Night dormouse. Rodent - forest dormouse: description with photos and videos, interesting facts about the life of forest dormouse
Dormice or dormice belong to the family of mammals, the order of rodents. This mammal is very similar in appearance to a mouse and a squirrel at the same time; it has a long fluffy tail, reminiscent of a squirrel.
They got their name for a reason. The first reason can be called the nocturnal lifestyle of the animal; and the second reason will be a long period of hibernation in the cold. Some species spend 7 months a year in hibernation.
They are very small in size and fit perfectly in the palm of a person.
Description
All representatives of the family of these animals have a similar body structure and organs . They all have large dark eyes, long mustache and round ears. The fur is just fluffy and soft, and the tail is long and squirrel-like.
Trees are considered the habitat of dormouse. If they are absent, then the rodent can be found in the branches of the bush. Some species are on the ground almost all the time.
Three types of dormouse are known that live in Russia and are listed in the Red Book:
- hazel;
- garden;
- forest
These rodents are very interesting to watch, besides the fact that they are small, they are very funny and funny. Compared to other rodents, they live a long time and cause virtually no harm.
There is no point in purchasing a dormouse as a pet. And all because they activity in nature begins at night. This is due to their lifestyle. Not every animal lover will be interested in watching this little rodent at night instead of sleeping soundly. They are extremely rare on sale. It is known that in captivity, while in a cage, they can change their lifestyle, adapting to the life rhythm of their owners. But few people know about this fact.
Despite the fact that the rodent leads an active night life, in the daytime it sees no worse. The mammal has a special skeleton, which can be compressed in the vertical direction. This allows the rodent to crawl into the narrowest crevices that exist on tree trunks. This is how they find the safest place to rest and build a future nest. Thanks to this important quality, the animal still lives and reproduces.
Climbing out of its hiding place in search of food, despite its good eyesight, the dormouse relies on its unique hearing. The role of locators is played by small, round ears that can change their position on her head. The movements of the ears are asynchronous and independent of each other. The garden rodent has the largest ears; slightly smaller in size - hazel; Well, the third place is occupied by forest. Photos of these wonderful and unpretentious animals can be found on the Internet.
When eating solid foods, Dormouse can be compared to a squirrel. It holds its prey with its front paws and spins it quickly. Thanks to such actions and her sharp incisors, she can easily open the hard shell of nuts and various seeds.
These mammals cannot be called fertile. Firstly, they ripen quite late; secondly, they never have more than 5 cubs. The third reason is the number of matings per year - there are only two. Well, the main reason is their love for sleep and its duration.
If we talk about all these reasons at the same time, then the dormouse species would have ceased to exist long ago. But in reality everything is different. The maternal instinct, which is very strongly developed in females, allows them to care for each baby with special tenderness and care. Here we should add good health and a long life span. The result is a stable population whose safety is not threatened.
How to draw a sleepyhead? Photos from the Internet will help with this.
At home, such a rodent should only be kept in a metal cage with a fairly strong metal tray. This is no more difficult than keeping other, more famous rodents at home.
Cage requirements the ones that come out are quite serious, since the dormouse will very quickly deal with wood and even plastic. Therefore, the cage should only be metal. You can buy it at a pet store, order it strictly according to your size, or make it yourself. While the cage is being manufactured, the rodent can be kept in a regular terrarium, the main thing is that such a room is well ventilated.
Mammal cage must be equipped with a feeder and nipple drinker. The material for their manufacture must be the same metal.
There should always be food in the feeder and water in the drinking bowl. While awake, they eat and drink a lot.
As bedding Sawdust or wood pellets can be used in the cage. It needs to be changed regularly to keep it from getting wet. You need to arrange a secluded corner in the cage where the dormouse could hide. Only in a secluded place can she sleep.
For temporary shelter, a wooden house or a house made with your own hands from a cardboard box is suitable. The shelter will indeed be temporary, since the rodent will quickly destroy it. But you can experiment with a cardboard box as a house, and make it better and more beautiful each time.
In a cage for a rodent, you need to create all the conditions as in nature. He must have a ladder, a shelf, a tree along which he can run. This must be done to ensure good health. The thing is that the animal does not control its appetite, and its special metabolism contributes to the accumulation of fat reserves. He just needs to move more.
Since rodents are very clean, their “house” must be kept clean at all times. Wash the drinker and feeder regularly, and change the bedding in the cage every 2-3 days. Rodents pay great attention to their soft and smooth fur - they clean it several times a day.
Where the cage is, there should be no drafts. There should be enough sunlight, and the height of its location should be at human eye level.
Varieties of Dormouse
Let's look at three types of rodents that are found in our country. Each individual species can be kept at home, but you need to familiarize yourself with them in more detail.
This type of rodent is endowed with the smallest size. They reach no more than 10 cm in length. They are found in nature in bushes:
- hazel;
- cotoneaster;
- hawthorn.
Rodents build strong nests for their offspring from leaves and grass, and they are located on the branches of bushes.
This type of rodent can also be found on trees, if suddenly there is an empty, unoccupied hollow. Sonya can also live in a birdhouse, if only it is free.
Trees and shrubs are used by the animal only in the warm season, and for winter they choose places that are safer and warmer. This, as usual, is a small, cozy hole, which is located at the roots of trees.
At home This species must be kept in high cages. This is because the dormouse loves to climb trees, and in a low cage she will not have this opportunity. In a high cage, you can arrange not one, but several cardboard houses for her, which will significantly increase her comfort of life.
A grain mixture will be suitable as food, and nuts and sweets will be a treat.
Several reasons why this type difficult to maintain at home:
- The animal is small and very fast. If it accidentally escapes from the cage, it will be almost impossible to catch it in the apartment. The furniture and all things will just begin to suffer.
- This type of animal has a specific smell, so the cage will have to be cleaned much more often. The smell in the apartment will still remain, so if there are people with allergies in the house, then it is better to refuse such an animal.
- they need special feeding - they need insects.
She's the most beautiful. The fur coat is dark red in color and shimmers in the sun; there is an interesting “mask” on the face, which provides a mysterious and cunning image. Almost all of them have a snow-white belly; at the end of the ponytail there is a tassel; on the cunning face there are large eyes and ears. Not everyone can draw such a beautiful animal.
The animal is very mobile, moves quickly through trees, bushes and on the ground. Its main diet is insects. It can also consume plant food, but gives preference to animal food.
If such an animal is placed at home, then you need a special cage, or better yet a terrarium. The preferred food is insect larvae and mealworms. A boiled egg is suitable as complementary food.
Garden Dormouse Red Book is a unique specimen.
Forest Dormouse
This is the sister of the garden animal, that's just the habitat must be deserted. Experts do not recommend keeping it at home. There are several reasons for this:
- complex diet;
- each individual loves something different, there are gourmets among them;
- It is very difficult to buy or breed special food for such rodents.
Dormouse family
(Myoxidae)**
* * Dormice are one of the most ancient groups of modern rodents. A large number of subfamilies and genera with low species richness indicates the relict nature of the group. Arboreal forms are more like squirrels, terrestrial forms are more like mice, arboreal forms have developed plantar calluses for better climbing, and the outer toes can be opposed to the rest. In nature, dormouse live 2-6 years. The skins of large dormouse are considered secondary fur.
In their appearance and lifestyle, dormouse are close to squirrels, but they differ significantly from them in some features in their body structure. They have a narrow head with a more or less pointed muzzle, rather large eyes and large bare ears, an elongated body, small limbs and thin legs, on the front paws of which there are four toes, and instead of a big one there is a wart with a flattened nail, and on the hind paws - five fingers. The tail is medium in size, thick and feathery; the fur is also thick and soft. The front teeth are flatly rounded, the lower ones are laterally compressed, the four molars of each jaw have sharply prominent roots and several fairly evenly ground transverse grooves that cut deeply into the enamel surface. The skull looks more like a mouse than a squirrel.
Until now, no more than a dozen individual species of this family are known, all of them belong to the inhabitants of the Old World. They choose hilly and mountainous areas, forests and shrubs, groves and gardens as their habitat. Dormice live in trees and in hollows, less often - in earthen holes dug by themselves, as well as between the roots of trees or in crevices of rocks and stone walls, and they try to hide as deep as possible and as far from sight as possible. Most sleep during the day and only early in the morning and in the evening twilight they go out for prey. Therefore, it is quite difficult to get this animal and you can only see it by chance, but after sleeping, they become extremely active: they run well and climb even better, although they cannot make such large jumps as squirrels.
In temperate countries, with the onset of the cold season, dormice fall into torpor and spend the winter in a sleepy state in their nests. Many of them collect food supplies for this time and eat them during breaks from sleep; others do not need this, since they fatten up over the summer and autumn and can survive on accumulated fat. Their food consists of fruits and various seeds; many also eat insects, eggs and young chicks. When eating, they sit squirrel-style on the back of their body and use their front paws to bring food to their mouth.
Some dormouse live in societies, or at least in pairs; others are extremely quarrelsome. In the summer, the female lays 4-5 cubs in a beautiful nest, which she raises with great love. When caught young, all dormouse become quite tame, only they do not like to be touched, and old animals cannot stand it at all. Dormouses do not bring significant benefit, but rather even harm, since they are engaged in predation in our gardens; but their cuteness makes us forget various offenses and wins our favor, which the majority do not deserve.
The dormouse family is divided into four genera, three of which have their representatives in Europe, while the fourth genus belongs to Africa*.
* Six species of African dormouse of the genus Graphiurus inhabit sub-Saharan Africa, the rest of the dormouse live in extratropical Eurasia: 7 species live in Europe and the Mediterranean, 4 species live in the arid interior parts of Asia, 1 in the mountains of China and 1 in Japan. Dormouse mountains rise to 4500 m above sea level. In Russia there are 4 species from 4 genera.
Belongs to the first genus dormouse(Myoxus glis)**.
* * Polchok is the largest representative of the family. Body length up to 19 cm, tail up to 16.5 cm, weight about 170 g. Soft, rather thick fur on the back is one-color ash-gray, sometimes with a lighter, with a darker blackish-brown tint; it is lighter on the sides of the body. On the belly and inside of the legs, the fur is milky white with a silvery sheen. There is a dark brown ring around the eyes. The thick and feathery tail is brownish-gray with a white longitudinal stripe at the bottom.
This animal is well known by name, but not many have been able to take a close look at it. Anyone who has studied ancient history knows this dormouse as a favorite of the Romans, who even had special institutions for raising these animals. Oak and beech groves were surrounded by smooth walls that dormouse could not climb, and various holes were built there for nesting and sleeping. The regiments were fed with acorns and chestnuts, and later for final fattening they were placed in clay vessels or tubs called gliraria. The excavations of Herculaneum introduced us firsthand to these gliraria: they were small, semicircular bowls with partitions in the form of protrusions on the inner walls and closed on top with a lattice. Several regiments were planted in them, and they were given food in excess. After being properly fattened, the animals were killed in order to be served as a particularly tasty dish to the table of wealthy gastronomes. Martial even sang the praises of these little animals, into whose mouths he put the following words: “Winter, we wake you up and boast of our stature just in those months when nothing but sleep feeds us!” The shelf is 16 cm long and has a tail of 13 cm.
The real homeland of the regiment is southern and eastern Europe. Its area of distribution covers Spain, Greece, Italy, southern and central Germany; in Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Moravia, Silesia, Bohemia and Bavaria this animal is very numerous, and in Croatia, Hungary and southern Russia it is distributed absolutely everywhere. In northern Europe, even in northern Germany, England and Denmark, it no longer exists. He lives mainly in mountainous areas; dry oak and beech forests are his favorite habitat. All day long he lies hidden in hollow trees or in rock crevices, in holes dug in the ground between tree roots, in abandoned hamster holes, or, finally, is placed in the nests of magpies and crows; in the evening he leaves his shelter and prowls all night, looking for food; from time to time he runs into a hole to digest the food he has eaten and rest a little, after which he sets off again for prey and only in the morning, rarely after sunrise, having usually united with a female or some comrade, returns to his shelter to lie down in silent for the whole day. During night marches, the regiment displays greater mobility, agility and lively activity; With the agility of a real squirrel, he climbs trees and rocky ledges, confidently jumps from branch to branch, from top to bottom, and quickly skips along the ground. However, all this can be seen only in those places where its location has already been discovered in advance, since the night completely hides it from the eyes of humans and many other enemies.
There are few rodents that would surpass a regiment in gluttony. He eats as long as he can eat. The main food consists of acorns, beech and other hazelnuts; does not refuse walnuts, chestnuts, sweet and juicy fruits. The regiment also, apparently, feels the need for animal food, because it attacks every small animal that it is able to catch up with, kills and eats it, ruins it, destroys nests, strangles chicks - in a word, it shows its predatory inclinations. He drinks little water, and when he has juicy fruits, he doesn’t drink it at all.
Throughout the summer, the regiment searches for prey every night, unless the weather is very bad, throughout its possessions. During such trips, he constantly sits down like a squirrel and puts something edible in his mouth with his front paws. You can constantly hear the clicking of nuts, which the shelf is gnawing, or the fall of eaten fruits, which it throws down. By autumn, the animal collects food supplies and stores them in its burrows. At this time he still eats while he can; then he begins to take care of the arrangement of his winter home, prepares a deep hole or finds a suitable place in cracks and crevices of rocks and old walls or in deep tree hollows, where he makes a warm nest from delicate moss. Here he curls up in company with a few companions and falls into a deep sleep long before the time when the thermometer drops to the freezing point; in harsh mountainous areas this time comes already in August, in warmer plains - around October. At this time, the shelf shows the same insensitivity as other animals subject to hibernation; his sleep may even be more sound than everyone else's. You can safely take him from the nest and take him anywhere: he will still sleep and remain in an unconscious state. In a warm room, gradually awakening, he begins to move his limbs and little by little begin to move, although he still looks sleepy. When free, he sometimes wakes up on his own and, as if unconsciously, begins to eat the supplies*.
* Dormice do not store any food for the winter, they just get very fat. Their winter hibernation is very deep - real suspended animation with a strong decrease in body temperature and a sharp decrease in the metabolic rate. Only such hibernation allows sleepyheads to “hold out” on fat reserves for more than six months.
The little ones that Lenz raised, keeping them in a cold room in winter, woke up almost every four weeks, ate and went back to sleep so soundly that they seemed dead; others, brought up by Galvagni, woke up only every two months to eat. In freedom, our regiment wakes up only in late spring, rarely before the end of April. Thus, the duration of their winter hibernation reaches a full 7 months.
Soon after awakening, the chicks mate, and after about six weeks of pregnancy, the female gives birth in a soft nest of a hollow tree or some other burrow (in the vicinity of Altenburg, very often in birdhouses that are placed on high poles above or on fruit trees) 3-6 naked blind cubs that grow up unusually quickly and feed on their mother’s milk only for a very short time, and then begin to get food themselves. The shelf never makes nests openly in trees, like our squirrel, but, if possible, in a hidden place. Where there are many beech trees, this animal reproduces very quickly, since its welfare depends on the fruit harvest.
Numerous enemies cause significant damage to the regiments. Their most formidable persecutors are pine martens and ferrets, wild cats and weasels, eagle owls and owls; although the regiment bravely defends itself against the most powerful enemies, snorts at them, bites viciously and even uses its weak claws, nevertheless it has to finally surrender*.
* For passive protection from enemies, the regiment, like other sleepyheads, has one means. The skin on the tail is very fragile and is easily torn off by a “stocking” when a predator grabs the dormouse by the tail. The exposed tail dries out and dies; the animal, having lost its balance, becomes more clumsy, but remains alive.
A person also diligently pursues a regiment in those places where there are many of them, for the sake of meat and for the sake of fur; the animal is lured into artificial winter dwellings, that is, into holes built for this purpose in the forest, between bushes and rock slopes in dry, south-facing places; these pits are treacherously covered with moss, covered with straw and dry branches, and abundantly supplied with beech nuts. In addition, other traps are set. In Bavaria, peasants catch the chickadee in ordinary tit traps, in which hemp seed is scattered as bait. In other places, peasants catch small animals with traps, which they either hang on branches, or place in front of the tracked holes of these animals, placing a juicy pear or plum in them for bait. In addition, sometimes tubs filled with fruits are buried in the ground, which have only one exit from the top, covered with a mesh of iron wire so that the animal can slip inside the tub, but will not come back out in any way. In such traps, there are so many small birds that some hunters collected from 200 to 400 of them throughout the fall.
Shelves are relatively rarely kept in captivity. It could have been foreseen in advance that such a glutton would not show any particular development of mental abilities or any good qualities. His lifestyle and character traits are not pretty; the greatest virtue in him is his cleanliness; otherwise he is intolerable. Always irritated, he does not get close to his teacher at all and angrily, with some special snoring, grumbles at everyone who dares to approach him. Anyone who clumsily grabs him, he bites painfully several times in a row, which makes it clear that he does not intend to allow his person to be disturbed. At night, like a madman, he begins to frantically jump around the cage and this alone can get boring to the point of disgust. With all this, he requires the most careful supervision and plentiful food, otherwise he will gnaw through the cage or eat one of his comrades. As soon as a regiment lacks food, without further consideration it attacks one of its relatives, kills it and eats it with complete equanimity. Even those born in captivity do not lose the unpleasant properties of their relatives and always remain as unsympathetic as the old ones.
Forest Dormouse(Diyomys nitedula) is the link between the dormouse and the garden dormouse; it is 17 cm long, almost half of which is on the tail**.
* * The body length of the forest dormouse is up to 11 cm, the tail is the same length. The tail is evenly pubescent, like a regiment's, but the hair on top seems to be combed in the middle. On the hind legs, not only the outer, but also the inner toe can be opposed to the rest.
The color of the fur on the head and back is reddish-brown or brownish-gray, on the belly it is completely white; a black stripe begins under the eyes, which, expanding, covers the eyes and continues to the ears; behind the ears lies a dirty grayish-white patch. The tail is dark brown-gray on top, slightly lighter at the end, and white below.
Southern Russia should be considered the homeland of the forest dormouse; from here it spread west to Hungary, southern Austria and Silesia, but is quite rare there*. In terms of lifestyle, as far as is still known, it does not differ in any significant way from the regiments and garden dormouse.
* The forest dormouse has the widest range among dormouses; to the north and northeast it reaches Sweden, the Volga region, Altai, to the south - to Italy, the forests of Western and Central Asia, to the East - to Mongolia. In the west it reaches only Austria and Southern Germany. Prefers broad-leaved and hard-leaved forests of the Mediterranean type.
garden dormouse(Eliomys quercimts) reaches a maximum length of 14 cm, with a tail length of 9.5 cm. The head and back are reddish-gray-brown, the belly is white; the eyes are bordered by a shiny black ring that continues under the ears to the neck; there is a whitish spot in front and behind the ears, and a blackish one above the ear. The tail is gray-brown at the root, and at the end it is two-colored - black on top, white below. The hair on the belly is two-colored - it is gray at the roots, white at the tips, and in some places it is yellowish or grayish. The ears are meat-colored, the mustache is black, with white tips; the claws are the color of a light horn, the upper front teeth are light brown, the lower ones are light yellow. Beautiful dark black-brown eyes give the garden dormouse an intelligent, lively expression.
Garden dormouse, already known to the ancient Romans under the name Nitella, belongs mainly to the temperate zone of central and western Europe; France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Galicia, Transylvania and the Russian Baltic provinces** are considered her fatherland.
* * Garden dormouse is largely associated with coniferous trees; it penetrates further to the north than other species - to Karelia, the Vologda region, to the east - to the Urals, but is absent from the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Asia Minor.
It lives both on plains and in hilly countries, but still prefers to huddle in mountainous areas and here mainly in deciduous forests, although it also comes across coniferous ones, and sometimes enters low bushes and gardens. In Switzerland it rises to high glaciers. It feeds on the same thing as the elk; but, in addition, he carries lard and butter, lard and ham from the houses of mountain residents; Apparently, she eats young birds and eggs even more willingly and more than the chick, which she certainly surpasses in climbing and jumping. Its nest differs from the shelf's nest in that it is located in an open place; however, sometimes the garden dormouse uses cracks in walls, old rat holes, mole holes and other depressions between stones and in the ground; she gently covers the nest with moss and arranges it as comfortably as possible. Squirrels are especially willing to settle in empty nests; if necessary, she can build a nest herself, which she hangs in a visible place between the branches of a tree.
The time of love for the garden dormouse begins in the first half of May. Several males often start a heated argument over the possession of a female, chasing each other, while hissing, sniffling and rushing through the trees like crazy. As peaceful as they are in ordinary times, they now become perky, angry and pugnacious; real battles take place between them, and with such fury that it was difficult to expect from them; It often happens that one of the opponents is fatally bitten by the other and is immediately eaten. After a 24-30 day pregnancy, the female lays 4-6 naked, blind young, in most cases in a perfectly prepared and openly placed nest in a tree; To do this, she often uses an old nest of a squirrel, crow, or blackbird and common blackbird, which she sometimes captures by force, then lines it with moss and wool and closes it tightly. The mother feeds the cubs for quite a long time and, when they grow up a little, brings them food in abundance. If at this time you approach her nest and try to take the cubs out of there, then the alarmed female with sparkling eyes begins to hiss at the enemy, bares her teeth, rushes straight into his face and frantically tries to bite. It is remarkable that the otherwise clean garden dormouse keeps its nest extremely untidy. Smelly feces accumulate in the nest in whole heaps and spread such a strong stench that not only dogs, but even an ordinary person at a distant distance is able to recognize the presence of such a nest. After a few weeks, the cubs reach the size of their mother and after some time they begin to run near the hole in order to find food under the supervision and guidance of the mother. Subsequently, they start their own homes and the next year they become capable of reproducing. In particularly favorable weather, the female gives birth twice in one year.
During hibernation, the garden dormouse looks for dry and protected holes in trees and walls or settles down in mole holes, sometimes entering forest guardhouses, garden gazebos, barns, haylofts, coal miners' huts and other residential buildings, where it hides . Usually they are found several in one nest, pressed so closely together that they form, as it were, one ball. Sleepyheads sleep without interruption, but not as soundly as others; When there is a thaw, they wake up, eat from food reserves, and when the cold returns, they hibernate again. In contrast to other animals subject to hibernation, garden dormice exhibit a certain sensitivity to external irritation at this time. They rarely emerge from their burrows in the spring before the end of April; First they eat the entire winter food supply and then resume summer activities.
Garden dormouse is hated by all gardeners who grow tender fruit trees. It is enough for just one dormouse to get into such a garden to destroy the entire collection of peaches or apricots. When choosing a treat, the garden dormouse reveals a lot of subtle taste. She chooses only the best and juiciest fruits, which she recognizes not by appearance, but by taste, so that she spoils much more than she eats*.
* Plant foods do not occupy a leading position in the diet of this dormouse; the basis of nutrition is invertebrates and small vertebrates. More than other relatives, the garden dormouse spends time on the ground in search of food. In a number of areas of Europe, it prefers to settle near humans, competing with rats and even displacing them due to its aggressiveness. In some places it actually causes significant damage to gardens. In the east of the range it is rare and needs protection.
There is no way to get rid of a harmful guest who has entered the garden, since he knows how to overcome all sorts of obstacles; climbs palisades and trees, slips through the loops of nets that protect trees, or gnaws through them if they are too dense: and can even get through wire mesh.
Only late-ripening fruits can be saved from dormice, since at this time the animals are already in their burrows. The garden dormouse brings only harm and only the slightest benefit with its meat and skin, so it is diligently pursued and exterminated, especially by gardeners, who have to suffer the most from it. The best traps are wire snares that are hung on fruit trees, or small traps. But the best defender of gardens against these robbers is a cat. Martens, weasels, eagle owls and owls also diligently pursue the garden dormouse; therefore, landowners living near forests act quite reasonably in providing protection to these natural enemies of harmful rodents.
The garden dormouse is just as unsuitable for keeping in captivity as the dormouse. She rarely gets used to a person and whenever he appears unexpectedly, she bites so hard that the pain is very sensitive. At the same time, she has the same unpleasant quality that is inherent in a regiment - she sits quietly during the day, and rebels in a cage at night; tries to gnaw through the bars and bars in order to break through it and, if she succeeds, then she rages as if there were a dozen sleepyheads in the room; in this case, everything that stands on the road is overturned and destroyed. It is not easy to catch a garden dormouse running out of its cage again. It is easy to verify her predatory inclinations by making observations of animals in captivity. She displays the bloodthirstiness of a weasel coupled with the gluttony of a regiment; furiously attacks every small vertebrate animal brought into a cage, strangles a bird in an instant, deals with a perky mouse in a few minutes, no matter how it resists, and does not spare even its equal... Hunger entails an inevitable internecine struggle, which ends the fact that one kills and eats the other, and hibernation leads to the triumph of the strong, who abstains from hibernation, and the death of the weak, who succumbs to it. As soon as one of several garden dormice kept together falls into hibernation while the others are still awake, it can consider itself already dead: insidious comrades attack the sleeping ones, bite them to death and eat them. The same thing happens when several garden dormice that were in hibernation begin to wake up one after another; the one who wakes up before others kills her helpless comrades. An ordinary daytime nap does not pose such a danger, because a sleeping dormouse quickly wakes up and protects its skin.
Hazel Dormouse(Muscardinus avellanarius) - one of the cutest, cutest and playful European rodents; She is liked not only by her external beauty, but also by her cleanliness, comeliness, and gentleness of character. The animal is approximately the same size as our house mouse; its total length reaches 14 cm, of which almost half is the tail. The thick and smooth fur consists of medium-length shiny and soft hair of a yellowish-red color, the fur is slightly lighter below, white on the chest and throat; the eye sockets and ears are light reddish, the legs are red, the toes are whitish, the upper side of the tail is brownish-red. In winter, the upper side of the last half of the tail is covered with a light blackish coating. This occurs because the new awn hairs have blackish tips, which subsequently wear off. Young animals are bright red in color. The homeland of the little hazel dormouse is central Europe: Sweden and England apparently constitute the northern border of its distribution, and Tuscany and the northern part of Turkey constitute the southern border; in the east it does not go beyond Galicia, Hungary and Transylvania. The hazel dormouse is especially numerous in Tyrol, Carinthia, Styria, Bohemia, Silesia, Slovenia and northern Italy, since it is found in greater numbers in the southern regions than in the northern ones *.
* This smallest species of the family (weighs 15-35 g), preferring broad-leaved forests, is nevertheless absent from most of Asia Minor, the Crimea and the Caucasus. The northern border in Russia coincides with the northern border of mixed forests. To the east, the hazel dormouse is distributed to the Cis-Urals. The number of the species is low everywhere, and high mortality of young is noted. Systematically, the hazel dormouse, close to the common dormouse, like it, is the most arboreal species of dormouse, comparatively rarely descending to the ground.
Their dwellings are almost the same as those of their relatives; the lifestyle is no different from that described above. The hazel dormouse inhabits both the plains and the mountains, but it does not rise above the forest limit, i.e. 1500 meters above sea level. Favorite habitats are low bushes, thorns, and mainly walnut groves.
During the day, the hazel dormouse lies somewhere hidden and sleeps; at night it forages for food, which consists of nuts, acorns, hard seeds, juicy fruits, berries and buds; but most of all she loves nuts, which she skillfully cracks and eats: she does not pick the nuts from the tree and does not take them out of the green shell. She loves rowan berries and therefore often ends up in snares set for birds*.
* The hazel dormouse feeds almost exclusively on plant foods, in the summer it is mainly succulent food, and by autumn it is high-calorie hard seeds and nuts.
Hazel dormouse live in small societies, however, not closely connected with each other. Each dormouse separately or two dormouse together builds a soft, warm, rather skillfully made nest of grass, leaves, moss, roots and wool in very dense bushes, and at night they leave it in order to get food in partnership with others living nearby. Like real arboreal animals, they skillfully climb even the thinnest branches, not only like squirrels and other dormice, but also like monkeys; You can often see her hanging with her hind legs over a branch to reach a distant nut and crack it, or running along the underside of a branch with the same confidence as along the top, just like the forest acrobat monkeys of tropical countries.
Even on smooth ground they run very quickly, especially when they are in a hurry to return to their arboreal possessions.
The mating time for hazel dormouse coincides with mid-summer; rarely does mating occur before July. After about a four-week pregnancy, usually in August, the female lays 3-4 naked, blind cubs in her round, very comfortable summer nest, skillfully built of moss and grass and lined inside with the hair of various animals. Dormouses try to make this nest in dense bushes at a height of one meter above the ground. The cubs grow up unusually quickly, but suckle for another whole month until they are mature enough to run for food on their own**.
* * In favorable years, the hazel dormouse brings up to 3 broods; births occur with an interval of 2 months. The mating season begins in April and proceeds very peacefully, without conflicts or fights between males. At this time, the hazel dormouse is more silent than other species; partners are guided mainly not by mating “songs”, but by scent marks. There are usually 3-4 cubs in a litter, which a month after birth stop feeding on milk and become completely independent.
It is difficult to catch the hazel dormouse when it is awake; very rarely falls into traps that are placed in the animal’s favorite places, placing bait in them - nuts or other tasty food. It can be most easily obtained in late autumn or winter in forests and gardens, while raking dry leaves and twigs. Having climbed into a nest for the winter, built under dry leaves, hazel dormouse easily fall into the hands of an experienced hunter, as they betray their presence by squeaking; then the hunter carefully digs up the nest, wraps it tightly in fur and takes it home, where he arranges the animals in a cage or gives it to some amateur. If you get your hands on a hazel dormouse, it’s easy to make it completely handmade. It would never occur to her to use violence against her master, to defend herself and to bite; in the most severe fright, it limits itself to squeaking or hissing loudly. She soon submits to her fate, calmly gives herself into the hands and submits to the will of man, abandons all wildness, although she does not lose her innate timidity and timidity. In England they are kept as pets in ordinary bird cages and sold at the market. Animals can be kept in the most elegant rooms, since they do not emit any bad odor, and only in the summer they smell a little musk, and even then so faintly that they do not cause the slightest disgust.
In captivity, the hazel dormouse undergoes hibernation if the room is not maintained at an uniformly warm temperature. Before hibernation, she tries to make a nest and curls up in it or falls asleep in a corner of the cage. If a sleeping dormouse is brought back into a warm place, it awakens, but soon falls asleep again. Biological encyclopedia Wikipedia
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Dormouses are very cute and affectionate creatures, resembling both a squirrel and a hamster. The hazel dormouse got its name, firstly, for its habitat. After all, where they usually live, there are a large number of trees with a wide variety of nuts. And they call it dormouse because the animal is nocturnal and prefers to take a nap during the day.
General characteristics
All representatives of the dormouse family have similar characteristics, body structure and organs. Dormice's eyes are large and dark, their ears are slightly rounded, and their antennae are very long. When you pick up one of these animals, you can feel how soft and fluffy their fur is. The tail is one of the advantages of the dormouse: with long fur, even fluffier than the animal itself.
Dormouses do not live on the surface of the earth, but prefer to settle in trees. If the area where they live does not have a large number of really tall trees, then dormice can just as comfortably settle in the thickets of any bushes. However, it should be noted that some types of these mice happily spend most of their time on the ground.
According to gardeners, dormouse, or more precisely, some of their varieties, are pests, because these animals may well cause slight damage to trees in the garden or fruits, but it is not that significant.
In fact, the sleepyhead cannot be denied its attractiveness. They are very cute and their behavior is quite entertaining to watch. They can be called long-livers, in comparison with other rodents. But, although dormouse are excellent pets, they are not particularly common. The fact is that, as mentioned earlier, sleepyheads lead an active lifestyle only at night, and during the day they are sleepy and lazy animals. Therefore, many animal lovers do not dare to have them, thinking that dormice will be boring. Unfortunately, they do not suspect that at home these rodents can adapt to the human rhythm of life without any problems.
Lifestyle
There is a common myth that these animals supposedly see poorly during the day and that is why they prefer to stay awake in the dark. Of course, this is not true. Sonya are perfectly oriented in space, regardless of the time of day, thanks to their impeccable vision.
An interesting feature of dormouse is the structure of their skeleton. Mother Nature created it in such a way that every time a dormouse needs to crawl into a very small gap in a tree, which, it would seem, is much smaller than itself, the animal stretches in length in a way that the usual structure of the skeleton of rodents would not allow it. This factor allows animals to find the most secluded places for their nests, which ensures their safety.
Dormouses are endowed not only with all of the above advantages, but also excellent hearing, which allows them to hunt without the slightest difficulty. It's funny to watch how the dormouse's ears move in different directions, acting as a kind of locators studying the area. The largest such ears are on the head of the garden dormouse.
The process of dormouse eating prey is very similar to how squirrels do it. The majority of the animals' daily diet consists of solid food.. They easily opening the shells of various nuts with his sharp teeth.
If they didn’t know how to hide so well from all the dangers that await them, then perhaps they would have died out long ago, because they rarely replenish their population. Puberty of the animals occurs late, and they, unlike other rodents, mate very little, only twice a year.
In addition, there are rarely more than five cubs in a litter. However, dormice make excellent mothers who protect their offspring from all sorts of dangers.
Species
Only three types of dormouse have become widespread in Russia: hazel dormouse, forest dormouse and garden dormouse. All types of these animals are perfect for keeping at home.
Hazel
In nature hazel dormouse prefer to settle in bushes. The size of these rodents is small, about ten centimeters. Sonya is not picky and, if necessary, will live comfortably in tree hollows. You can also often find dormouse in birdhouses. In winter, the dormouse moves from its nest to a cozy burrow, which it builds in the roots of trees.
If you want to keep a hazel dormouse at home, please note that the cage should be quite high and spacious, because animals cannot live without climbing various branches, as they are accustomed to doing in their natural habitat. It should be noted that there should be several houses in a cage. This is due to the fact that animals feel more comfortable in nature if there are several secluded places where they can rest.
This species is fed a mixture of different grains, and the animals receive sweets and nuts as treats. Despite their attractiveness, hazel dormouse are still not ideal pets for several reasons.
Garden
They are considered beauties due to their fur and interesting spots on their faces, which resemble a carnival mask, which gives them a special charm. The fur coat of garden dormouse tends to shimmer with gold, there is a tassel on the long tail, and the eyes and ears, which are very large and expressive in their own way, complete the already impeccable image.
Future owners of garden dormouse should take into account that animals love movement and prefer to eat animal food, although they do not give up various grains and nuts. Of course, the cage of this type must be very spacious. An ideal place of residence for them would be a large enclosure where the animals can run around to their heart's content. The dormouse's daily diet includes mealworms and insect larvae.
Lesnaya
Forest dormouse are very similar to their cousins, garden dormouse. But while the latter can be found quite often, forest dormouses try to choose places to live away from people. For this and several other reasons, they do not make particularly good pets.
African
This species is the most popular among breeders. It can most often be found on sale in pet stores. A fairly large rodent, the body length of which is sixteen centimeters without a tail and thirty-nine with it. African Dormouses are very attractive. Their fur coat has an ashen tint, and their belly is cream-colored. And the tail, whose main color is brown, has a white tip.
The daily diet of this species includes a variety of grains, various fruits, and insects. As you can understand, there will be no difficulties in choosing food for your pet. The main advantage of animals is their sociability, friendliness and the ability to quickly become attached to the owner. If you train your pet, he will easily begin to respond to his name.
Some people think that keeping these animals is more difficult than other rodents. But this is far from true. Rodent is pretty unpretentious and very affectionate. However, there are some subtleties in keeping these rodents, which we will now discuss.
Firstly, it should be noted that the cage for your pet should be made of solid metal, and the pallet is made of very high quality. Because dormouse can chew through plastic things and completely destroy them in a matter of seconds. The only difficulty is that this kind of cells are rarely found on the market or in stores, and are most often made to order, and therefore will be more expensive than ordinary ones. If it is more convenient for you, you can buy a terrarium instead of such a cage, but keep in mind that it must be well ventilated.
The drinking bowl, which should definitely be in the cage, should be made of a nipple, just like the animal’s feeder. Dormice eat more than all other rodents, so It is important to ensure that your pet does not overeat, because problems with excess weight can have a detrimental effect on Sonya’s health. The bedding in the cage can be made from sawdust or wood pellets. Be sure to arrange a house for the animal, because it can only sleep in its own shelter.
To sum it up, we can say with confidence that dormouse are affectionate and friendly creatures that make wonderful pets!
At night, the dormouse silently moves among the dense foliage of trees and bushes in search of food. Why was this lively animal called dormouse? Because in winter the animal falls into a long hibernation, which lasts seven, and in cold regions - all eight months.
REPRODUCTION
The mating period for dormouse begins in June and ends in July. The female generally bears offspring once a year.
The male dormouse courtes the female in a unique way. He pursues his chosen one, emitting a loud squeak. Three weeks after mating, the female gives birth to 4 to 6 cubs, for which she builds a nest of leaves and moss in a hollow tree or in an empty bird's nest.
Dormouse babies are born blind, naked and completely helpless; they are completely dependent on their mother. After three weeks, their eyes open and fur grows. The mother takes care of her offspring for quite a long time; she has to get food, often moving a considerable distance from the nest.
LIFESTYLE
Dormouse first lived in deciduous forests. Today it is also found in high mountain forests and gardens if fruit trees and shrubs grow there. These animals are active at night. They search for food in trees and bushes, deftly climbing trunks and jumping from branch to branch. If the intended fruit falls down, the dormouse flies after it, keeping its limbs and tail parallel to the ground. Animals usually do not move far from the nest. They return to their home with the first rays of the sun. The dormouse's nest is covered with dry leaves and twigs and is usually located in a hollow tree, in a gap between stones, under the roof of a house or in an empty bird house. Sonya the Shelf can simultaneously use several living spaces, which are located a short distance from each other. The dormouse spends 7-8 months in its winter shelter.
WHAT DOES IT EAT?
The dormouse is a herbivore that only occasionally eats insects, bird eggs or chicks. The diet of the dormouse is usually dominated by nuts, acorns, and chestnuts. At the end of summer, she prepares for winter by accumulating fat reserves. At this time, the dormouse raids warehouses, storage facilities, and cellars, where she finds plenty of apples and other delicacies.
SONYA-SHELF AND MAN
The ancient Romans specially bred and fattened polchki, the dishes from which were considered one of the most delicious at feasts. Since dormouse eat almost exclusively plant foods, their meat is very tender. In some European countries, the dormouse is called the “edible mouse.” Nowadays, people continue to hunt the dormouse. This animal is considered a garden pest, since it damages the trunks and branches of young trees with its sharp claws and teeth.
WATCHING SONNYA
Watching the dormouse, which is nocturnal, is really not an easy task. Sonya can be found in his tent by a climber or a tourist who, having stopped to spend the night in the park, is located on the lawn under a chestnut or oak tree. Sometimes she rustles in the pantry and leaves “material evidence” of her presence in the bird feeder - piles of excrement, and gnaws on the bark, branches and buds of trees. In the fall, the dormouse sneaks into the pantries where apples are stored. To get a closer look at the dormouse, you can resort to to such a trick: hanging a jar with a small amount of jam at the bottom from a branch. Sonya will probably want to try the delicacies and will go down in the jar, from which she, of course, needs to be released the next day.
INTERESTING FACTS. DID YOU KNOW THAT...
- One pet owner said that in 10 weeks three animals ate 272 cherries, 92 pears, 64 apples, 42 apricots, 25 grapes, 58 plums, 526 gooseberries and several hundred pumpkin seeds.
- The ancient Romans prepared delicious dishes from dormouse. To do this, they raised animals in special gliraria cages, and obtained especially tender meat for the holiday by feeding the dormice with acorns and chestnuts.
CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF SONYA-WOLF. DESCRIPTION
Head: Dormouse has large round ears and a pink, hairless nose. Eyes with black border.
Meal: The dormouse eats while sitting on its hind legs and holds food in its front legs, while its tail lies on the ground - unlike a squirrel's, which is pressed to its back.
Limbs: claws and soft pads on the paws are adapted for climbing trees.
Wool: short and soft, brown-gray or smoky gray with a silver tint on the back, white on the belly.
Tail: length equal to body length, fluffy, covered with long hair. This is a vulnerable part of the body - dormice without a tail are often found.
- Habitat of the dormouse
WHERE DOES HE LIVE?
Dormouse lives in most of Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, Asia Minor and the Caucasus. In 1902 it was acclimatized in Great Britain.
PROTECTION AND PRESERVATION
The common dormouse in Europe is found only in isolated areas of its range. To preserve the species, it is necessary to prevent the cutting down of old deciduous forests, as well as bushes.
Dormouse / Glis glis. Video (00:02:08)
We met him in a hunter's house in the Caucasus Mountains, he was peacefully but very noisily gnawing on a one-year-old piece of bread. This funny animal wasn’t even scared when I started filming it by shining a flashlight on it!
Dormouse / Edible dormouse. Video (00:00:23)
Hazel Dormouse, or flycatcher (lat. Muscardinus avellanarius) is a mammal of the dormouse family of the order of rodents.
In the deciduous forests of Europe and northern Turkey, you can often find very pretty rodents that resemble squirrels - hazel dormouse. The animals got their name thanks to their constant love for hazel fruits and daytime sleep in cozy nests. They also feed on a variety of seeds and berries.
It is worth noting that you can check the presence of these rodents in a particular area in a very simple way: to do this, you need to find a hazel nut, gnawed in a manner characteristic of hazel dormouse. They place their houses in hollow trees or on the branches of bushes. Hazel dormouse spend the winter hibernating in nests underground.
Hazel Dormouse- an animal that resembles a miniature squirrel. It is the size of a mouse: body length 15 cm, body weight 15-25 g. This is one of the smallest dormouse. The tail is long, 6-7.7 cm, with a tassel at the end.
The muzzle is slightly blunt; ears are small, rounded; the mustache is long, up to 40% of the body length. Hazel dormouse is the most arboreal species among dormouse, which is reflected in the structure of their limbs. 4 fingers of the hand are almost the same length; The first toe is smaller than the others and is perpendicular to them. When moving along the branches, the hands turn to the sides almost at a right angle.
The color of the upper body of the hazel dormouse is buffy-red, sometimes with a reddish tint; the lower side is lighter with a fawn tint. There may be light, almost white spots on the throat, chest and belly. Fingers are white. The tip of the tail is dark or, conversely, light, depigmented.
Hazel Dormouse lives in deciduous and mixed forests, settling in places with rich undergrowth and undergrowth of hazel, rose hips, euonymus, mountain ash, bird cherry, viburnum and other fruit and berry trees and shrubs, which provides the animals with a food supply (in particular, alternation of ripening food) and good protective conditions.
It can be found along forest or country roads, along the edges of clearings, and in overgrown clearings. In the mountains it rises up to 2000 m above sea level. In the Yaroslavl and Vladimir regions, dormice prefer deciduous forests with a predominance of linden, ash, and oak. In the Volga region, hazel dormouse can also be found in coniferous forests with a rich admixture of deciduous and broad-leaved species.
The hazel dormouse lives primarily in the undergrowth, skillfully climbing bushes, even the thinnest and most flexible branches. Active from dusk until morning.
The nest is located on a branch at a height of 1-2 m above the ground or in a low-lying hollow. Dormouse also willingly occupies birdhouses, titmouses, and nest boxes, regardless of whether the house is already occupied by birds or not. Redstarts and pied flycatchers suffer to a greater extent from dormouse, and great tits and blue tits, which are capable of repelling this small rodent, suffer to a lesser extent.
The hazel dormouse's food ration consists mainly of seeds of tree and shrub species (nuts, acorns, chestnuts, beech, linden nuts) and a variety of berries and fruits.
The hazel dormouse's favorite food is hazel nuts. In early spring, the animal uses young shoots and buds for food. According to some sources, there is no animal food in his diet; According to others, it is believed that the hazel dormouse attacks small passerine birds and destroys egg clutches. The dormouse avoids foods high in cellulose because it lacks a cecum where cellulose is digested.
These animals are easily tamed and can even bear offspring in captivity.
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