This beast often fluffs up its bed. Badgers, foxes and many other animals dig holes in which they hide from bad weather and escape from enemies. These mammals are perfectly adapted to this lifestyle. Temporary dwellings of water rats

Akimushkin Igor Ivanovich (1929-1993)

Born in Moscow in the family of an engineer. Graduated from the biology and soil faculty of Moscow State University (1952). Published since 1956.

His first books for children appeared in 1961: "Traces of Strange Beasts" and "Trail of Legends: Tales of Unicorns and Basilisks".

For kids, Igor Ivanovich wrote whole line books, using techniques that are typical for fairy tales and travel. These are: “Once upon a time there was a squirrel”, “Once upon a time there was a beaver”, “Once upon a time there was a hedgehog”, “Animals-builders”, “Who flies without wings?”, “ different animals”,“ How does a rabbit not look like a hare ”, etc.

For teenagers, Akimushkin wrote books of a more complex genre - encyclopedic: "Animals of the River and Sea", "Entertaining Biology", "The Disappeared World", "The Tragedy of Wild Animals", etc.

Akimushkin focuses on topical issues of development, conservation and study of the animal world, the study of the behavior and psyche of animals. He wrote not only books for children and youth; but also scripts for popular science films. A number of Akimushkin's works have been translated into foreign languages. His most famous work is the book "The World of Animals".

"Animal World" is the most famous work Igor Ivanovich Akimushkin, which went through several editions. They summarize a huge scientific material, use a more modern classification scheme for the animal world, a lot of various facts from the life of animals, birds, fish, insects and reptiles, beautiful illustrations, photographs, funny stories and legends, incidents from the life and notes of an observer-naturalist. Six volumes of "The World of Animals" by Igor Ivanovich Akimushkin were published one after another for a decade - from 1971 to 1981. They were printed by the Young Guard publishing house in the popular Eureka series. For ten years, readers managed to grow up and fall in love with these books for life. The first and second told about mammals, the third - about birds, the fourth - about fish, amphibians and reptiles, the fifth - about insects, the sixth - about domestic animals.

The first book, "The World of Animals," tells about seven orders of mammals: cloacae, marsupials, insectivores, woolly wings, carnivores, artiodactyls and artiodactyls.

Why was Australia inhabited only by marsupials and egg-laying animals before the arrival of man? Who is stronger: a lion, a tiger or a bear? Secrets behind the needles - about the incomprehensible habits of hedgehogs. Igor Akimushkin invites readers to make an exciting journey with him to the animal kingdom. In this book, the author talks about the world of mammals. The theme of human responsibility for the fate of the animals of our planet runs like a red thread through the entire book.

Book:

We have two polecats: black (or forest) and light (or steppe). In the first, the tail is all black, and the belly is brownish with black spots on the chest and in the groin, connected by a narrow dark stripe. The undercoat on the sides and back is whitish, grayish or yellow and covered with black-brown guard hairs at the ends.

The light undercoat shines through the dark pile, especially if you blow on it, because the ferret fur, very beautifully shimmering in different tones, plays, as it were, “opalescent”, with yellowness.

In the steppe polecat, only half of the tail (terminal) is black, the other (root) is light, yellowish. And the back is light (not black-brown, like that of the forest), since the rare brown awn does not cover the light fluff well. There is also no median dark stripe on the belly, connecting the dark spots on the chest and in the groin.

The range of the forest polecat is almost all of Europe, except for Ireland, Scotland, the Balkans and Scandinavia. To the east - to the Urals, to the south - to the Lower Volga, the Right Bank of the Don and Sea of ​​Azov. In some places it has survived in North Africa and in some places in Asia Minor. Acclimatized in New Zealand and Australia. The range of the light polecat is South-Eastern Europe, Ukraine, Crimea, foothills of the Caucasus. Northern border in Europe - Oka, Tatar ASSR, Gorky and Perm region. Beyond the Urals - all of Southern Siberia (east to the Bureya River), Kazakhstan, Central Asia, Northern China and Mongolia.

The dark polecat prefers edges, clearings, ravines, littered and overgrown with bushes, although it is a forest animal. Light polecat settles more in the steppes, meadows, semi-deserts. Otherwise, they are similar in their way of life. Both, destroying a lot of harmful rodents, are of great benefit. However, there is also harm from the polecat: when he climbs into the chicken coop and strangles a lot of birds, more than he can eat. Here they tell such a funny, but, unfortunately, not reliable story: a ferret, before boarding a perch, allegedly intoxicates chickens with a gas attack (it has glands under its tail that smell very sharp and unpleasant). So, having climbed into the chicken coop, the ferret “stinks” so much that the chickens fall from the perch from nausea, and he strangles them without fuss. The steppe polecat, in Siberian - kurna, also poisons the marmots, as if with a "stinky stench", climbing into their hole.

Rutting in trochees in early spring, pregnancy - 40 days. Cubs - from two to twelve (in the steppe - even up to eighteen!).

From the African polecat, people (two thousand years ago!) bred a domestic ferret, or fret.

He is white with red eyes - an albino.

(However, there are also dirty-white and black-brown ones, almost like wild ferrets.) They hunt rabbits with him: they let him into holes, wearing a muzzle and a bell around his neck. The muzzle is then so that the ferret does not bite and eat the rabbit in the hole, but only drives it into the net stretched at the exit. And the bell - to know where under the ground, in which direction the polecat makes its way. In Germany, hunting with "frettchen" is quite popular.

Mink is from the same genus as ferrets and stoats.

Now in our country there are two types of mink - European and American. This one is larger, and only the lower lip is white, while the upper lip of the European one is also white. The fur of the American mink is more valuable, we have successfully acclimatized it in many places: in the Bashkir, Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics, in Altai, in Eastern Siberia and in the Far East, releasing more than 12,000 imported minks into the wild.

European mink - Europe, Western Siberia to the east to the Irtysh, Caucasus (in places). American, or mink - Canada and the USA. There is a local mink in Java.

Minks have webbed paws. They resemble otter minks in their way of life and a bit in appearance: they settle near the water, swim and dive perfectly. They catch fish, frogs, crayfish, molluscs, insects, rodents, ducks, sometimes even geese, American minks - sometimes hares. They eat berries. Where American and European minks meet, there are crossbreeds between them (just as with polecats). But their relationship, in general, is not peaceful: American ones are crowding out and even exterminating European minks.

Contrary to their name, they are reluctant to dig holes: most often their nests are in hollows above the roots of old willows, in fallen trees, sometimes in a tussock, from under which a water rat is expelled (and its hole is expanded).

“One or two exits-entrances usually lead from the nesting chamber. Near one of them, already beyond the threshold of housing, there is a restroom. The habit of cleanliness in a mink is inborn ... The floor is lined with dry grass, leaves, moss, needles ... The animal often shakes its bed ... He does it masterfully, with paws and teeth at the same time, then lies down and curls up in a ball ”(V. V. Dezhkin and S. V . Marakov).

Rutting in minks in early spring, pregnancy - about forty days (for the American - 36-37 days, since it has a small latent period). There are two cubs - seven (in the American - up to twelve).

The American mink is well acclimatized in Iceland and Scandinavia. The Swedish Hunting Association even received a subsidy of 25,000 crowns from the government to exterminate the mink where it has become harmful to domestic and wild bird. During the 1959/60 hunting season alone, 18,000 American minks were caught here. They also tried to acclimatize the mink in Chile, but it seems to be unsuccessful.

Geneticists have bred the most mink on fur farms different colors: sapphire, pearl, topaz, silver, white, steel and others - more than two dozen color forms. The price of the skin of a new fashionable color at world auctions is sometimes $400. The skin of a sea otter, which is very wearable and much larger than that of a mink, costs about the same amount.

The South American giant otter is similar to our usual otter, but larger than it: up to two and a quarter meters long, and weighs up to 34 kilograms. In addition, the tail of a giant otter is strongly compressed from top to bottom, like a beaver, and the glands under the tail are capable of throwing out a stream of foul-smelling liquid in the manner of a skunk. The piercing cries of giant otters can often be heard near Brazilian rivers, but the animals themselves are very secretive, it is not easy to see and catch them.

Bandaging is a special animal. In habits, it resembles both the steppe polecat and the American skunk. The lifestyle is generally ferret, and the manner of defense is skunk - reared over the back fluffy tail as a sign of the first warning. If it is not taken into account, splashes of a foul-smelling liquid fly from under the tail. Warning and angry, the bandage does not chirp, like ferrets and many small mustelids, but growls. And the color of the dressing is motley, sort of like a skunk or an African zorilla. The general background is generally yellowish, and on it are thrown (very freely and individually, like a hyena dog) irregular outlines of red and brown spots. The belly and legs are black-brown, and the ears are white.

Steppes, semi-deserts of South-Eastern Europe, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Western China, our Black Sea region (westward to the Dnieper), Crimea, Caucasus, Lower Volga region, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, Altai - ligation area. Prey - rodents, lizards, birds. Morning and evening dawns are the favorite hours of hunting. Burrows, sometimes hollows - a haven for rest and sleep.

Rutting, apparently, in August - September. Five months pregnant. There are up to fourteen sucklings born in March in a brood.

The animal is rare. The advance of people to virgin lands, and the steppe trochee to new territories, does not at all contribute to the prosperity of dressings. Looks like they are dying out.

Now let's talk about the most big animals marten family. And the first among them is a sea otter, or sea ​​otter: old males weigh forty kilograms. The second place belongs to the wolverine: the weight of mothers is 32 kilograms (but old females - only 16).

“This is kudoy, ​​very kudoy, ​​the very last animal” - such, says A. A. Cherkasov, has long been a characteristic of the wolverine in Siberia. "Thin" - she eats carrion, does not disdain snakes. “She, damned, blurs her eyes, so that the dogs see badly after that and lose her eyes,” is disgusting with her stench, which she “emits” when the dogs surround the wolverine. She steals every crushed animal and bird from traps (however, she manages not to fall into a trap herself!). “The very last beast” - hunting grub, food supplies left in the forest, also steals. And that which is not eaten and carried away, is poured with its nasty and smelly liquid.

Of course, this bad wolverine manner does not stem from a malicious desire to harm people, it is simply natural for wolverines and many other animals to mark with their smell everything that belongs to them: prey and the boundaries of the land. In wolverines, they are large - about 150 thousand hectares. Gluttonous wolverine and bold. The lynx, they say, takes away prey without fear. A fox will come across to her or an otter, a wolverine may seize them. Roe deer, musk deer, sometimes beavers, young or sick moose, red deer hide, attack and crush.

He drags large prey "in heels, not having the strength to carry it in his teeth." Drags to a more secluded place, eats along the way, drags again. Then it does not go far: it cannot eat right away, it feeds for several days. Sometimes other wolverines gather for big prey and feast together.

The appearance of the beast is rather strange: it is somehow clumsy in a special way, in its own way. The back is arched, the paws are semi-stopigrade, clubfoot on the go - “weaves legs”. A bit like small bear. Brown, the same shaggy, but the tail is quite long, fluffy. And the body from the sides is as if compressed.

Many strange things are said about wolverines. In some places, their bad reputation is tinted with mystical fear: evil ghosts seem to live in these animals.

They also say that on a steep slope the dogs will catch up with the wolverine, so it will curl up in a lump and roll downhill, like a ball, "not hoping for the speed of its run." It will roll down on a flat place or on sharp stones - it does not care: the skin is strong and itself is folded tightly. He jumps up and runs on his own. In the same way - in a lump and hiding her head between her front legs - she seems to fall from a steep slope onto musk deer and wild goats and "often," the industrialists told A. A. Cherkassov, "either kills these animals with their weight, or pushes them off the cliffs." It hardly looks like the truth. However, what does not happen in the world ... When hungry, with big hunt she was unlucky, wolverine catches frogs near rivers and lakes, young ducks, fish. “It must be good and beautiful she comes out of the swamp, soaked and smeared in the swamp mud! ...”

However, the wool of the wolverine gets wet badly from the water. For this reason, the Eskimos sheathe their clothes with her fur along the edges of the sleeves and collars, so that the malitsa that has absorbed moisture does not stiffen in the cold.

Rutting with wolverines either from the end of July, or around September. It is not yet known with certainty. Pregnancy about nine months. Young in a litter (in February - April) from one to four. The area is the north of Scandinavia, our European north and Siberia (south to Leningrad, Vologda regions and Sverdlovsk, but sometimes wolverines run into Belarus, near Voronezh, in the forest-steppe of Kazakhstan), Mongolia, Canada, Alaska, in the USA - the mountains of California.

But here is one whose skin, one might say, simply repels water, not accepting it at all - the otter. This is understandable: the otter is a water animal. Fish Storm!

The otter, on occasion, catches wild ducklings, hares and marsh turtles. Does not disdain water rats, crayfish and frogs. But most of all he loves fish. Any. And roach, and perch, and bream. Even such fast ones as graylings and taimen. In Ukraine, there are more than twenty species of different fish in the diet of otters.

But the otter is not an enemy to the fisherman, but a friend. AT recent times biologists have established such a paradoxical relationship: as soon as otters are exterminated from some reservoirs, there will first be more fish in them. But then noticeably less. How again the otters will breed in those rivers or lakes - again there are more fish in them! Otters catch a lot of sick fish. "Disinfect" thereby fish flocks.

Tracking prey, the otter lurks on the shore and watches. And then he will lower his muzzle into the water in order to see better. He will notice a flock of fish, carefully, silently slip into the river. There, under water, it rushes forward, and the fish is in its teeth!

If he catches a big fish, he drags it ashore. There he eats. And it deals with small ones right in the water.

An otter plays with fish and cat and mouse! When you're full and want to have some fun. He will release the fish and wait - let him sail away. And then chase after her. Catch and release again. The otter generally loves to play. And of all the games, her favorite is skiing from the mountain. In winter - with ice, in summer the best place for such a game - a clay cliff.

Families of otters are friendly: until late autumn and even winter, grown-up otters live with their parents or nearby.

The male helps the female raise and protect the children.

In summer, otters, apparently, live sedentary: they do not go far from the hole (the entrance to it is always under water). In winter, they roam: tens, or even hundreds of kilometers, pass through the snow, get stuck in them, since the legs of otters are short. On the ice of a river or lake, sometimes, having run up, they slide on their belly, as if on a sledge. (Emperor penguins travel in this way, pushing themselves with flippers.) If there is no hole, the otter, they say, “blows” the ice: it breathes on it, tears it with its teeth and punches a hole for itself - a way to the water. Of course, this is possible (if at all possible) when the ice is not thick.

Otters' rut different time but usually in February-April. It is not clear how long the females are “fraught”: some researchers prove that 270-300 days, others - no more than two and a half months. Young (from two to five in a litter) will be born in April, and in May, and in June - August, and even in December and February!

River otters live in Europe and Asia forest rivers“with whirlpools and rifts, with polynyas that do not freeze for the winter, with steep washed-out banks. Outside the forest zone, they settle along the banks of rivers and lakes with thickets of reeds ”(Professor G. A. Novikov).

Otters of the same species as ours live in North Africa and, as some researchers believe, also in Java, Sumatra and Japan. If close species are also taken into account, then we can say that otters are to a certain extent cosmopolitan. They live in North (Canadian otter) and South America (seven species, including the giant otter), throughout Africa (four species) and in South Asia - in Sumatra, Kalimantan, Java, Philippines (apparently, three species). In total on Earth - 17 species river otters and one kind of marine.

Some otters sometimes swim from rivers to the sea to fish there. But this sea voyage of theirs is, so to speak, a temporary and irregular phenomenon. However, there is an otter that constantly lives in the sea and on sea ​​shores, is a sea otter. (Commander and Kurile Islands, Southern Kamchatka. On the other side of the Pacific Ocean - the Aleutian Islands, the southwestern coast of Alaska, in some places there are sea otters on west coast USA, south to California.)

Before there were many sea otters, now there are apparently only a few thousand of them on our islands (and in America there are about 10 thousand). Hunting for them is prohibited. Sea otter fur is very expensive.

The common badger lives in Europe and Asia (south to Northern Burma and China). In places where badgers are not disturbed, they settle in whole colonies, and their burrows branch underground over a space sometimes of 25 hectares. The burrows are perfectly clean. Litter - dry leaves, moss, grass - badgers often take out of the hole in the morning to air and dry. They also have latrines, places for games and sunbathing.

Sea otters are peace-loving and good-natured animals, “You just relax in their company,” says S. V. Marakov, who devoted a lot of time and energy to studying sea otters on the Commander Islands. Males and females keep separate, away from each other. But both of them are friendly companies. On a summer day, sea otters usually swim a few kilometers from the coast into the sea. At dusk they return to the shore. Here is a surf strip, bays with underwater and surface rocks and stones, thickets of kelp - their promised places. Sea otters lie on their backs in the water for a long time. On some kalanikhs, the cubs sleep comfortably curled up on their chests. Mothers are very gentle and caring. But, alas, they have few children: only one child a year. Twins are very rare. Kalanihi give birth on the shore or on the rocks in the sea (some American zoologists say that sometimes in the water).

About a two-week-old suckling mother is already teaching to swim: she puts it on her chest and, holding it with one paw, swims on her back in the sea. With him, it happens, and dives for prey to the bottom. And the prey is sea urchins, stars, fish, squid, shellfish, crabs.

Sea otters, diving, collect echinoderms, put them in the folds of the skin under the arm and press them tightly with their paws so as not to lose them. (The skin of the sea otters is loosely attached to the body, so it is presumably not difficult for them to perform such an operation.) It happens that they will also take a stone with them at the bottom and swim up.

The sea otter does not like to dine on the shore. The waves shake him, and he lies on his back. On his chest, it seems like a dining table: having approved a stone (or without a stone) on it, he takes it out from under his arm sea ​​urchins or molluscs and, breaking them on a stone (or breaking them with paws), eats slowly.

Eats - and yawns (sea otters, says S. V. Marakov, love to yawn, and yawn a lot, with obvious pleasure). Yawns, yawns, and then falls asleep. Right there on the water, lying on your back. He will fold his paws on his chest, bury his muzzle in them and sway on the waves, as in a hammock. When the cubs grow up, so from six months, the mothers give them to the care of their fathers. Those by their example teach them hunting and preventive defense against killer whales, predatory toothed whales. For many marine animals, from the squid to the baleen whale, the killer whale is a formidable enemy. And among sea otters, where people do not hunt them, this enemy seems to be the only one.

Another animal, well known to everyone, is included in the same zoological tribe with otters and martens - the badger.

We have two types of badgers. common badger and honey badger. The first has an area - almost all of our country (except for the north-eastern regions of Siberia), all of Europe, and in Asia - from Turkey to China and Japan. The second one lives only in Turkmenistan, near the border, and beyond its borders - in Africa, Asia Minor and India.

An ordinary badger is not only a forest animal: it settles both in the steppe and in the desert. Only the tundra is not to his liking. It digs burrows in the forest most of all along ravines (but not necessarily), and in deserts - in smooth salt marshes, in sandy mounds. badger hole- This is a grandiose building for the beast. It has many otnorks, entrances and exits, others tens of meters from one another. In the hole - complete cleanliness.

Badgers are unsociable: they do not tolerate close proximity even to their fellow badgers - other badgers.

During the day they sleep in burrows, at night they feed on insects, their larvae, frogs, lizards, snakes, hares, birds, bird eggs - everyone they can overcome.

A lot of bumblebee nests are ruined by a badger. Enraged bumblebees bite him, and when he is already unbearable, he rolls on the ground, crushing them. Then he hurries back to the nest to eat both the honey and the baby.

A. A. Cherkasov says that Siberian badgers attack calves and foals, and even supposedly cows, tearing out the udder with their claws and teeth. We have not heard of such cases.

Very impressively, he also tells how, fleeing from the dogs along the mountainside, the badger rolls down, curled up in a ball.

“He, poor thing, rolled with a fright from a steep and high mountain, flies on stones, hits them with a swing so hard that some special sound is heard - boot-boot-boot - bounces off them like a ball, then flies again, hits again, a boot-but is heard more muffled, touched with in some places, stones also fly and bounce after him ... Finally, the dogs catching up with the badger quickly rush along the same trail, stumble, somersault - noise, screeching, yelping complete the picturesque picture, which in moonlight has a special effect.

In general, fun! But whether it happens or happened - I do not say.

Badger almost everything sundial spends in the dungeon, and for health it is known to be harmful. Therefore, interrupting his daytime sleep, he goes out to bask in the sun. Lies, sits in a hole in the sun or wanders around. When the badgers are born, their mother also endures to “sunbathe”. It must be assumed that there was no rickets.

By winter, badgers become very fat, doubling their weight: old males - up to almost 32 kilograms.

And where the winters are cold, these animals sleep in burrows from about October to April.

The badger is a very useful animal for forestry, it exterminates a lot of larvae of beetles and cockchafers. Where the badgers were all killed, trees are dying from pest beetles. From the badger itself, the harm is small: the ruin of bumblebee nests, in some places spoils oats, melons, vineyards. This is his undisputed liability. But badgers have more useful things to their credit.

Good afternoon my dear nature lovers! Today I will tell you about interesting builder animals, how, using their building instincts, they build shelter dwellings for themselves. And I'll start my story with such a rare cute animal muskrat.

The muskrat does not have the ability to build above-water dwellings, but it builds underground houses very well. It's a whole maze underground passages, often ending in dead ends-otnorkami.

These dwellings have several nesting rooms. When the level of reservoirs changes, the muskrat digs a new house, which eventually becomes multi-storey. In addition to nesting holes, there are also feeding holes in which the animal deals with prey.

To all the entrances of the dwelling, located in the area of ​​shallow water, peculiar access routes were built in the form of trenches on the muddy bottom. They resemble the channels of river beavers.

In winter, when shallow water freezes over the trenches, an ice vault forms, tunnels appear. On them, the muskrat in complete safety gets to deep places.

In the spring, during the flood period, life poses difficult problems for the animal. The entire vast area of ​​the floodplain is flooded with water, and burrows are also flooded.

However, the animals have adapted to this and are waiting high water, escaping in the hollows of trees and influxes.

Influxes are all kinds of rubbish and rubbish that are applied by the current to any obstacles in the floodplain, most often in thickets of trees and shrubs. In the thickness of the influx, the muskrat makes lairs and calmly uses them. Often, her upper neighbors are hares, different ones, and even foxes.

Temporary dwellings of water rats

It is difficult in the spring and the water rat. Not only in the floodplains, but also in other places, after the snow melts, the winter quarters of these rodents are flooded with water. Like the desman, the animals use all sorts of temporary dwellings in the spring. On bushes, branches and in the hollows of flooded trees, they gather in large groups.

After the recession of the hollow waters, the animals begin to move to a variety of summer apartments. In swampy forest areas, water rats often settle in old stumps. The exit from such dwellings goes under water. The round nest is lined with soft and dry grass from the inside.

In the shallow bays formed at the site of clearings, very original underground houses of water rats were found. The animals have chosen numerous stumps, gnawed their way through them, made nests. A whole rat town was formed in the stumps. Above, on the stumps, these rodents arranged fodder tables and turned out to be a real table and a house.

On open sedge–tussock swamps, rats build nests in the upper part of large tussocks, and in reed thickets - in thick layers of dead plants and even in muskrat huts, but not inside, but in their thick and loose walls. Along the banks of small rivers, streams, ponds and oxbow lakes, the animals dig holes several meters long, often with two exits - underwater and surface: the enemy will not be taken by surprise - you can escape either into the water or onto land.

It happens that almost the entire life of a water rat passes away from water bodies, in meadows in holes. After all, she does not need water as much as the succulent grassy vegetation of wet places. However, by the will of nature or man, the water rat sometimes finds itself in amusing positions.

On the Rybinsk Reservoir, entire rat villages on floating peat bogs traveled with their inhabitants through the expanses of water.

In winter, the rat does not need water. She does not reach the rhizomes of cattail or reeds from the bottom and does not swim under the ice hundreds of meters from the coast, like a muskrat or a beaver. Therefore, many animals go out into the fields in the fall, where they begin preparations for winter. First of all, they break through countless passages, and soon vast areas of farmland turn into rats.

During the years of the rat misfortune, one cannot even take a step on them so as not to fall into the underground houses of rodents. Everywhere you look, black heaps of discarded earth. They can be counted up to 4000 pieces per 1 hectare. There are no exits in sight. The absence of an external passage is a trick, a way to protect against ground, small predators- ermine and weasels: after all, they can easily climb along the passages of a rat.

Water rats come out in an original way. It is this pile of earth that serves as the door of their dwelling. The animal pushes its head through a loose earthen lump and hurries to store food for the winter.

• onions and potatoes
• water horseradish bulbs,
• roots of other plants.

Rats stuff their underground pantries with seeds of cereals, primarily rye and wheat. Seeds germinate in warm passages in winter and give the owners fresh, juicy and fortified food.

With the onset of winter, when loose deep snow covers the ground, water rats arrange a large network of ground snow passages and even ground nests. They are placed in willow bushes, in weeds and represent a grass ball with a diameter of 20-30 centimeters.

Foxes hunt for animals scurrying in countless snowy passages, trying to grab them, but it was not there. Prey often hides from under the nose of a predator in underground houses and becomes inaccessible: it is reliably guarded by the armor of a frozen layer of earth.

Living conditions for construction animals

Last on the list of builders' rodents is the nutria. Living conditions at home, in the jungle South America, did not require complex building instincts from her. Therefore, her temporary dwellings are simple and monotonous.

In all reservoirs with dense, rich aquatic vegetation, the animal arranges something similar to a duck's nest, only large sizes. On a hall of reed stalks or cattail, the nutria drags long bunches of plants. At the top is a recess for the nest. The height of such a flooring is about 30-40 centimeters.

Nutria makes several similar nests. Stray males and immature individuals often do not bother building at all, but rest anywhere. Their beds are usually found along the banks of the reservoir.

Such carelessness is sometimes punished by predators, especially wolves, jackals or reed cats. It's a big surprise for them - to catch a nutria on the ground by surprise - this is for them! Meat of a nutria differs in special tenderness and pleasant taste.

In reservoirs, where vegetation is poor and there is nowhere to build a nest, nutria dig holes. Their underground houses are very simple passage 2-3 meters long, going straight from the water. The entrance to the hole is only half under water, so even the elementary rule - to disguise the door with nutria is often not respected.

Nutrias almost never build temporary dwellings themselves, but try to use natural shelters. Almost all nests of animals are located in the hollows of fallen trees. Sometimes minks settle in the cavities of bumps, apparently having eaten the owner of this housing - water rat and expanding her room.

Reluctantly, the animals dig holes on their own. The nesting chamber usually has one or two entrances and exits; near one of the thresholds of housing, there is a restroom not far away. Mink cleanliness is innate. In the Norch, it manifests itself already in the third month of life.

The interior decoration of a mink house is not tricky. Animals gnaw and scrape out the core of the hollow, creating a nesting chamber. The floor is lined with dry leaves or grass, needles or moss. Mink depending on the weather

• then leaves the entrance open and basks in the draft,
• then plugs it with a bunch of grass during the cold.

The animal regularly skillfully fluffs its feather bed with both teeth and paws, and then, curling up in a ball, goes to sleep in a warm and soft bed. In summer, on hot days, the litter is temporarily thrown out to dry, and the animals enjoy the cold floor of the dwelling, lying on it, either on their backs or on their stomachs.

In addition to permanent nesting burrows, the animals have many temporary stopping points where they rest while exploring their hunting area. But still, European and American minks are firmly attached to a certain area.

Another thing is the otter. She does not live in one place for a long time and wanders around her hunting area in search of fish. The range of its migrations is huge and sometimes amounts to several hundred kilometers. However, during the period of birth and rearing of young animals, the female is forced to live in one place, which is provided with food on the site.

The otter digs nesting underground houses with difficulty - after all, the claws of its paws are weak. Usually, it somewhat expands and deepens the undercuts in the river banks. The passage to her hole goes under water and ends in a spacious chamber covered with dry grass, leaves, and moss.

For ventilation, 1-2 pulls lead up. They also serve as emergency exits in case of floods. In some warm regions of our country, the otter settles without a hole, in dense thickets, and here it gives birth to cubs.

All temporary underground shelters of otters are found near water bodies. In winter, the animals perfectly use the voids under the ice near the coast, and then not only their temporary dwellings, but even traces will not be seen. In the habits of otters, one can already discern some features of those semi-aquatic animals for which the construction of a permanent roof over their heads becomes optional.

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RIVER HUNTERS

What animals lead semi-aquatic image life?

Of the predators, forest lakes and rivers were chosen by the otter and mink from the weasel family: the otter belongs to the genus of otters, and the mink belongs to the genus of weasels. The otter is a medium-sized animal (5-10 kg) and a real fish thunderstorm. But where otters are killed, the fish often get sicker and die more.
Otter fur, which is highly valued, with guard hairs and a silky, very thick underfur, is almost not wetted by water. It simply has no equal in strength. The skin on the head and back is dark brown or dark brown, on the belly it is lighter, with a silvery sheen.
The body of the otter is elongated, squat, with short legs and a long, laterally flattened tail. She swims and dives superbly, staying under water for 3-4 minutes. At this time, her nostrils and ears are closed with special valves.
The mink is also a valuable fur-bearing animal. Outwardly, it is similar to a ferret, but stockier, with a shorter and denser coat. Two species now live in Russia - the European mink (500-800 g) and the acclimatized American, larger (up to 1.5 kg), whose fur is valued more.
The natural color of the animals is from reddish-brown to dark brown, lighter on the abdomen, darker on the legs and tail. Sometimes on the chest White spot. However, minks of various colors have been bred on fur farms: sapphire, pearl, topaz, silver, white, steel ... More than 20 color varieties!

Where and how do otters live?

In summer, the otter habitat stretches in a narrow strip 2–6 km long along both banks of the river. Usually she has a permanent hole, which the predator digs herself, but she also starts several temporary shelters for rest.

“The otter ... on the ground ... runs fast, as if gliding, rises on its hind legs, climbs even trees (obliquely growing), but in the water it feels like in its native element, like a fish.”
A. Bram "Animal Life"

Cubs (2–4) are born in spring, summer and winter. Families of otters are friendly, grown-up otters live with their parents or nearby until late autumn. The male helps the female to raise and protect children.
In summer, the whole family lives in a permanent hole, on the banks of the river, and does not go far from it. The only entrance is always under water, and there are 1-3 narrow passages for ventilation, they go outside somewhere in the bushes and are carefully camouflaged.
Otters are very playful, and their favorite entertainment is skiing from the mountain: in winter - from ice, in summer - from a clay cliff right into the river!
When the beast is full and wants to have some fun, it plays cat and mouse with the fish.
Unlike bloodthirsty relatives, the otter never catches more than it can eat. It hunts ducklings, hares, frogs, crayfish, in the summer it eats bugs, small rodents ... But its main food, of course, is fish.
Tracking prey, the otter lurks on the shore and looks into the water, sometimes it lowers its muzzle there in order to see better. Noticing a flock of fish, she silently slips into the river, rushes ... And the prey is in her mouth! He drags large fish to the shore, and straightens out small ones right in the water.

The otter feeds mainly on fish. In winter, when the fish become smaller and the polynyas freeze, it has to roam, covering 10–15 km per day.

In winter, otters roam, walk tens, and sometimes even hundreds of kilometers, bogged down in the snow with short paws. On the ice of a river or lake, having run up, they glide on their belly, as if on a sledge.
When there is no polynya, the otter “blows through” the ice: it breathes on it, tears with its teeth and punches a hole for itself if the ice is not too thick. Imperceptibly on the back swims under the motionless pike and grabs the belly near the head. He will pull the big fish onto the ice, eat out the middle, and leave the rest. Foxes and ermines willingly pick up these leftovers.
In winter, fishermen follow the trail of the otter to find schools of fish in deep waters.
Sometimes it happens that the predator falls into the nets stretched under the ice and suffocates. And it also happens like this: a lover of ice fishing instead of big fish sees in the water ... a mustachioed muzzle. A captive otter screams piercingly, tears the line with a sharp jerk and most often leaves.
The most dangerous enemy of the otter is the lynx, which watches over it near water bodies.

What are the habits of the mink?

Contrary to the name, these animals dig burrows reluctantly, but more often they make nests in low hollows or trunks. fallen trees. Sometimes the animal drives out a water rat from under a bump, and expands the hole, putting things in order: the mink is a born clean. The floor is lined with dry grass, leaves, moss, bird feathers. He shakes his bed with his paws and teeth. And at one of the exits, outside, he arranges a "lavatory".

Minks do not climb trees well. Like otters, they settle near the water, swim and dive excellently, and their paws are also webbed. They feed on small fish, frogs, crayfish, insects, rodents. Sometimes they catch ducks, even geese, and "American" - hares. Where the European mink meets the black polecat, there are crossbreeds between them - these animals are called the cuff mink. But the European and American minks do not interbreed. The "Americans", larger, stronger and more prolific, are gradually crowding out, and in some places even exterminating the "Europeans".
In the wild, the mink is extremely secretive and cautious, and if you see it near the river, consider yourself lucky.

On fur farms where the American mink is bred, about 20 varieties with magnificent fur of platinum, black, white, blue, sapphire color have already been bred.

Badgers, foxes and many other animals dig holes in which they hide from bad weather and escape from enemies. These mammals are perfectly adapted to this lifestyle.

photo: Mike Seamons

What animals live underground?

Most animals that live underground settle in ready-made burrows left by previous residents. However, most mammals themselves are engaged in arranging their own housing. They conscientiously take care of the order and regularly clean their burrow, changing the bedding.

Moles (genus Taira) lead a solitary life in a labyrinth of underground corridors that can cover an area of ​​up to 1200 m2. Visible from the outside, molehills contain ventilation shafts or a large chamber that is designed for sleeping.

Badgers live in families. An ordinary burrow reaches thirty meters in diameter and has several exits. The badger settles more readily in quiet areas of the forest with soft soil, but it can also be found in the steppe or in semi-desert regions. On the trees not far from its burrow, traces of the badger's claws are visible - in this way the animal cleans or sharpens its claws.

photo:Andy Purviance

wild rabbits dig holes with strong forepaws. They are able to build large galleries with numerous rooms in which a large colony of these animals can live.

marsupial mole, which lives in the northeast and south of Australia, moves underground in a special way - it seems as if the animal is swimming. The mole loosens the ground in front of it, quickly working with strong, pointed claws of the third and fourth fingers of the forelimbs. Then mole pushes it away with his head and rakes the soil under him, making quick movements with his whole body, the mole deftly slips into the dug hole.

photo: Mick Talbot

Interesting facts about animals living in holes

• Sometimes in a part of the Badger hole they settle foxes. The badger cannot stand their smell, so it is often forced to leave its hole.
• The marsupial mole digs temporary short feeding passages. After the animal passes over them, the earth crumbles. In these temporary tunnels, the marsupial mole searches underground, which make up the main part of its menu. Sometimes a marsupial mole gets out to the surface and continues to dig a tunnel in a new place. The muzzle of the marsupial mole is protected by a keratinized shield.
• For many mammals, living underground provides tangible benefits. In cold weather, they hide from the cold in underground galleries, and when it's hot outside, they hide from the heat. In addition, the animals are protected from enemies and can safely raise their young.

photo: Doug Zwick

Many representatives of the marten family dig underground storages (for example, a badger), or occupy other people's abandoned burrows, as they do ferrets and stoats. Rodents also live underground. gray rats, voles and shrews; insectivores - moles.

Moles most spend their lives underground. They come to the surface in order to collect construction material for a nest or if frosts come - then the animals go outside to search for food. Moles are preyed upon by many different predators, including red foxes.

photo: Darryl Dawson

Badger practically omnivorous. He leads night image life. The badger loves to eat earthworms. Other underground animals, such as African meerkats, come out to hunt during the day. They feed mainly on insects.

Animals living in countries with temperate climate hiding in burrows from the cold. And the desert dwellers hide underground from the exhausting midday heat.

photo: tim phillips

Animal life underground

The body shape of mammals that lead an underground lifestyle is ideal for moving through underground tunnels. So, the mole has a pointed mouth and spade-shaped forelimbs with long claws, with which it is convenient for him to dig the ground. The body of the mole tapers slightly towards the tail. Thanks to this shape, it moves forward like a rotor, and at the same time pushes a part of the excavated earth to the walls of the tunnel. The mole moves the remnants of the soil to the hind legs and rejects them back with them. The vision of the mole is practically undeveloped, but such an important, it would seem, flaw does not prevent him from leading an active lifestyle.

All eight types of badgers have a strong body with short legs, which is covered with thick short hair. Their claws are very strong, not retractable, perfectly adapted for digging. In Australia, the corresponding badger is . The pouch, which is located on the belly of the female wombat, does not open forward like most chipmunks. He is preparing a special storage for himself for the winter. Chipmunks close the entrance to the hole very tightly so that the cold does not get inside, sometimes they suffocate from lack of oxygen.

But usually they instinctively wake up at the moment when the "bedroom" runs out of oxygen. Well-insulated corridors in the chipmunk hole are 7 m long, one of them passes into the nesting chamber, as the animals mate immediately after waking up from hibernation.

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ki, stealing in tall grass and bushes. They can climb trees, but they don't particularly like it. Only from wild dogs do they seek salvation above the earth, in the branches of acacias and baobabs.

The Egyptians, even before they started building the pyramids, tamed wild cat. And now she lives in our house: it seems to be with us, but also on her own. Perhaps, due to the special genetic properties inherent in cats by nature, their breeds differ little from each other. The main differences are the length, quality and color of the coat, as well as the color of the eyes. Let's start with longhaired cats.

Almost all of them are called Persian. Brought to Europe (to England) as early as the 16th century. European breeders improved the Persian cat breed and bred many different breeds. Until recently, Persian cats were called Angora. But in the early 60s. the leaders of the World Organization of Cat Lovers decided to call them Persian (as the British have long called them).

The standard requires all longhairs to

cats of large growth, massiveness. The chest should be broad, the head should be round, and the eyes should also be round, not almond-shaped like some other cat breeds. Ears are short and set wide apart. The tail is fluffy, also short, and the paws are low, strong. The coat is very long - up to 20 cm on the neck.

Among the short-haired breeds, the most interesting is the Russian blue cat. She has a slender body, big ears and green eyes. This cat is in great demand among buyers, she is one of the rarest and most expensive shorthair cats.

And finally, Siamese cats. The cat is temperamental and smart. With a good attitude, she is obedient, goes to the call even on the street, you can walk with her like with a dog.

Now more than 400 million cats live in the world. In the USA - 55 million, in second place is Indonesia - 30 million. In Europe, France is in first place - 8 million, then England - 5 million, in Germany there are more than 4 million cats. The highest density of the "cat population" is in Australia: 9 cats per 10 inhabitants!

KUNNY

In the marten family, animals are small, but very dexterous and predatory. They live on all continents except Australia and, of course, Antarctica; adapted to all landscapes and although they appeared on Earth before all modern predators, however, apparently they are not going to die out. From the Arctic to the tropics, mustelids inhabit the planet. Their claws are non-retractable, so to speak, of a dog, not a cat sample. In some, glands with a very unpleasant smell under the tail are a kind of chemical defense, their secretions are also used to put up odorous signs on the borders of hunting areas.

In the CIS countries, there are 18 species of animals from the weasel family: the well-known sable, marten, mink, ermine, polecat, weasel, otter, badger, wolverine, etc.

“A rare animal breeder will return from whitening with sable, and another, having lived on whitening for two or three months, will not see a trace of sable,” wrote A.A. Cherkasov.

We lost the sable irretrievably. Almost everywhere it was exterminated before the First World War. Sable fur is very expensive: with sea otters and chinchillas, it shares a place among the most valuable fur animals. Russian scientists firmly decided to save the sable. Until 1957, zoologists settled 12.5 thousand sables in the taiga forests of sixteen territories, regions and republics. And the results exceeded all expectations. “Now,” wrote Professor V.N. Skalon, - the sable has become no less, and maybe more, than a hundred years ago.

Dark coniferous, littered with windbreak, lowland and mountain taiga forests loves sable. He does not dig holes, he lives in hollows that are not high from the ground (the marten settles higher). Undergrowth, windbreak, snags, eversion are the cutest of all. On horseback, he walks from tree to tree less often than a marten, and runs more down (on the ground). It hunts day and night (the marten is a nocturnal animal). In winter, the sable does not sleep, like a badger, prowls through the snow, but does not go far from the nest (somewhere under a snag or in a low hollow), usually only 2-3 km. The sable has a hunting territory from 25 to 3000 hectares. If another sable comes here, the owner fights with the stranger desperately.

When severe frosts and snowstorms, the sable was sluggish. Day after day leaves, and the beast sits in the nest. And if it comes out, it strives to run through the fallen trees,

Sable.

windfall trees - on everything that is at least half a meter from the ground. Noticed: it's warmer for him to run here. It happens that he dives into a snowdrift, and searches under the snow. So it escapes from dogs: into a snowdrift, then sideways, runs pretty well, jumps up - and again into a snowdrift, until it finds a reliable shelter under the roots, in deadwood, in stone slabs. Wood voles and shrews are skillfully found by sable under the snow, where they usually eat them. The sable does not hunt for squirrels as cleverly as the marten. Here at he has more failures than successes. It attacks hares, capercaillie, black grouse, hazel grouse, even mustelid animals - columns and ermines. The stoat escapes from the sable in a snowdrift, and he “tramples” him, takes him as a salary - around the place where the stoat dived under the snow, he dives, jumps, tramples the snow until he catches the “neighbor”. But he doesn't always succeed.

When it smells them, the sable approaches the black grouse and capercaillie fleeing from the cold under the snow, quietly shifting from foot to foot (but not crawling). Then from a distance of a meter and a half jumps on a bird. But the capercaillie is strong and, sometimes, not a meter or two, but versts, as A.A. Cherkasov, Siberian hunters, flies with a sable clinging to him. Here's who's who. But more often, nevertheless, “this flight ends with shame for the sable.”

Eats sable and berries: cranberries, wild strawberries, mountain ash, and pine nuts. In winter, it destroys storerooms of chipmunks and squirrels. He usually does not prepare stocks.

Gon - sable weddings - in summer: in June - July. But a strange thing is that sable wombs are pregnant for too long: 253-297 days! Only next spring, in April - May, they bring three or four (sometimes up to seven) sables. It turns out so because the fertilized eggs do not develop for 7-9 months, and then suddenly in a month and a half, quickly making up for lost time, the embryos grow and ripen just in time for spring. The male sable here helps the sable, brings any prey. But the family does not live long: in July, the grown-up sables are already leaving their parents.

pine marten looks like a sable. In Europe, where there is no sable, it occupies its ecological niche. Only the beast is more nocturnal, loves more, especially in autumn and early winter, to ride, from tree to tree - “ridge”. Both top and bottom, the marten runs more than the sable: 6-10 km, or even 16 km per day. Especially if the winter is poor in food. He will miss a rare spruce without examining whether the squirrel sleeps on it or not. Marten protein is grabbed right in the nests. And right there, in their nests, they often sleep during the day. Hollows that are higher from the ground, stork nests and magpies are temporary shelters for martens. Only females with cubs need permanent ones, and childless ones roam the forest. Their hunting grounds are large:

Badger

BARSUK AND HONEYBAD

The common badger from the weasel family is not only a forest animal: it settles both in the steppe and in the desert. Only the tundra is not to his liking. Burrows digs in the forest, most of all in ravines, and in deserts - in sandy mounds. A badger hole is a grandiose structure for an animal. It has many otnorks, entrances and exits, others tens of meters from each other. In the hole - absolute purity. Litter - dry leaves, moss, grass - badgers often take out in the morning from the hole to ventilate and dry. Badgers are unsociable: they do not tolerate close proximity even to their fellow badgers, other badgers. During the day they sleep in burrows, at night they feed on insect larvae or themselves, frogs, lizards, snakes, hares, birds - everyone they can overcome.

A lot of bumblebee nests are ruined by a badger. Enraged bumblebees bite him, and when he is already unbearable, he rolls on the ground, crushes them. Then he hurries back to the nest to eat the honey and the baby.

Badger almost everything sunny days spends in the dungeon, and for health it is known to be harmful. Therefore, interrupting his daytime sleep, he goes out to bask in the sun. Lies, sits near a hole in the sun or wanders around. When the badgers are born, their mother also endures to “sunbathe”. It must be assumed that there was no rickets.

By winter, badgers become very fat, doubling their weight: old males - up to almost 32 kg. And where the winters are cold, the animals sleep from October to about April. In those places where badgers are not disturbed, they settle in whole colonies, and their burrows branch out underground in an area sometimes of 25 hectares.

The badger for forestry is a very useful animal, it exterminates a lot of May and other harmful beetles. In those places where all the badgers were killed, trees are dying from pest beetles.

Some researchers believe that our honey badger and African ratel- one kind. But if this is different types, then very close. The whole life of the ratel is in a constant struggle with bees, which in Africa often nest in the ground. Thick fur, thick skin and fat reliably protect it from bites. This animal is very interesting because it lives in a “sweet” friendship with a honeyguide bird, or indicator. The bee honey badger and the scout honey guide are a wonderful couple. One finds honey, the other extracts it. They eat together. When the honeyguide sees the warrior, it screams loudly. Now the ratel hurries to his cry with a joyful "cluck". And the bird, his friend, does not stop chirping. It will fly from bush to bush and again wait for the badger.

A badger in a cloud of furiously attacking bees destroys their nest, eats the baby and honey, and leaves empty combs for the honeyguide. But for this, wax is a delicacy. This amazing bird (with the help of another friend - symbiotic bacteria and yeast that settled in its intestines) is able, it turns out, to digest wax, which is inedible for almost everyone.

Honey badger and honey guide.

SKUNKS

Skunks live in North, Central and South America. Nature has endowed these beasts with a weapon as unusual as it is effective: turning around "rear", they spray with a yellow oily liquid. A dense jet flies four or five meters and hits the target accurately, although the skunk shoots, as they say, without looking, because the chemical glands are under its tail. To "give a volley", he is forced to turn his back to the target. Sometimes it is, as the military says, a single shot, or even an automatic burst of half a dozen volleys that hit the target in a few seconds.

The main substance in the skunk chemical weapon is ethyl mercaptan. A person smells it (the most disgusting in the world!), Even if only 0.000000000002 g of it inhales! Anyone who gets even a drop of a skunk jet will not dare to show himself in public for several days, even if he bathes well and changes clothes. Very strong smell!

Reliably protected from enemies, the skunk never rushes anywhere. Even if a pack of hounds is chasing him, the skunk will not speed up his pace. As soon as the dogs approach the line, beyond which it is no longer safe to let them in, the striped skunk sends the first warning signal - it stamps its feet. Then he raises his tail, but the end of it is still half-bent: the battle "flag" is half-lowered. The third and last signal immediately preceding the "gas" attack - the tail rises like a pipe to the sky, all ruffled. This means: "Run faster - I shoot!" This is followed by a quick turn and a “volley”, which, if it flies past, hits in the nose like a battering ram.

500-700 hectares, and for males and 1000 hectares - you cannot get around such vast lands in one night. So they sleep where they have to and where the dawn will catch. In its possessions, the marten is well aware of all places suitable for rest and shelter: hollows, windbreaks, fallen trees and eversion.

Other animals of the marten family are smaller than martens (except for the polecat). These are weasels, ermines, columns, minks, etc. Among them weasel- the smallest predator on Earth. Mice and voles are common prey. She hunts them both in the forests and in the tundra, in the fields and meadows, often in villages and cities. Weasel swims well, but hardly climbs trees.

“She is not dirty,” wrote A. A. Cherkasov, “and when there are a lot of mice, she will never touch food supplies ... And where the weasel has settled, there will probably no longer be mice, because she pursues them with particular bitterness and according to the thinness of her body, she crawls into the narrowest and thinnest of their minks ... Courageous to the point of improbability, courage in her attacks reaches impudence. It even strangles a hare... Siberians say: "The weasel, having caught the grouse's neck, sticks so tightly that it will never come off, and is so nimble that it strangles the scythes on the rise and, biting their throats, falls to the ground with them and never she won't kill herself."

The relationship of weasels with horses is mysterious. Everywhere in Russia, among the peasants, there was a belief that the brownie “plays” with horses at night. Weaves their manes into braids and tangles, tickles, and even completely sweats a horse. It happened that in the morning the owner would enter the stable, and the horse was covered in soap, frightened, as if the devil himself had ridden it! And the mane is so tangled that you can’t comb it ...

Professor P.A. Manteuffel, our well-known zoologist, once found this "brownie" on horseback, in a tangled mane. It was, he says, a kindness.

While hunting mice in the stable, some weasels may have become addicted to climbing on horses and, biting through the skin, licking off droplets of horse blood. Some horses, sensing affection, become very excited, they begin to tremble.

Ermine- this is the animal whose fur was worn as a sign of supreme power by kings, kings and sovereign princes. European forests, forest tundra, especially river banks, are places where mountainous

flock. And his food is frogs, rodents, snakes, fish, birds, blueberries, lingonberries, juniper berries. When there is a lot of all this, the stoat stores surplus food so as not to starve in a fodder time. Like the weasel, he is dexterous and courageous: he also attacks hares, black grouse, and sometimes even capercaillie. When a stoat is excited, it chirps sharply and loudly.

Kolonok in many ways similar to the ermine, but unlike it, it does not turn white in the winter. Weighs only 30-75 g. Columns live in Asia: in Siberia, in Northern India, in Japan.

Hor. There are two types of trochees in Russia: the black, or forest, and light coloured, or steppe. The dark polecat prefers edges, clearings, ravines, littered and overgrown with bushes, although it is a forest animal. The light polecat settles mostly in the steppes, meadows, and semi-deserts. Otherwise, they are similar lifestyle. Both, destroying a lot of harmful rodents, are of great benefit. However, there is also harm from the polecat: when he climbs into the chicken coop, he strangles a lot of birds, more than he can eat.

Mink- a close relative of the polecat. Now in Russia there are two types of minks: European and American. Minks have webbed paws. They resemble otter minks in their way of life and a bit in appearance: they settle near the water, swim and dive perfectly. They catch fish and frogs, crayfish, mollusks, insects, rodents, ducks, sometimes even geese. American minks sometimes hunt hares. They eat berries. Where American and European minks meet, there are crossbreeds between them, but their relationship is generally not peaceful: American minks displace and even exterminate European ones.

Contrary to their name, these animals are reluctant to dig holes: most often their nests are in hollows above the roots of old willows, under fallen trees. “One or two exits-entrances usually lead from the nesting chamber,” write V.V. Dezhkin and S. V. Marakov. - Near one of them, beyond the threshold of housing, there is a restroom. The mink has an inborn habit of cleanliness... The floor is lined with dry grass, leaves, moss, needles... The animal often shakes its bed. He does it masterfully, with paws and teeth at the same time, then lies down and curls up into a ball.

Geneticists have bred minks of various colors on fur farms: sapphire, pearl, topaz, silver, white, steel and others - more than two dozen color forms. The price of the skin of a new fashionable color at world auctions is sometimes $400.

Now we will talk about the largest animals of the marten family. And the first of them is a sea otter, or sea otter: old males weigh 40 kg. Second place went to the wolverine: the weight of the hardened is 32 kg (but the females weigh only 16 kg).

“This is kudoy, ​​very kudoy, ​​the very last beast,” - such as A.A. Cherkasov,

spotted skunk, which is smaller than the striped one, the last signal gives a completely unusual one: it will stand on its front legs - head down, hind legs up - and observe, raising its head, what impression its acrobatic number made on the enemy. If he didn’t make the right impression, so much the worse for the one who neglected him!

Skunks are omnivores. They eat a lot of caterpillars and are very useful for this. They are quite prolific: up to ten tiny cubs are brought in one litter.

Due to their exceptional stink, skunks have almost no enemies in the wild. However, cougars and American lynxes sometimes run the risk of becoming extremely smelly and attack skunks.

Ermine in winter and summer coats.

ferret

Wolverine.

Otter

has long been a characteristic of the wolverine in Siberia. “Kudoy” (i.e., thin, bad) - because she eats carrion, does not disdain snakes. "She, damned, blurs the sight, so that the dogs then see badly and lose her sight," disgusting with her stench, which emits when the dogs surround her. Wolverine steals every crushed animal and bird from traps (she, however, manages not to fall into the trap). Hunting grub, food supplies left in the forest, also steals. And what he does not eat and does not carry away, he pours with his odorous liquid in order to mark with his smell.

Gluttonous wolverine and bold. Even a lynx takes prey without fear. She gets a fox or an otter - a wolverine can bite them. Roe deer, sometimes beavers, young or sick moose and deer are attacked and crushed.

The wolverine does not carry large prey in its teeth, because it is too heavy for it, but drags along the ground to a more secluded place, eats along the way and drags again. Then it does not go far: it cannot eat right away, it feeds for several days. Sometimes other wolverines gather for big prey and feast together.

When a wolverine is not lucky with a big hunt and she is hungry, she catches frogs near rivers and lakes,

young ducks, fish. The wool of the wolverine gets wet badly from the water. For this reason, the Eskimos sheathe their clothes with fur along the edges of the sleeves and collars, so that the malitsa that has absorbed water does not stiffen in the cold.

But here's someone whose skin, one might say, simply repels water, not accepting it at all, so it's the otter. It is understandable: the otter is a water animal. Fish Storm!

The otter, on occasion, catches wild ducklings, hares and marsh turtles. Does not disdain water rats, frogs and crayfish. But most of all she loves fish. But the otter is not an enemy to the fisherman, but a friend. Recently, biologists have established such an amazing relationship: as soon as otters are exterminated from some reservoirs, at first there will be more fish in them, but then its number noticeably decreases. As soon as the otters breed again near those rivers and lakes, there will be more fish there again! Otters catch a lot of sick fish: thereby removing infectious fish from the water.

Tracking prey, the otter lurks on the shore and watches. And then he will lower his muzzle into the water in order to see better. He will notice a flock of fish - carefully, without noise, slip into the river. There, under water, it will rush forward - and the fish is in its teeth! If the otter catches a big fish, drags it to the shore, and eats there. And with the little ones, she cracks down right in the water.

An otter plays cat and mouse with fish! When he is full and wants to have fun, he will release the fish and wait - let him sail away. And then he starts chasing after her. Catch and release again. The otter generally loves to play. Of all the games, her favorite is skiing from the mountain. In winter - with ice, in summer the best place for such a game is a clay cliff. One otter rolls down - the cliff is still dry, it is difficult to slide along it. The second, third move out - they wet the hill with their bodies and then you can ride on it, like on ice. And they ride: one will move out, the other in a hurry not to miss her turn. So they have hours of fun.

In total, there are 18 species of otters on Earth. They live on all continents except Australia.

Some otters swim from rivers to the sea to fish there. But such a sea voyage is, so to speak, a temporary and irregular phenomenon. However, there is an otter that constantly lives in the sea and on the seashores - this is a sea otter. The sea otter lives off the northern Pacific coasts of Asia and North America.

On a summer day, sea otters usually swim a few kilometers from the coast into the sea. At dusk they return to land. Kalanihi are very gentle and caring mothers, but, alas, they have few children: they have only one child every two years. Twins are very rare. Kalanikhs give birth on the shore or on the rocks in the sea. The mother is already teaching the cub about two weeks old to swim: she will put it on her chest and, holding it with one paw, swims on her back in the sea. With him, it happens, and dives for prey to the bottom (this does not threaten the cub: in diving, the ear canals and nostrils close when diving). And the prey is starfish, hedgehogs, fish, squid, shellfish, crabs.

Sea otters, diving, collect sea urchins and other prey, put it in the folds of the skin under the arm and press it tightly with their paw so as not to lose it. Often they will also capture a stone at the bottom and swim up. The sea otter does not like to dine on the shore. The waves shake him, and he lies to himself

on the back. On his chest, it seems like a dining table: having set a stone on it, he takes out sea urchins or other prey caught at the bottom from under his arm, and, breaking it on a stone, eats slowly. The sea otter will eat and start yawning. Yawns, yawns, and then falls asleep right there in the water, lying on his back. He will fold his paws on his chest, bury his muzzle in them and sway on the waves, as in a hammock. The only enemies of sea otters, except for humans, are killer whales (predatory dolphins).

There used to be a lot of sea otters. For the sake of expensive fur, they were exterminated in masses. Now, apparently, 4-5 thousand of them survived on the Kuril Islands and Kamchatka (in America - about 10 thousand). Hunting for them is prohibited.

Sometimes people ask if there is a sable in America. And they get the answer: no, true sable does not live in America. Then how do you understand when you often hear: “American sable” or (aka) “Hudson sable”?

And so: this is not a sable, but American marten. The honor of being called a sable was given to her not entirely legally: on the basis of value in the fur trade (however, less than that of our sable). Like the marten, the Hudson sable loves to live and hunt in trees, and likes to walk from tree to tree.

BEAR

Spring is still early, April. There is a lot of snow in the forest along spruce forests, pine forests, gullies. The bear is deeply stuck in it. Got out of the den, he can not wait. As he smelled the smells of spring, he broke through the “sky” of his sleeping hole, got out into the light. He lay down, squinting, right there, on top of the lair. He lay in a deep slumber for three more days, and did not go anywhere.

But here he went, hosting everywhere: he would turn out a snag, which stones he would turn over. The power of the beast is great. Maybe a little thing is alive to be eaten. He lost weight over the winter, a hungry beast, he chews and gnaws everything, that it is green, that living things fuss in the spring. Yes, and he will find carrion - he will feast. The anthill is a particularly pleasant find. It will rip everything up, scatter it far around. He licks his paws and "puts them on the ant." Insects fuss, climb on bear paws in droves. He will lick them and eat them. And for a new portion stretches clawed paws.

When the snow melts from the moss swamps, the bear collects cranberries on them. Pikes will spawn on spills - and the bear will go there too. The shaggy one will look out from the shore which one is bigger and with all its paws, like a fox on a mouse, it will jump on a fish with a noisy splash.

From where he sleeps to where he feeds, the bear usually walks along the same path that he is used to. And where there are many bears, these paths are often the only roads in the taiga. They lead to the most convenient passes, to the most fish and berry places. The whole of Kamchatka, for example, is crossed by such roads.

There is no animal in the taiga, except for the tiger in the Amur region, where brown and striped meet, and even, perhaps, a large elk and a billhook, which would not be afraid of a bear and which, on occasion, would not be broken by a bear. Elk and wild boar, however, are also not immune from bear claws. However, the clubfoot is still wary of large billhooks. But if he sees a uterus with piglets, he will not miss his. He looks around to see if there is a wild boar nearby, then crawls up the steeper one without noise and begins to throw, roll stones and driftwood at them from the mountain, which are heavier. Sometimes it will crush some piglet like that.

The bear bathes with a splash, with noise. He beats, having fun, with his paws on the water. And he swims just fine: both on his side, and on his back, and standing in the water like a "soldier".

The bear has a lot to worry about. Especially in a she-bear with cubs. It's good, the nurses help, what would she do without them? Bear cubs born this year are called anthills, last year's - lonchaks. But those lonchaks that the she-bear keeps with her and

Polar bear.

POLAR BEAR

Previously thought: white polar bear- a tireless vagabond, roams the drifting ice of the entire Arctic, not staying anywhere for a particularly long time. It is now noticed that polar bears are more attached to certain places, especially those where there is open, ice-free water. In winter, these are the southern margins of the Arctic ice. In summer, polar bears disperse more widely, some reach almost to the North Pole (up to 88 degrees north latitude). But there are still many mysteries in the migrations of polar bears.

Islands in the Arctic Ocean, in some places the coasts of the continents are the true homeland of polar bears: here in autumn, under a snow-covered cliff, polar bears hibernate. This is where their cubs will be born. In the snow drifts on the shore digs polar bear wintering hole. A “burrow” 2-3, and sometimes 6 m long, leads to it under the snow. In any frost, the temperature close to zero remains in the den! In the spring, around March, the whole family leaves the winter shelter.

Polar bears seem to be disappearing. According to tentative estimates, another 10-12 thousand polar bears live in the world. Of these, 5-7 thousand in our Arctic.

who help her look, take care of the little anthills, are called pestuns. Usually the she-bear chooses one foster. And usually this breeder is a female. Males are very rarely left by a she-bear in brooders. Drives them all away from him in the fall.

The bear family usually marches like this: the she-bear is in front, anthills are behind her, and the pestun closes the rear. Once it happened like this: a bear's uterus with youngsters and a breeder crossed the river. One baby, grabbing the scruff of the neck, carried it through fast water pestun, another she-bear herself. For the third, the pestun did not go to the other side of the river, and his mother gave him a couple of heavy slaps. Then he, realizing his guilt, stomped after his brother over the stones across the river.

A female bear gives birth to cubs in winter in a den (in January - February) of one or two, less often four and sometimes even six. Tiny at all: with a mitten - half a kilogram in each, no more. They are blind (up to a month), their hair is sparse, while in the den, the cubs grow slowly. And they tremble: they are cold. The mother warms the sucklings, covering them with her paws, and breathes on them so that they are warmer.

Bears make a bed of bark from moss and bark torn from trees. Some bears, in places where it is not very cold, lie down to spend the winter right among young spruces, only their tops are bent over themselves - it will turn out to be something like a hut, and they sleep in it. But where the winter is cold, they dig a hole for a lair somewhere near the water, in a swamp, under the root of a fallen tree. Others cover the pit with brushwood, branches, moss. Such a lair, as they say, has a "sky",

female brown bear

with cubs

and caught fish.

i.e. the roof. The “brow” of the berl is called a hole in the den - an outlet.

They talk about the bear, as if it sucks its paw in winter. Maybe some suck - because they think that the skin on the soles sheds and itches. But, says A. Cherkasov, he did not hear anything about hunting bears in dens with sucked paws: they are all dry, dirty since autumn, in dust and with dried earth.

Before going into the den, the bear confuses its tracks like a hare, winding through the windfall, moss swamps, through the water, jumping sideways from the track and through the fallen trees, in a word, it will walk back and forth more than once. Only then will he lie down, reassured that the trail is well confused.

If the summer was poor, then some, especially thin, bears do not lie in the den at all, they wander hungry all winter. These connecting rods, as they are called, are "suicide bombers", they will die before spring. Connecting rods are dangerous for man, cattle and any animal - even for a bear sleeping in a den. There was a case: a small connecting rod dug up the den of a bear that was healthier than him, bit and ate the sleepy Toptygin.

The further east the bears live, the larger they are. In the Old World the most big bears- Kamchatka. But if we follow the paths of the ancient settlement of bears through the Bering Strait to America, then we will find here, in Alaska and some islands close to it, even larger bears. it Brown bear kadlyak is a heavyweight champion among all predators on Earth (up to 751 kg in weight). When this beast stands, leaning on all four legs, then its height at the withers is up to 130 cm (for a European bear, on average, 1 m).

Grizzly, or gray bear, is another subspecies of brown, almost as large, but lighter in color.

In North America there are black bears, or baribals. They are smaller than grizzlies and browns (about 90 cm at the withers), and the largest weigh about 160 kg. The famous hats of the British guards are sewn from the skins of these bears, which are still numerous in America.

In India and the Far East of Russia, there is also a black bear - the Himalayan. He is excitable, irritable, and often, for little or no reason, becomes furious. It attacks people only when all escape routes are cut off. And then, more from fear than from courage, he attacks and beats in the face with blunt, but long claws. On the conscience of this bear, more than any other animal in India, crippled and disfigured people.

Where it is cold in winter, Himalayan bears become very fat by autumn (fat is some forty percent of the total weight). Having found a hollow tree, the hollow in it will be scraped out with claws and cleaned of rot, expanding a spacious room for themselves. In a hollow, sometimes five meters from the ground and above, they sleep all winter.

Two more bears live in Asia: Malay and sponge. Of all the bears, the Malayan is the smallest: from the nose to the root of the short tail, about 120 cm, a weighs no more than 50 kg. But not at all harmless, adult bears are quite ferocious. A terrible incident once happened in the Moscow Zoo: a Malay bear bit off the hand of a boy whom he knew well and seemed to be quite used to. The boy wanted to stroke the bear through the bars.

The Malayan bear climbs trees better than all bears. Here, high above the ground, he spends most of his life in search of lizards, bird and bee nests and fruits.

Lip bear.

The second bear living in Asia - sloth(His homeland is South India). It is also called the sloth bear. The nostrils on his wide nose are so arranged that, when necessary, they are tightly closed by special muscles. And “necessary” often: every time, when, having ruined a nest of bees or termites, the sloth, with sniffling and noise, sucks into its mouth, like into a vacuum cleaner, these insects it loves. If the nostrils had not been tightly closed at such a crucial moment, insects would have crowded into the nose, which, of course, given

their stinging properties, not really

Live in South America spectacled bears. So named for the wide white rings around the eyes. The spectacled bear is a very rare, shy animal. As far as is known, none of the Europeans has yet seen him in the wild. Apparently, this bear is a more staunch vegetarian than any that have been reported. In zoos, where spectacled bears have been seen more than once and even bred here, they eat meat less willingly than other bears.

DOG

Canines are the most ancient representatives of the order of carnivores. Representatives of this family are found on all continents except Antarctica.

The gray wolf is the main "dog". He is the largest representative of the canine. In the past, the wolf was widespread on Earth and had, and still has, a serious impact on people's lives. Finally, it was the wolf who became the ancestor of a large tribe of domestic dogs, who became true friends and helpers for primitive man and still play an important role in our lives.

There is no need to describe the wolf. Wolves are most similar to German Shepherds, and can be larger in stature. The main difference from dogs is the tail. The wolf never twists it with a ring, but keeps it lowered down or extended parallel to the ground. Compared to dogs, wolves are more restrained in their movements, not fussy.

Citizens often believe that wolves live in dense, endless forests. In fact, they avoid such places - there is too little food. Wolves love steppes, semi-deserts, tundras, small forests interspersed with open spaces. Wolves live in pairs or families. In winter, several families can unite in a flock. In the spring, the flocks break up, and couples rush to improve the lair.

She-wolf usually brings 2-8 cubs, rarely more. They are blind and deaf. Wolf cubs begin to see clearly in ten days, and after another two weeks they begin to crawl out of the den to bask in the sun, play and satisfy their irrepressible curiosity. The mother feeds the babies with milk for a month and a half, feeding little by little with meat. Both parents hunt. It is no coincidence that they say that the legs feed the wolf: for one hunt, the beast sometimes has to run 50-120 km, because wolves do not hunt within a radius of 7 km from the lair. At first, parents bring meat to children in their stomachs and, belching it, feed the babies. Later, in order to teach them how to kill, live prey is brought. Then the father begins to take the kids on excursions to the forest and gradually initiates them into the wisdom of hunting. In autumn, young wolves become full members

FOX

The arctic fox is called the polar fox, although it is exactly the same relationship with the fox as with the wolf. Some foxes, mainly living on the islands, are called blue, although only a part of them wear greyish-blue coats in winter.

Arctic foxes live in the Arctic and in the areas adjacent to it. In winter, they roam, and some, moving along rivers and sea coasts, make their way south, into the taiga, while others go into the ice of the Arctic Ocean, moving hundreds of kilometers from the nearest land, and wander here, accompanying polar bears, as jackals accompany lions . Both are full, because the polar fox does not need much - you can have a great lunch with blood-splattered snow. The captured seal allows you to arrange a grand feast for both the bear and the arctic fox.

Arctic foxes are predators, but they are able to eat everything more or less edible, and their main food is lemmings. They ensure the well-being of Arctic foxes living on the mainland. Surplus food is buried in reserve.

Several generations of arctic foxes use the burrow for breeding, annually renovating and expanding the dwelling. As a result, a whole town is formed with a grandiose system of underground corridors with 60-80 exits. 2-3 families can live in such an underground labyrinth, although arctic foxes usually avoid direct neighborhood. In winter, they do not use these holes, they sleep in snowy lairs, and if a snowstorm breaks out, they dig a snowy hole and patiently wait out bad weather in it for 3-5 days.

The foxes are fertile. Females bring an average of 8-9 puppies, although there are families with 20-25 babies. Families are especially large in the year of the “harvest” for lemmings.

Blue fox.

Gray wolves pull a cub out of the water.

flocks and at dawn participate in choral singing: howl. Winter frosts are not terrible for wolves: they have beautiful fur coats, and they do not freeze, but they are often tormented by hunger, and then predators appear at housing, slaughter livestock, steal dogs.

At the age of one, wolves begin to show interest in young she-wolves, but it does not come to weddings. Young for another year, or even two, take care of each other. In two years, you can get to know each other well and test your feelings - it is not surprising that wolves marry for life. Parents allow the new family to settle in the territory they protect, but no closer than 2 km from their lair.

Wolves are skilled hunters, this is especially noticeable when they hunt together, arranging a hunt with a paddock. Some animals, slowly, drive a herd of deer, while others, hiding in advance on the path of their most probable movement, impatiently await the approach of prey or simply rush to cross it. An adult animal needs 2 kg of meat per day. The main prey of wolves is ungulates: deer, elk, wild boars, but if there are a lot of small things around - lemmings, mice, voles, wolves eat off on these feeds, and in the deserts, having found a flock of locusts, they feast for several days.

Until relatively recently, wolves were ruthlessly destroyed, and now they are persecuted almost everywhere, believing that they cause irreparable losses to nature and pose a threat to animal husbandry. Indeed, where there are many wolves and few game, they attack the herds and slaughter many animals. But the wild nature needs wolves. Scientists have already repeatedly verified this. In a number of reserves in the United States, it was decided to completely destroy the wolves, but this turned into a tragedy. First

JACKALS

Only 4 species of jackals are known. The most beautiful and elegant - black-backed living in southeast africa. In addition to Africa, jackals live in Europe and Asia. The main feature in the character of jackals is impudence, which gets away with them with impunity, because these animals have an extraordinary mind and resourcefulness. Jackals love to settle near settlements and visit dumps at night, looking for garbage along roadsides and near the railroad tracks. The jackal hunts everything that moves, if it is sure that it can cope with the object of the hunt. It does not disdain carrion, and where large predators are still preserved, it constantly accompanies them, eating up “the leftovers from the master’s table.” Does not avoid plant foods, especially sweet fruits.

Jackals come out to fish with the onset of darkness, howling notifying their fellows about this. And they, if they are nearby, immediately respond, arranging a real concert. This daily mournful cry of jackals annoys the locals no less than the atrocities that they arrange when visiting chicken coops and muskrat farms. Jackals hunt singly, in pairs and in small groups. In search of prey, they trot at a leisurely trot, examining everything that seems suspicious to them along the way. Having found some living creature, they skillfully sneak up and deftly grab it. Jackals live sedentary, do not make regular migrations, but sometimes they make long-distance forays, somehow feeling that somewhere there was a massive loss of livestock or waves threw the carcasses of dead dolphins onto the sea coast.

Black-backed jackal.

DINGO

This dog is Australia's only predator. True, it is not a native Australian animal. Dingo is a secondarily feral dog that people brought to Australia about 3 thousand years ago, apparently from the islands of the Malay Archipelago. It was not difficult for them to acclimatize here, because there was enough game, and there were no competitors.

At a time when a stream of immigrants poured into Australia, dingoes inhabited open plains or sparse forests and hunted there for a wide variety of living creatures, robbing alone, in pairs or whole families. When Australian farmers became interested in sheep breeding, dingoes switched to sheep. Apparently, they liked lamb, and “hunting” for sheep was not difficult. Naturally, the farmers declared a merciless war on the dingo. As a result, their number has greatly decreased.

During the mating season, dingoes dig a hole or occupy an already prepared one. Both parents are equally involved in all household work and in the upbringing of children. Often, dingoes enter into mixed marriages with domestic dogs. Unlike domestic dogs, dingoes do not bark, but only howl and yelp. There are constantly people who undertake to tame these cute animals, but nothing good comes of it. They are so undisciplined that they have to be kept in cages and led on a leash, keeping an eye on them, otherwise they will certainly misbehave.

ungulates in the reserve quickly (5-10 times) increased their numbers, then, having destroyed all the vegetation suitable for them, thousands died of starvation. Wolves destroy mainly sick and weak animals, acting as orderlies. Nature cannot exist without predators.

The red-haired gossip fox is a common character in folk tales, a symbol of cunning, resourcefulness, dexterity, and this, I must say, is somewhat true. Fox - a typical inhabitant of the forest-steppes, steppes and foothills - not only does not avoid the cultivated landscape, but even likes to settle near a person, and in order to adapt to such neighbors with their dogs, guns, cars, you need to be able to move your brains.

The genus of foxes unites only 6 species of animals. You can meet them on all continents, including Australia, where they were specially brought. The red fox inhabits central Russia. Foxes are pronounced individualists. In the winter half of the year they live alone and form families only in the summer. Foxes never gather in flocks.

Foxes eat everything from fruits and berries, beetles and grasshoppers to hares and roe deer cubs, but the basis of their diet is small mouse-like rodents. In the spring, after celebrating the wedding, a married couple equips a hole for housing. Most often, burrows are located on the southern slopes of ravines and have several exits. Foxes are sluts, and it is not difficult to distinguish a residential hole from an uninhabited one. Well-filled paths lead to the residential areas, there are trampled areas nearby, scraps and droppings are scattered everywhere.

In winter, red-haired beasts do not use burrows, except that they hide there from their pursuers, but sleep in snowy beds, curled up and covering their nose from frost with their tail. They have excellent fur, and they are not afraid of frost. Fox skins are ubiquitous in price, and foxes themselves are a common object of hunting. Even more valuable varieties of the common fox (black-brown, silver-black, platinum) are bred on fur farms for their beautiful fur.

Dingo dogs looking at a turtle.

Playing foxes.

HOUSE DOG

The dog is our most faithful friend of domestic animals and the very first friend acquired by man in the Stone Age. Seven, and possibly thirteen thousand years ago, in the very cold of the last glaciation, before he learned cattle breeding and agriculture, when he was still a wandering hunter, a man tamed a wolf.

Gradually, over the years of beneficial cooperation for both, the wolf turned into a dog. Later, the descendants of tamed wolves faced new tasks: not only tracking down game, but also protecting dwellings, crops, and herds. There were two main centers of origin of dogs - India and Asia Minor. But the people of the Stone Age tamed the wolf in other places of its former vast habitat.

The Indian wolf was the ancestor of most breeds of dogs: cops, hounds, greyhounds, all kinds of terriers and lapdogs, spitz, poodles ... And our northern wolf was the progenitor of huskies and shepherd dogs, but even here it was not without an admixture of the blood of Indian wolves.

In ancient Egypt already 3-4 thousand years ago there were greyhounds of almost modern type, hounds, dachshunds. In Asia Minor, the Hittites and Assyria have heavy dog-shaped fighting dogs. Dressed in armor, they fought in the ranks of the army, with them they hunted ungulates and predatory animals, for example, lions, which is quite convincingly evidenced by the bas-reliefs preserved from that era.

However, this does not mean, as is sometimes thought, that all our modern breeds of the same types (greyhounds, hounds, dachshunds, great danes) are directly descended from ancient breeds. They were brought out much later.

There are currently approximately 400 breeds of domestic dogs. Let's dwell briefly on some of them. It is believed that Great Danes are descended from the Tibetan Great Dane - black, shaggy and massive. The Mongolian Shepherd Dog is simply its modern variety (in the CIS it is found in Buryatia and the areas closest to it to East Kazakhstan). And the Central Asian and Caucasian Shepherd Dogs are direct descendants of the Tibetan Great Dane.

Assyro-Babylonian "dogs" called epirus dogs, or molossians, were brought to ancient Greece and Rome, where they were also used as fighting dogs (even elephants fought in the circus arenas of ancient Rome!). In the Middle Ages, their descendants - bullenbeitzers and barenbaters(“bull wrestlers” and “bear wrestlers”) - they earned great fame not on the battlefields, but in battles with bears and bulls. The dogs were picky. From them comes the mastiff, or the English Great Dane, the oldest of the modern Great Danes.

The mastiff is a powerful animal: height at the withers is 70 cm or more, weight is 90 or more kilograms. The record for this part belongs to a mastiff named Aikama Zobra from London. He weighed 144.66 kg, height at the withers - 88.7 cm. Once his owner, leaving home, gave the dog for a while to his relative, who fed the dog so that the mastiff began to weigh 153.5 kg. There have never been heavier dogs in the world.

Bull-baiting is an old English folk pastime. Mastiff was the best dog for this. Strength and fearlessness, combined with a bulldog bite (the lower jaw is longer than the upper one), gave him clear advantages over other dogs. The victory went to the dog that, grabbing the bull by the muzzle, twisted its neck and knocked it to the ground.

The small relative of mastiffs is the English bulldog. They let him loose on other dogs, on wolves, but also on bulls. This is evidenced by the very name of the breed: "bulldog" in English - "bull dog".

Like a mastiff, a bulldog does not bite in a wolf manner, does not cut with its teeth (they say about a wolf: “cut”, “slaughtered”). This dog has a death grip. Having seized, the bulldog no longer opens its jaws, but, methodically gnawing the neck of the enemy, gets to the throat and squeezes it so that the opponent suffocates. This little "dog" can tame any of the most violent bull. It hangs on his muzzle, sinking his teeth into his nostrils, the bull shakes his head, wants to shake off the bulldog, but nothing happens, and it hurts very much ... The exhausted bull will get up, lowering his head to the ground, and mumbles plaintively. The bulldog will unhook, and the bull is meek. Then you can approach him - the bull will not touch. The Bulldog is a strong, squat, heavy dog. His height at the withers is only up to 45 cm, and his weight is up to 23 kilograms!

The tallest dog in the world is the Great Dane. The growth of males up to 90 cm and more, weight - at least 70 kg. The record holder for height and weight in this breed is a dog named Shamgret Danzas from England. Its height at the withers is 106.6 cm, weight is 108 kg. The Great Dane is a descendant of the old Bullenbeitzers with an admixture of the blood of English greyhounds (that's why he is so fit and slender).

The Boxer is derived from crossing English Bulldogs with a small variety of Bullenbeitzers (Brabant). In 1895, four rather primitive boxers were shown for the first time at a dog show in Munich. Breeders had to work hard to get from these primitive dogs a very peculiar beauty of the dog, which the boxer has now become. It was recognized as an independent breed only in 1925. The name of the breed, according to some cynologists (dog experts), comes from the similarity of the muzzle of this dog with the disfigured face of a boxer. Others believe that these movements

nye dogs themselves "box" with balls (blows in the muzzle).

The weight champion among dogs after the mastiff was a St. Bernard named Benedictine Jr. Its weight is 140.6 kg. Usually St. Bernards are not heavier than 90 kg. This breed was bred in Switzerland in the Saint Bernard monastery. Here St. Bernards were trained to look for travelers captured by bad weather, freezing in a blizzard on mountain passes. Dogs, having found a dying person, rake the snow over him, warm him with their bodies. Then they run to the monastery and call the monks with a loud bark, lead them to the people found in the snow. The most famous of the St. Bernards is Barry. He saved 40 people. There is a widespread legend that the forty-first traveler he found in the snow shot the dog, mistaking it for a wolf. But this is not so: Barry died a natural death of old age in 1814.

There are also other Great Dane dogs, but in a short article it is impossible to even briefly talk about all of them. To name just a few of them: diver, Great Dane, Dogue de Bordeaux, rottweiler, leonberger and others.

Of all the shepherd dogs, the most popular and well-

what everyone knows German Shepherd. This is the best working dog. The first representative of this breed - an off-white color Greif - was shown at an exhibition in Hannover in 1882. At the herding competition, Greif took first place and was the first to be entered in the pedigree book of German shepherds.

Ancestors South Russian Shepherd Dog- from Spain. From there, flocks of merino sheep were driven to other countries. Together with the sheep, the shepherd dogs that accompanied them ended up in Russia. It was a long time ago: at the end of the 18th century. This breed is very small in our day, one might say, disappearing.

doberman pinscher was bred in Germany in the 70s. last century by Ludwig Dobermann. There is no exact information about the origin of this breed. The Doberman Pinscher is a good working dog with an excellent sense of smell. It was first brought to Russia in 1902.

Of the four hundred dog breeds, a tenth are terriers. Initially, they were bred for hunting as burrowing dogs: they drove foxes out of the ground. Over time, many terriers ceased to be hunting and were bred only as indoor-decorative. The largest of the terriers

BREEDS OF DOMESTIC DOGS: