanent function is to feed the children with milk several times a day (and often one).
After 2-3 weeks, the kids leave their shelter and independently begin to look for food and their own place to live. After a month and a half, they are ready for procreation.
In the wild, the jumper lives 1-2 years, in captivity it can live up to 4 years. Buy jumper you can in a specialized pet store, but first you need to create all the conditions to feel comfortable.
A kind of furry tadpole looked at me with large curious eyes, a thin mobile nose-proboscis with bunches of long noticeable vibrissae gave it a very mischievous look, and noticeable ears could not hide in soft fur and showed me where the head of the animal ends and the body begins. What I saw reminded me of a children's craft, when eyes and ears are attached to a woolen ball, and matches or twigs are used instead of legs - the main thing here is not to touch it with your hands, otherwise it will collapse.
But the live animal was very stable on its thinnest legs, it was clear that the rear ones were much longer than the front ones. Having examined me, moving his proboscis in different directions, the little jumper rose amusingly on his hind legs, without taking his forepaws off the sand, minced about his business, proudly carrying his fluffy body and long, like a wire, tail over the sand. The jumper was not going to jump at all. By the way, I have never seen how they do it - I was not lucky enough to work with these animals, they have never been kept in the Rostov Zoo.
A cage with very fine sand, like dust, a small plywood house, a light bulb instead of the African sun, and a feeder with insects, cottage cheese and fruits - this is how the dwelling of each short-eared elephant jumper, who settled in the very beginning of the 90s in the department of scientific research, was arranged Moscow zoo. It turned out that finding an approach to fragile animals from South Africa is not so easy. And although they write in the literature that in nature jumpers are found not only singly, but also in pairs, however, connecting them in captivity is not always a simple matter. It is even more difficult with a baby whom the mother may refuse to feed herself. Although he is born almost independent, in wool and with open eyes (or eyes open shortly after birth), he needs mother's milk for some time - after all, a mammal.
For a long time in Russia, only the Moscow Zoo could boast of elephant jumpers in its collection. Here, the animals, although not without problems, began to breed annually, and after the opening of the Night World exposition, they occupied one of the enclosures here, where you can still see them now (but in nature, jumpers are more active during the daytime). A few years ago, elephant shrews appeared in the collection of the Leningrad Zoo, they even bred here. On the territory of the already defunct Union, short-eared jumpers were kept or kept in zoos in Minsk, Riga, Grodno, but I don’t know if they bred there.
But in European zoos, expositions with elephant jumpers can almost always be found in pavilions for elephants or other pachyderms, in dry tropical pavilions. So in Prague I saw an aviary where insectivorous mammals live together with agamas. And I photographed these animals in the elephant zoo of the zoo in the small German town of Cottbus, which can be found on the border with Poland.
Surprisingly, out of about 15 species of jumpers, the smallest representative of them, the short-eared elephant jumper, has become popular in zoos around the world ( Macroscelides proboscideus). I inquired at ISIS about others, and was happy to learn that one of the long-eared jumpers, a red one, is also kept in Cologne ( Elephantulus rufescens), and in several zoos in America you can also see Peters' proboscis dog ( Rhynchocyon petersi).
Even more surprising for me is that now, on the basis of molecular studies, jumpers are not only isolated into an independent detachment, but they are also considered the closest relatives (along with aardvarks, hyraxes, sirens, tenrecs and golden moles) of all the same elephants!
Systematics of the family Jumpers, jumpers:
Genus: Elephantulus Thomas et Schwann, 1906 = Long-eared jumpers
Genus: Macroscelides A.Smith, 1829 = Short-eared jumpers
Species: Macroscelides proboscideus Shaw, 1800 = Short-eared [common elephant] jumper, elephant shrew
Genus: Petrodromus Peters, 1846 = Forest jumpers
Species: Petrodromus tetradactylus Peters, 1846 = Four-toed jumper
Genus: Rhynchocyon Peters, 1847 = Red-brown [variegated] jumpers, proboscis
Brief description of the family
Jumpers. Sizes are small, medium and large. The body length is from 9.5 to 31 cm. The tail is thin, from 8 to 26 cm long (approximately 80-120% of the body length). In appearance, they resemble jerboas. The muzzle is elongated, thin, mobile. Ears of medium length; usually reach the eye when bent forward. The hind limbs are much longer than the front ones. The fore and hind limbs are four- and five-fingered. Limbs are plantigrade or semi-digitigrade. The coat is long, thick and soft. Its color varies from yellowish-brown to brownish-black. The subcaudal skin gland, which produces an odorous secret, is especially strongly developed in males. Teats 2 or 3 pairs. The penis is divided into three lobes.
The skull has a well developed brain region. The hard palate continues backward beyond the molars and has large paired openings along the midline. The zygomatic arches are well developed. The bony auditory drums are large. The lacrimal bones are very large. Postorbital processes small or absent. Dental formula: I 0-3/3 C 1/1 P 4/4 M 2/2-3 = 34-42. In species with a complete dentition, the first upper incisor is larger than the others, and the lower incisors are approximately the same size. The upper canine is similar to the premolars (with the exception of proboscis dogs). In the row of upper premolars, the size of the teeth increases from front to back. The posterior premolars are the largest of all the other premolars and molars. Molar teeth with tubercles on the chewing surface, located in the form of the letter W.
7 cervical vertebrae, 13 thoracic, 7-8 lumbar, 3 sacral, 25-28 caudal. Pelvis with long pubic symphysis. Unlike other insectivores, there is a caecum.
Jumping inhabitants of plains overgrown with thorny bushes or grass, forests and rocky outcrops. Activity is mainly daytime, but in hot weather it turns into nighttime. They are kept singly or in pairs, with the exception of some species of the genus long-eared jumpers, which live in small colonies. Although the paws of jumpers are poorly adapted for digging, these animals sometimes arrange their own holes, but more often they occupy the holes of rodents. They also find shelter under the trunks of fallen trees and under stones. When jumpers move slowly, they use all four legs; with fast jumps - only the hind limbs. At the same time, they lift their tail up. Smaller species feed mainly on ants and probably termites, as well as on tender plant sprouts, their roots and berries. Large species prefer beetles. The female brings one or two cubs. They are completely covered with hair, eyes are open or open shortly after birth. Immediately after birth, they are able to move independently. The lactation period is short.
Jumpers are common in Central, South and East Africa (one species is also in Morocco and Algeria) and on the island of Zanzibar.
There are 4 genera (14 species) in the family.
Literature: Sokolov V. E. Systematics of mammals. Proc. allowance for universities. M., "Higher School", 1973. 432 pages with illustrations.
Very simple! In any case, from the point of view of nature, there is nothing complicated in this process. See for yourself: we take an elephant and reduce it to the size of a mouse, elementary, agree? Most likely, this is how the elephant jumpers were born.
In any case, scientists have been twisting them for many years in every way, and so they tried on, and so on. And to the hare-shaped jumpers were ranked, and to the insectivores, and to the shrews.
Capricious "star"
And, in the end, they settled on the fact that elephant jumpers belong to the superorder Afrotheria, which, in addition to many other, not really classified living creatures, includes, you just don’t laugh, in fact, elephants! They, jumpers, even in zoos are kept next to these thick-skinned giants.
What is an elephant jumper? This is a very small, up to 10 centimeters long and weighing up to 50 grams shaggy match-legged misunderstanding with curious eyes and a long thin tail. The ears are round, like those of a Cheburashka, but much smaller. This miracle lives only in Africa and is not going to move anywhere from there, unless the owners of zoos urgently want to see it.
But when moving, the jumper, like a capricious "star", requires special treatment: a well-controlled room temperature and exceptionally fresh, or rather even live insects for breakfast, lunch and dinner, fruits, also fresh, cottage cheese. But mostly ants and termites are preferred.
By the way, it is precisely for this, and for many other reasons, that it is highly recommended not to keep an elephant jumper at home. This is not a domestic animal, it is not easy with him even at the zoo. But this is so, by the way.
Why "elephant"?
The nose of the animal is quite elongated and resembles a trunk, for which the jumper was called elephantine. And why, in fact, a jumper? Everything is very simple here. This is a local name, coined by the natives long before the appearance of pale-faced zoologists. The fact is that the hind legs of the animal are much longer than the front ones, and when it is in danger, it stands on these legs and easily jumps far away, like a miniature kangaroo.
And if the sky is clear, and there are no enemies nearby, then the jumper does not waste his strength and calmly walks on all four legs. Of course, the health of the jumping jack is not enough to jump far, and his size is not the same. But he usually manages to jump to a hole in which you can wait out adversity. Moreover, jumping bugs never go far from their holes, you never know what?
Making a jumper jump is not so easy. To do this, you need to scare him well, then it will work. By the way, if you scare the animal very much (for example, suddenly take it, wild and untamed, in your arms), then it will also give a voice - it will start to squeak. Although usually in life the jumper is completely taciturn.
Independence from birth
The animal is a mammal, but does not sit on the parent's neck for a long time, and is born almost independent: in its own coat and practically with open eyes. After feeding for three weeks with his mother (who didn’t even build a nest for the sake of his birth), and without seeing his father (who had gone somewhere before his birth and never returned), the jumper goes to free bread. He chooses or digs a hole for himself and lives in it as a bean until the end of time.
Jumpers form married couples only for a short-term need, after which they quickly scatter and have more of each other and generally do not need a team. Although sometimes you can find animals in nature that live quite a long time in twos, threes, but this is a rarity, which is usually explained by difficult conditions: a small area for living, land in which one or two holes can hardly be dug, little food and a lot of things. more. That is, the jumpers live nearby, almost in the same hole. But they live like in a communal apartment, not paying special attention to each other, out of necessity, so to speak.
The life of elephant jumpers is simple and sinless. The day is the time of the highest activity. You need to catch and eat ants, move from bush to bush for some of your needs, and at noon you need to stand on outstretched hind legs and bask in the sun. By evening, you need to have a bite to eat a couple more times and, finally, climb into the hole away from nocturnal predators.
Life in the zoo at the animal goes almost according to the same schedule. By the way, the elephant jumper first appeared in the Moscow zoo only in 1991, having arrived from South Africa. Also, as far as we know, jumpers are kept in zoos in Minsk, Riga, Grodno and Berlin.
Konstantin Fedorov
Short-eared jumper (lat. Macroscelides proboscideus) looks like a funny victim of his own curiosity: they say, he stuck his nose everywhere and almost lost it. Of course, they didn’t tear it off, but they stretched it thoroughly.
This is the smallest representative of the jumping family. The length of his body is only some 9.4-12.5 cm, the tail is from 9.8 to 13.1 cm. This crumb usually weighs no more than 50 g. The first thing that catches your eye is a thin, strongly elongated muzzle . On the contrary, the ears are very small and much more rounded than those of other related species.
The coat of the short-eared jumper is long and soft. From above, it can be sandy-brown, orange or yellow, depending on the surrounding area, but below it is always grayish-white. The tail is also well pubescent. On its lower side is the odorous gland.
These babies live in the southwestern part of South Africa. They are found in Namibia, South Africa and southern Botswana. At the same time, the total area of \u200b\u200bdistribution of the species exceeds 500 thousand square kilometers, and one jumper needs at least a square kilometer for a happy and well-fed life.
They feed on termites, ants and other insects. Sometimes grass shoots, berries and roots are eaten. Active during the day, and feel great even in the hottest hours. Moreover, they love to bask in the sun, standing on straightened legs, and take dust baths.
True, birds of prey are not asleep - they are not at all averse to having a bite to eat with some gaping jumper. Therefore, heat-loving, but cautious animals are forced to hide in dense vegetation or lead a twilight lifestyle. They are often seen at dusk or dawn, when they quickly run from one feeding area to another.
Short-eared jumpers lead a solitary lifestyle, meeting only for mating. The cohabitation of several individuals in one area can only be forced - if there is little food around, the animals move closer to each other.
Most often, they occupy empty rodent burrows, although they can dig them on their own. The dwelling of jumpers is simple and uncomplicated. Immediately, the females give birth to offspring, not considering it necessary to arrange for this some other, more comfortable nest.
During the year, the female manages to bring three broods, while her pregnancy lasts 56-60 days. As a rule, two babies are born (less often one), which are already fully developed. Their mother leaves them in hiding, and she goes about her business.
He comes to them only to feed them, the rest of the time they are left to themselves, since the father is not interested in them. On the 18-25th day after birth, the babies disperse to find their own site and start an independent life. At the age of 43 days they become sexually mature.
Short-eared jumpers live for a very short time: in the wild for 1-2 years, in captivity - from 3 to 5 years. However, they are quite numerous and, in general, the status of the species does not cause concern. It’s just that the jumpers were lucky: the places they chose to live are not of much interest to people - they are too deserted and lifeless.