Family: Muridae = Mouse. Mouse family Set family of white mice sylvanian families
MOUSE FAMILY = MURIDAE GRAY, 1821
The family includes rodents of various sizes from small to medium. Body length is from 5 to 48.5 cm. The majority of the physique is relatively slender. The cervical interception is well defined. The limbs are usually of medium length, with the hind limbs being slightly longer than the front ones, less often significantly longer than them, or the length of the front and hind limbs being approximately the same. The long tail is usually hairless, sometimes covered with sparse hair. The tail has well-defined skin scales. In some species the tail is quite covered thick hair or has a tassel at the end. In some climbing forms the tail may be semi-grasping. The limbs are five-fingered with varying degrees of reduction of the outer fingers. In some arboreal species, the first finger on the forelimbs or hind limbs is opposed to the remaining fingers and has a nail instead of a claw. The soles of the limbs are hairless. Semi-aquatic species may have swim membranes on the hind limbs between the toes. Representatives of three genera (Beamys, Saccostomus and Cricetomys) have cheek pouches. The hairline is varied. It can be homogeneous, silky and soft, or sharply divided into elongated, coarse spine and thin soft fluff, or turn into short, thin needles. The color of the dorsal surface and body is usually brown or gray with red or black tints. There is no sexual dimorphism in coloration.
The skull is elongated. The brain capsule is convex or somewhat flattened. The facial region is sometimes shortened. The zygomatic arches are usually weak. The infraorbital foramen is somewhat elongated in height, with an expanded upper section, through which part of the anterior lobe of the masseter muscle passes. Occasionally, the infraorbital foramen is large and round. As a rule, there is no sagittal ridge. There is also no lambdoid or it is poorly developed. Frontoparietal ridges are usually present. Bone auditory tympani vary in size, most are small and thin-walled. In the lower jaw, the coronoid process is often poorly developed, and the articular process is quite large. Typical dental formula=16. The number of molars may be reduced (genus Mayermys).
The cheek teeth may or may not have roots. The chewing surface of the cheek teeth usually has projections or transverse ridges, and the projections are usually arranged in three longitudinal rows. The crowns of the cheek teeth are low or medium height, only rarely high. Teeth almost always decrease in size from front to back. Os penis is available.
The placenta is chorioallantoic, discoidal. The number of chromosomes in the diploid set ranges from 32 in Oenomys, 40 in Mus to 50 in Thamnomys and Aethomys and 60 in Micromys.
Distributed almost throughout the globe, with the exception of the highest latitudes. Largest number of the 399 species in the family, it is found in Southeast Asia. Some species, spreading after humans, became cosmopolitan.
Representatives of the family inhabit a wide variety of landscapes. They lead a terrestrial or semi-arboreal (most species), rarely semi-aquatic lifestyle. Some species can move by jumping on their hind limbs. Almost all representatives are adapted to digging holes, although there is no adaptation to an exclusively underground existence. Shelters are holes dug by the rodents themselves, or voids under stones, fallen tree trunks, sometimes hollows, bird nests, or human buildings. Active during the day or night, with arboreal forms usually active at night. They do not hibernate. Some species live alone, others in pairs or family groups, and others form large groups or colonies.
Most species feed on various plant objects and invertebrates. Some species also eat small vertebrates - amphibians, reptiles, birds, their eggs, small rodents, and sometimes fish. There are omnivorous forms. There are from 1 to 22 cubs in a litter. The duration of pregnancy is from 18 to 42 days. Sexual maturity can occur at 35 days of age ( house mouse), or at the age of several months (most species). In the southern parts of their range, they tend to breed year-round, often with several peaks in breeding activity. Life expectancy under natural conditions is 1-3 years. The numbers of some species can vary greatly from year to year. Some species cause significant damage to crops and food supplies. There are species of important epidemiological significance.
To the most general characteristics The spatial and ethological structure of settlements of representatives of the family Muridae can be attributed to the following:
(1) a relatively high degree of individualization of female habitats, which are superimposed by overlapping and significantly larger male habitats in the absence of territory protection;
(2) during the breeding season, aggregations of adult heterosexual individuals are formed, which are relatively isolated in space from other similar formations;
(3) in adult individuals, a significant proportion of peaceful contacts are observed in aggregations; however, females are characterized by territorial dominance relationships based on mutual antagonism, and in males competing for females, agonistic interactions lead to the formation of a dominance hierarchy;
(4) there are no stable pair bonds, and the predominant reproductive strategy is polygyny or promiscuity;
(5) dispersal of young animals occurs within a short period of time after leaving the brood burrows;
(6) with the end of the reproductive period, a redistribution of individuals occurs in aggregations, accompanied by the formation of wintering groups, which mainly include individuals of the same sex.
Thus, seasonal changes in the system of space use are relatively weakly expressed, and we can only talk about the redistribution of individuals in aggregations during the annual breeding cycle.
There are apparently 100 genera (400 species) in the family.
A mouse is a small animal that belongs to the class mammals, order rodents, family mouse (lat. Muridae).
Mouse - description, characteristics and photos. What does a mouse look like?
The length of the mouse’s body, covered with short fur, varies from 5 to 19 cm, depending on the species, and doubles with the tail. These rodents have a rather short neck. The pointed muzzle shows small black beady eyes and small semicircular ears, allowing the mice to hear well. Thin and sensitive whiskers growing around the nose give them the ability to perfectly navigate their surroundings. Mice, unlike mice, do not have cheek pouches.
The mouse's paws are short with five prehensile toes. The surface of the tail is covered with keratinized scales with sparse hairs. The color of the mouse is usually characterized by gray, brown or red tones, but there are variegated and striped individuals, as well as white mice. Animals lead an active lifestyle in the evening or at night. They communicate with each other using a thin squeak.
Types of mice, names and photos.
The mouse family includes 4 subfamilies, 147 genera and 701 species, the most common of which are:
- (lat. Apodemus agrarius) reaches a size of 12.5 cm, not counting the tail, which can be up to 9 cm long. The color of the back of the mouse is gray, with a slight yellowish-brown tint and a dark stripe running along the ridge, and the belly is light gray colors. The habitat of the field mouse includes Germany, Hungary, Switzerland, Poland, Bulgaria, the southern part of Western Siberia and Primorye, Mongolia, Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula and separate territories China. This species of mice lives in wide meadows, in dense thickets of bushes, city gardens and parks, and makes a refuge both in burrows and in any natural shelters. In flooded areas it builds nests on bushes. Depending on the season, the diet may consist of seeds, berries, green parts of plants and various insects. The field mouse is the main pest of grain crops.
- (lat. Apodemus flavicollis) has a reddish-gray color and a light belly (sometimes with a small spot of yellow). The body size of adult individuals reaches 10-13 cm, the tail has approximately the same length. The mouse weighs about 50 grams. This type of mouse is widespread in the forests of Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Bulgaria, Ukraine, the Caucasus, the northern provinces of China and Altai. Yellow-throated mice live on open edges in tree hollows or dug holes, but they can also live in rocky areas. Their diet includes both plant and animal foods. By eating young shoots of fruit trees, they cause significant harm to nurseries.
- Grass mouse (Nilotic grass mouse) (lat. Arvicanthis niloticus) is one of the largest representatives of the mouse family and can reach 19 cm in length, and with the tail - 35 cm. The weight of individual large individuals exceeds 100 g. The fur of the back and sides is dark gray or grayish brown coloring with individual hard and spiny bristles of a darker shade. The belly color is light gray. This type of mouse is most common in African countries, where they live in bushes, forests and savannas. As a refuge, grass mice choose abandoned termite mounds or dig holes on their own, but on occasion they can enter human habitation. The basis of the diet of mice is plant food.
- (lat. Micromys minutus) is one of the smallest rodents in the world. The body length of an adult animal does not exceed 7 cm, the tail - 6.5 cm, and the weight of the baby does not exceed 10 g. The back and sides are plain and have a reddish-brown or brown color, in contrast to the light gray, almost white belly. The muzzle of baby mice is short and blunt, with small ears. The distribution area of this species of mice stretches from west to east from the northwestern provinces of Spain to Korea and Japan, in the south to Kazakhstan, China and the northern regions of Mongolia. The mouse lives in forest and forest-steppe zones, in meadows with tall grass. In the summer, mice use nests made in the grass as shelter, and overwinter in burrows, haystacks, and human residential or outbuildings. The basis of the diet of baby mice is the seeds of cereals and legumes, as well as small insects. They often settle near granaries, causing enormous damage to agriculture.
- (lat. Mus musculus) is the most widespread species of the rodent family on the planet. The body length of an adult mouse does not exceed 9.5 cm, and together with the tail - 15 cm. The weight of the mouse is 12-30 g. The color of the fur on the sides and back is gray with a brown tint, and on the abdomen from light gray to white. Individuals living in desert areas are sandy in color. The mouse's muzzle is sharp with small rounded ears. The distribution range of this species of mice does not include only the territory of the Far North, Antarctica and high mountain regions. House mice live in all types of landscapes and natural areas, very often penetrate into human outbuildings and residential buildings. In natural conditions, they dig minks on their own, although they can also occupy homes abandoned by other rodents. They feed on seeds and juicy green parts of plants, and once they enter a person’s home, they eat everything they can get their teeth into – from bread and sausages to paraffin candles.
- (lat. Lemniscomys striatus) is a small rodent: the length of the body is 10-15 cm, intermittent stripes of light colors are visible along the back and along the sides. Under natural conditions, striped mice rarely live more than 6-7 months; in captivity they live two to three times longer. The menu of these individuals includes mainly plant “dishes”: root vegetables, soft seeds, juicy fruits, and occasionally small insects.
- (akomis) (lat. Acomys) is a rather cute representative of the mouse family, the owner of huge eyes and equally large ears. The size of the spiny mouse, including its tail, is 13-26 cm, the back of the animal is covered with thin needles, like a regular mouse. Amazing feature These animals have regeneration: when in danger, the mouse is able to shed a piece of skin, leaving the attacker bewildered. The skin is quickly restored without damage to the individual. The spiny mouse lives in Asian countries and is found in Cyprus and Africa. Its diet is focused on plant foods; this animal is often kept as a pet.
Where does the mouse live?
The distribution range of mice covers almost all climatic zones, zones and continents of the globe. Mouse representatives can be found in tropical thickets, coniferous or deciduous forests, steppes and deserts, on mountain slopes or in swampy areas. Mice also live in people's homes.
Mice can build nests from grass stems, occupy abandoned burrows, or dig complex systems of underground passages. Unlike species that live in swamps, mountain, steppe and forest mice swim poorly.
What does a mouse eat?
The basis of the diet of mice is plant food: grass seeds, fruits of trees or shrubs and cereals (oats, barley, millet, buckwheat). Mice that live in swampy areas, wet and flooded meadows, feed on leaves, buds or flowers of plants and shrubs. Some types of mice prefer protein supplement as insects, worms, beetles, spiders
The mouse does not hibernate in winter and can move under the snow crust without appearing on the surface. To survive the cold, she has to create substantial food reserves in pantries located near the entrance to the burrow.
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Mouse family (Muridae)
Mammals / Rodents / Mouse / Mammalia / Rodentia / Muridae
The family unites animals that are very diverse in size, appearance and lifestyle. The sizes of mice range from small to large: body length 5-48 cm. Most have a tail that exceeds half the body. It is usually covered with ring-shaped horny scales, between which sparse short hair protrudes. Most species do not have cheek pouches. The chewing surfaces of the cheek teeth are usually tuberculate, and on the upper teeth the tubercles are located in 3 longitudinal rows, although row 1 (the outermost) is represented by only one tubercle. Most species have cheek teeth with roots.
Mice are one of the most numerous not only in the order of rodents, but also among mammals in general. In terms of the number of genera and species, mice are second only to hamsters, uniting about 105 genera and more than 400 species. Small representatives of the family are called mice, larger ones - rats. Mice and rats have a unique ability to adapt to any living conditions, which has allowed them to spread throughout the world, with the exception of Antarctica. Traveling with humans in the holds of ships, rodents ended up on the most remote oceanic islands. There they created serious competition for animal species, robbing them of food and often the lives of their young.
Forest crumbs
Small mice live in the forests and forest-steppes of Europe and Asia. These little ones grow up to 7 cm, their tail is almost equal to the length of the body, with which the mouse clings to the blades of grass on which it climbs. The tiny mice are so small that they climb the spikelet like a tree trunk, and the stem does not bend under their weight. Having reached the grains, they begin to eat. Babies are not picky when choosing food. In addition to seeds, they also feed on green parts of the plant, eat mushrooms, worms, spiders, insect larvae, steal bird eggs and do not disdain carrion. Their home is haystacks, grassy hummocks and other secluded places. Sometimes, settling among the tall grasses, the little ones build cozy nests for themselves. The mouse, climbing onto the stems of grass or bushes to a height of 30 cm to a meter, begins to cook building material. Carefully gnawing off blades of grass, the mouse cuts them into even strips and, sitting on its hind legs, begins to weave a nest. So, little by little, on a fork in the branches of a bush or between several blades of grass, a spherical nest appears with a small entrance on the side. In this nest, the mother mouse gives birth to 3-4 babies, who will not leave the parental home for another month.
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House mouse |
Other mice also make similar grass nests: Philippine swamp mice and New Guinea banana rats. Banana rats are interesting because their females carry their newborn rats on their bellies. Scientists even initially believed that the banana rat was a marsupial.
The house mouse (Mus musculus) is small.
Mammals / Rodents / Mouse / HOUSE MOUSE Mammalia / Rodentia / Muridae / Mus musculus
Body length is 7-10 cm, the tail (covered with ring-shaped horny scales and sparse short hair) makes up 50-100% of the body length. The color of the fur of desert forms is light, yellowish-sandy, with a pure white underside, and the color of the northern form is the well-known “mouse-gray” on the back and sides and light gray on the underside. Domesticated white mouse.
The habitat of the house mouse has become almost worldwide (cosmopolitan). She was not in Antarctica, but it can hardly be said with certainty that she is not there now. Habitats vary throughout its worldwide range. They differ in direct dependence on latitudinal (geographical) zones and altitudinal zones (in mountainous regions). The homeland of the house mouse was most likely desert oases North Africa and Western Asia, where she lives now; in addition, it is known in fossil form. In the deserts and southern semi-deserts of Central Asia and Southern Kazakhstan, house mice live in the same way as in their ancient homeland - in the deserts of North Africa. Confined only to oases. The attachment of mice to bodies of water is very clear. House mice take refuge in burrows. Their burrows are small and simple in structure: with a nesting chamber located at a depth of 20-30 cm and usually one exit. But they prefer to settle in the burrows of other rodents: Trans-Caspian voles, mole voles, gerbils, etc. They usually occupy free or unvisited parts of residential burrows. They often settled even in residential nopax nezokii. For some reason, this evil rodent treats house mice kindly. House mice also settle in human residential buildings, but do not show much affection for them. Mice can move in and out of buildings at any time of the year. There were no mass migrations of mice into buildings in the desert zone in autumn. Mice breed in the desert zone throughout the warm period from March to November. During this time, they bring 2-3 litters, from 2-3 to 9-10 (usually 5-6) cubs in each. They also reproduce in heated buildings in winter. In the steppe and northern semi-desert zones, house mice live differently. They don’t gravitate towards bodies of water here, they don’t settle close to the water’s edge, and they leave flooded areas. They settle in large numbers in the fields, where they move depending on the crop, the phenology of its growing season, ripening, harvesting, plowing, etc. They live differently in different areas of the steppe. In the steppes of Ukraine east of the left bank of the Dnieper, in Moldova in the Hungarian Lowland, there lives a special ecological form called the “Kurganchik mouse.” At the end of summer, they form mixed clusters of 15 to 25-30 individuals of different sexes and ages, which organize a complex collective season with a large common nesting chamber and a special toilet chamber. Before constructing burrows, they energetically collect large food reserves for the winter from ears, panicles, and large seeds. Kurganchik mice (like other rodents) do not drag their supplies into holes, but place them on the surface of the ground above the hole. Panicles and ears different plants(weed and cultivated) they are laid separately. When the pyramid of reserves becomes large - up to 10-15 kg, the animals cover it from above with leaves and then with earth. First, they use the earth thrown to the surface when constructing a collective burrow, and then they take the earth from the ring trench around the collected reserves. This is how a mound is formed, not a “mound”, as it is called, but a real mound up to 60-80 cm high and up to 2 m long. The thickness of the earthen roof over the reserves reaches 20-25 cm. To the base of the pyramid of reserves, holes are laid from the nesting chamber , through which mice penetrate to supplies without leaving the surface. If a mound with supplies is destroyed, for example during autumn plowing, then the mice do not build another mound. The Kurganchik mouse and the house mouse in Ukraine belong to the same subspecies due to their morphological identity. (In recent years, species differences have been shown between the house and Kurganchik mice. They interbreed with each other and produce normal offspring. Kurganchik mice that have lost their barrows become indistinguishable from house mice. In the Lower Dnieper region and on the Kerch Peninsula, according to many years of observations by experienced zoologists, In some years, house mice build kurgapchiks, in others they do not. Such inconstancy has nothing to do with speciation.
Since ancient times, people have tamed wild animals, benefiting from their maintenance and breeding. But there are also animals that entered a human house without permission, took root and, without bringing any benefit, learned to steal food supplies from their owners and destroy the harvest. This is what a house mouse is like. Throughout the history of mankind, people have been fighting this annoying neighbor, but the results of this struggle are insignificant. A small nimble mouse easily finds shelter in any crevice, and the cold is not scary for it, if only there was food. Even in winter, in an unheated hut, house mice successfully reproduce, bringing 3-4 litters of 6-10 cubs each year. So, in a year one mouse gives birth to up to 40 small voracious pests. Therefore, even if the owner managed to somehow eliminate the mice from the house, a couple of settlers from the neighboring hut will quickly restore their population.
Other mice
We imagine mice as small animals with round ears, a long hairless tail and an unsightly gray fur coat. However, among the mice there are very extravagantly colored individuals. These are the striped mice that live in Africa. Their body is painted with longitudinal stripes, and their tail is covered with rather thick short hair. It is also surprising that among mice there are animals that, like hedgehogs, have acquired spines. These are the spiny mice that live on the islands of Crete and Cyprus, in Western Asia, in Saudi Arabia and in Africa. Their backs are literally studded with numerous sharp needles mixed with fur.
In Australia, there are jerboa mice, which look more like jerboas than mice and, when in a hurry, quickly jump on their elongated hind legs. These mice go out at night in search of food: leaves, seeds, berries, and spend the day in deep, complex burrows, which they dig themselves.
The eternal enemies of man
Since time immemorial, rats have brought destruction to the world, spreading terrible infections such as plague and typhus. In 1347, black rats, carriers of plague fleas, brought the “Black Death” to Europe, and the most terrible plague epidemic in human history began, killing about a third of the population of Europe.
Every year, rats eat 1/5 of the world's grain harvest. The appetites of these rodents can be judged by the volume of supplies found in their burrows: gray rats (pasyuki) drag several buckets of potatoes, carrots, nuts from cellars into their shelters, steal kilograms of prepared dumplings, cheeses, sausages, steal eggs right from under hens, accumulating up to 3 dozen pieces in their nest boxes
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Black rat |
The lifespan of rats is very short: from one to two and a half years, but these animals are unusually fertile. A female gray rat can give birth to her first offspring at the age of 4-5 months, and she will give birth to 2-3 litters per year, up to 17 pups each. Biologists have calculated that the offspring of just one pair of rats in a year can reach 15 thousand individuals. Of course, a significant part of them die, otherwise rats would have filled the entire Earth in a very short time.
There are about 68 species in the genus of true rats. This is the most representative genus among mammals. Real rats are ubiquitous, but not all of them coexist with people as closely as the pasyuk rat and the black rat. “Wild” rats live in mountain forests and river valleys in tropical and subtropical zones. They can climb trees, swim well, build nests in trees and dig holes.
The largest number of species is concentrated in Southeast Asia. Gray rats also came to Europe from the East. This happened in the 16th century, and they penetrated into North America only in the second half of the 18th century. “Wild” rats, such as small rats, mountain rats, Malaysian rats and others, do not cause significant harm to people. On the contrary, they have many benefits: rats destroy harmful insects, and they themselves are food for a number of predators.
Rat ( Rattus norvegicus)
The rat (Rattus norvegicus) in the literature is called the gray rat, pasyuk, brown rat, red and barn rat. “Grey rat” predominates among these names, although it is inaccurate. The color of the fur is not gray, but brownish-brown. Rarely, black pasyuks were encountered (in Moscow, for example, there was one black pasyuk for every 1-2 thousand normally colored ones). Domesticated (laboratory) pasyuki are white with red eyes, variegated (black and white), and geneticists have developed several color variations. Slightly larger in size than black and Turkestan rats. The length of the tail reaches about 80% of the body length. The ear is relatively short: it is about half the length of the foot. The gray rat's habitat has become almost cosmopolitan. The rat is still absent from Antarctica and some islands of the High Arctic. And its homeland is in the southern regions of East Asia, which includes Indochina, the eastern provinces of China, the Korean Peninsula and the southern regions of Primorsky Krai. From there, the gray rat spread throughout the world. It settled partly on its own, more often with human assistance. Resettlement on foot took place only along river valleys, and travel was carried out mainly by various river and sea transport, from boats and barges to modern sea liners and submarines. It traveled much less frequently with other modes of transport (railroads, highways, and airplanes). For example, Central Asian railway began to operate in 1885. It starts from Krasnovodsk, which has been densely populated by gray rats since the middle of the last century. She lives there not only in the buildings of the seaport, but throughout the entire city, including the buildings railway complexes warehouses, train station, residential buildings. But for more than 100 years, not a single movement of gray rats by rail from Krasnovodsk to Ashgabat, Mary or Chardzhou has been recorded.
The means of rat dispersal have not only biological, but often practical significance. Rats are brought into any river and sea port regularly (on every navigation), so it is imperative to have a promptly and qualified control (quarantine, anti-plague) station. Such stations have been operating for many decades in the ports of Odessa, Batumi, St. Petersburg, Vladivostok, etc. But at railway stations, even large ones, such stations are not needed. The exception is subways. Rats settle in the subway trunks willingly and actively (2-3 weeks before the opening of traffic) and live there in large numbers. They use subway cars, and move along the trunks regularly and over long distances for many kilometers. The migratory activity of gray rats in the city is also of great practical interest. It manifests itself in different ways. In cities where gray rats entered for the first time, their settlement proceeds very quickly. Thus, at the beginning of the century, the population of rats in Barnaul was precisely traced; the year of their arrival, the rats settled only in the buildings of the pier, in the second year they occupied the blocks bordering the pier, in the third year they reached the center. In the fourth year they occupied the entire city, and in the fifth year they began to populate suburban villages. The population of the gray rat in Tashkent, where it was brought in 1942, proceeded at approximately the same speed. In four years it occupied the entire city, and in the fifth year it entered the suburban villages. Gray rats that have settled in buildings in cities, located far from the exits from day-to-day buildings, become very canned, “attached” to the house in which they were born and raised.
Rats enter new buildings only through open entrance doors (especially at night) and through the ventilation openings of the basement and first floors. Sealing the ventilation holes with metal mesh and automatically closing the entrance doors will make the new building inaccessible to rats for many years.
The diet of the gray rat is varied. In natural biotopes, it lives only along the banks of water bodies (in burrows). It feeds on coastal plants and animals: terrestrial mollusks, insects, etc. Pasyuki often and willingly swim and dive, stay in the water column for a long time and even catch prey there: mollusks, swimmers and small fish. Animal food prefers plant food. For semi-aquatic life The gray rat has swimming membranes between the bases of the toes of its hind legs. On ships and in land-based buildings, pasyuks feed on all the food products that are stored there, and on everything that people eat. But out of all the variety, they prefer products of animal origin, including raw fish and meat. In refrigerators where meat carcasses are stored (at -17 ° C), eating one raw meat, they multiply intensively and grow quickly. The reproduction of gray rats is of great practical interest. It was previously known that rats in natural biotopes breed during the warm seasons of the year, while those living in buildings breed throughout the year. It was assumed that rats in buildings produce up to 8 litters per year; the average number of embryos is 8-10, more than in other species of mouse-like rodents. Females reach sexual maturity at approximately 3 months of age. But before 6 months, when all were already clearly sexually mature, only about 1% of females begin to reproduce. Over the next 6 months, another 7% of females begin to breed. And 92% of females remain barren until the age of one year. The older the females become, the higher their fertility - the number of cubs in one litter and the number of offspring per year. The gestation period of the gray rat lasts 21-22 days. Mature females alone produce 2.2 litters per year, or about 17-18 pups for each pair of sires. Of the 9 pairs of rat pups born in a year, only 1 pair will begin breeding, and then only at the very end of the year. Caution (a suspicious attitude towards everything that a person offers) is a biologically (and practically) important feature of gray rats.
The caution of Pasyuks has been known for a long time. .It is difficult to fight rats. Traps, mousetraps and other human tricks have no effect on them. Rats live in groups of 5-15 individuals. If one member of the group dies in a mousetrap, the rats inform each other about the danger, and no one will fall for this trick a second time. The same will happen with the poison placed: the rats will remember why their relative died, and will no longer touch the bait. Rats have developed resistance to many deadly poisons. Droughts, floods, doses of radiation that are lethal for most animals - all these rats need no degree of caution, the English ecologist D. Chitty accidentally found out in 1941. He decided to conduct a census without catches, which did not reflect the actual number of pasyuks, based on the mass of the bait eaten. He poured pre-weighed wheat into plywood boxes with slits in the side walls and placed the boxes in the places where he decided to conduct censuses. The first check the next day struck me with an unexpected result: in all the boxes there were rats, of which there were many, but the wheat was not touched. On the 2nd day of the experiment, they did not touch the wheat again. On the 3rd day only a few grams were eaten, on the 4th - a little more. Only on the 8th-9th day did the pasyuki eat almost all the wheat offered to them (up to 3.5 kg in each box). To successfully catch rats, it is necessary to overcome their suspicion, accustom them to harmless bait and to the sight of unguarded traps. In places where gray rats were not partially caught, preliminary feeding and training to unguarded traps should be carried out for at least 6-7 days, and in places where rats were partially caught, at least 10-12 days. At the beginning of complementary feeding, rats should be offered a set of available foods: pieces of wheat and rye bread, vegetables (beets, carrots), cheese, pieces of boiled meat and fish. Take a closer look at which of these products the rats in a given room take first and eat most willingly. The catch should be carried out only with the bait that the rats preferred. In different objects, preference will be different, which is impossible to predict in advance. Organizations carrying out deratization (riding buildings of rats) very often ignore the most important ethological feature of pasyuks - their caution. In all cities, processing is carried out, staying at the site for 2 days. During this period, pest control agents catch (or poison) a small part of the rats, while the majority of them continue to live. Such thoughtless deratization has been carried out for decades, but does not give the desired results.
house mouse white gray rat
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Gray rat |
In the mouse family, in addition to real rats, there are a number of animals bearing this name. So, in Australia and on the islands New Guinea and Tasmania there lives a rather large golden-bellied beaver rat, a representative of the genus of Australian water rats. This animal lives near bodies of water, along the banks of which it digs holes. Water rats are excellent swimmers; their paws are even equipped with membranes. They hunt mollusks, crustaceans, frogs, fish and even water birds. The golden-bellied beaver rat is a favorite hunting object for local residents; its fur is highly prized. The striped maned rat that lives in the East Africa. The long and rather coarse hair on the back forms a ridge, which gives this rat some resemblance to a porcupine.
In the forests of Africa live giant hamster-like rats, reaching half a meter in length. These are very secretive solitary animals, scouring the forest floor at night in search of food. Bush rats, which lead an arboreal lifestyle, also live in African forests. They are staunch vegetarians, eating leaves and seeds. In the crowns of trees they build cozy nests from dry leaves, in which they spend daylight hours.
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abstract, added 09/18/2015
Position of Sitnikov in the typological classification. Distinctive features of angiosperms. Features of the structure of cells, tissues and subcellular structures. Habitat of the rush family and reproduction characteristics. The largest genus of the family.
course work, added 10/10/2012
Family of plants of the order Beeceae. Origin of birch trees. Six modern genera. Distribution in the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere. Features families. Cases of hybridization between warty birch and shrubby birch.
presentation, added 12/07/2015
The impact of prolonged winter thaws on hibernating animals. Reasons for rapid changes in the numbers of certain animal populations. Problems of increasing number of stray dogs. Reasons why bats hibernate during the winter.
abstract, added 11/16/2010
A family of monocots from the order Liliaceae. Perennial herbs with rhizomes, bulbs or corms. Division of the family into subfamilies. The use of plants of the family in the treatment of various diseases in folk medicine.
Mouse family
(Muridae)****
* * * * Mice are the largest family of modern rodents and mammals in general. It has about 120 genera and approximately 400-500 species.
No other family gives us such a thorough idea of what rodents are, such as mice. The family is not only the richest in genera and species, but also one of the most widespread, and, thanks to its tendency to follow man everywhere, it is even now capable of even greater distribution, at least as regards some individual genera. The members of this family, without exception, are small in stature, but this disadvantage is fully compensated by the number of individuals. Wanting to give a general picture of the appearance of these animals, we can say that the distinctive features of the family are: a sharp snout, large, black eyes, wide, deeply concave ears covered with sparse hair, a long, hairy or often bare-scaly tail and small, thin legs. delicate paws with five toes, as well as a short soft coat.
More or less in relation to these external changes of the basic type is the structure of the teeth. Typically, the incisors are narrow and thicker than wide, with a wide sharp edge or a simple point, they are flat or convex on the front surface, white or colored, and sometimes with a longitudinal groove in the middle. Three molars in each row, decreasing from front to back, form the rest of the dental apparatus, but their number is also reduced to two or increased to four in the upper jaw. They are either covered with enamel tubercles and have two roots, or with transverse folds and lateral notches. Chewing wears them down, and then the surface becomes smooth or folded. In some species cheek pouches are also found, but in others they are completely absent; Some people have a simple stomach, others have a very constricted stomach, etc.
Mice are cosmopolitans, but, unfortunately, in the worst sense of the word. All parts of the globe know representatives of this family, and those fortunate islands that have hitherto been spared by them will, in the course of time, certainly be populated by at least one species, since many of the mice have a passion for travel. Mice inhabit all countries, and although they prefer the plains of temperate and warm latitudes to the harsh mountainous areas or the cold north, they are also found where the border of vegetation reaches, therefore, in mountainous areas they reach the line of eternal snow *.
* Mice are especially diverse in the tropics of Africa and Asia, but in the natural landscapes of the temperate zone, they are inferior in number and diversity to voles and other hamsters. The Western Hemisphere and remote oceanic islands have mastered only 4-5 species of mice already in historical times, becoming companions of man and using his swimming equipment. Contrary to popular belief, only a small part of the family members are attracted to anthropogenic landscapes and have become synanthropic animals.
Russia is home to 12-15 mouse species from 5 genera. Well-appointed areas, fertile fields, plantations are, of course, their favorite habitats, but swampy areas, the banks of rivers and streams are also quite suitable for them, and even skinny, dry plains barely covered with grass and bushes still provide them with the opportunity for existence . Some species avoid the proximity of human settlements, others, on the contrary, impose themselves on a person like uninvited guests and follow him wherever he establishes a new settlement, even across the sea. They inhabit houses and courtyards, barns and stables, gardens and fields, meadows and forests, everywhere causing harm and disaster with their teeth. Only a few species live alone or in pairs, most live in societies, and some species are found in countless herds. Almost all have an extraordinary ability to reproduce; the number of young in one litter alone ranges from 6 to 21, and most species give birth several times a year, not even excluding winter.
Mice are adapted in every way to torment and torment people, and the whole structure of the body seems to especially help them in this. Agile and agile in their movements, they are excellent at running, jumping, climbing, swimming, getting through the narrowest holes, and if they do not find access, they use their sharp teeth to make their way through. They are quite smart and cautious, but at the same time daring, shameless, arrogant, cunning and courageous; all their senses are refined, but their sense of smell and hearing are far superior to the rest. Their food consists of all edible substances of the plant and animal kingdom*.
* The secret of mouse success is a good ability to adapt to changing conditions. Mice climb well, run well, can dig holes, and there are semi-aquatic forms. Almost all mice are characterized by nocturnal or twilight activity. They are widely omnivorous in diet. Finally, in mice there is a rapid change of generations, a high rate of reproduction and high mortality.
Seeds, fruits, roots, bark, leaves, grass, which constitute their natural food, are devoured by them no less readily than insects, meat, fat, blood and milk, butter and cheese, skin and bones, and what they cannot eat, they will at least gnaw and bite, like, for example, paper and wood. They drink water very rarely, but they are extremely fond of more nutritious liquids and the most in cunning ways trying to get them. At the same time, they always devastate much more than they eat, and therefore become the most unpleasant enemies of man, inevitably arousing all his hatred; the cruelty that he allows himself in pursuing them, from this point of view, if not excusable, is still understandable. Only a very few of them are harmless and harmless animals and deserve our affection for their dapper appearance, charming movements and good-natured disposition. These include masters in the art of construction, who build their nests better than all other mammals and, due to their small numbers and insignificant food consumption, are not as harmful as their relatives, while other species - also a kind of builders, building their homes underground - become hated precisely because of this circumstance. Some species living in cold and temperate countries undergo hibernation and prepare supplies for the winter**, while others sometimes migrate in countless crowds, which, however, usually ends in their death.
* * Mice undoubtedly store food for the winter, but do not hibernate.
Few breeds are suitable for keeping in captivity, because only the smallest part of the entire family is capable of being easily tamed and is distinguished by a peaceful attitude towards each other. The rest, even in the cage, remain unpleasant, perky, evil creatures who repay with evil the friendship and care devoted to them. Actually, mice do not bring any benefit to humans; even if they sometimes use the skins of one type or another or even eat their meat, this cannot compensate for the enormous harm that this entire family causes.
In everyday life, there are two main groups: rats and mice. This same division is also recognized by science***. Rats are more clumsy and more disgusting, while mice are more beautiful and pretty. In the former, the tail has about 200-260 scaly rings, in the latter from 120 to 180; those legs are thick and strong, those legs are slender and thin; Adult rats are significantly larger than their relatives. In terms of lifestyle, rats themselves differ from real mice quite sharply.
* * * These names do not carry any taxonomic meaning, but only indicate the approximate size of the animal.
With sufficient grounds we can assume that the rats living in Europe did not initially belong to the native animals and only later moved to us. In the writings of ancient writers there is only one single place that could indicate rats; however, it remains unclear what species Amyntas, whose message is cited by Aelian, could mean. According to some reports, the black rat appeared in Europe and Germany earlier than others, followed by the Pasyuk.
It will be enough if I describe the two most famous species, the black rat and the pasyuka.
Black rat(Battus rattus) reaches 35 cm in length, with a body up to 16 cm long and a tail up to 19 cm, the body is dark, brownish-black on top, slightly lighter below, grayish-black*. The hair, dark gray at the base, has a greenish metallic tint. The legs are gray-brown, slightly lighter on the sides. There are 260-270 scaly rings on the relatively long tail. Albinos are not uncommon.
* It is believed that Europe was first populated by the so-called brown rat, then it was replaced by a new wave - the black rat itself.
It is impossible to determine with certainty when this species appeared in Europe. Albert Magnus, the first of the zoologists, describes it as an animal found in Germany. Judging by this, he already lived in Europe in the 13th century. Gesner describes this rat as an animal that is "more familiar to many than loved." The Bishop of Autun at the beginning of the 15th century pronounces a church curse on her; In Sondershausen, a day of prayer and repentance is established to get rid of rats.
It is very possible that these animals come from Persia, where they are still found in incredible numbers**.
Until the first half of the last century, only this species was found in Europe, but since that time the pasyuk began to challenge its place, and with such success that it had to give way everywhere. Although the black rat is still significantly distributed throughout all parts of the earth, it rarely appears in closed masses, and is scattered almost everywhere alone. In Germany it seems to have disappeared everywhere. She also followed man to all latitudes of the globe and traveled with him by land and sea around the world. There is not the slightest doubt that before it had not been found either in America, or in Australia, or in Africa, but ships carried it to all shores, and from the shores it moved further and further inland. Now it is also found in the southern parts of Asia, especially in India, Africa and mainly in Egypt and Morocco, as well as at the Cape of Good Hope, in America, Australia and the Pacific Islands.
Pasyuk(Battus norvegicus) is much larger, body length 42 cm, including 18 cm tail length, coat color is different on the back and belly*. The upper part of the body and tail are brownish-gray, the lower part of the body is grayish-white, both parts are demarcated. The undercoat is mostly pale gray. The tail has about 210 scaly rings. Sometimes there are individuals completely black, white with red eyes, roan and piebald.
* Pasyuk, also called gray, red, or Norwegian ship rat, occasionally reaches a length of 28 cm, with a tail length of 23 cm and a weight of over half a kilogram. According to some reports, sometimes rats of even more impressive size appear as a result of mutations.
It is highly likely that the pasyuk came to us from Asia, namely from India or Persia**.
* * According to one version, the homeland of the pasyuk is China, and it came to Europe from the east, crossing large rivers, such as the Volga, no earlier than the middle of the 16th century.
It is very possible that Elian already had it in mind when he said that the “Caspian mouse” in known time migrates in infinite numbers, fearlessly crossing rivers, each animal holding onto the tail of the one in front with its teeth. “If they attack the fields,” he says, “then they undermine the grain and climb the trees for fruits, but in turn become prey to those who swoop in in whole clouds.” birds of prey and many foxes living there. In size they are in no way inferior to the ichneumon, they are very angry and toothy and have such strong teeth that they can even gnaw through iron, like Babylonian mice, the delicate skins of which are exported to Persia, where they are used for the lining of dresses." Pallas is the first to describe the Pasyuk as undoubtedly belonging to European animals, and reports that in the fall of 1727, after one earthquake, it appeared in large numbers in Europe from the Caspian countries. In Turkmenistan, according to the testimony of A. Walter, it was not considered a native animal and had not yet been found in the last decade. Ashgabat and Merv, where the Russian railway has probably now brought him***.
* * * Currently, the gray rat is distributed throughout all populated areas of Russia, including the Arctic, and is absent only on some high-Arctic islands and a number of regions of Central and Eastern Siberia.
At the beginning of the last century, it crossed the Volga near Astrakhan in large herds and from there quickly spread to the west. Almost at the same time, namely in 1732, he was transported by ship from the East Indies to England and then began his journey around the world from here as well. It appeared in East Prussia in 1750, in Paris in 1753, and in 1780 it was already known throughout Germany, in Switzerland only since 1809, and in Denmark from about the same time it has been considered a native animal. In 1755 it was transported to North America and here, in the same way, within a very short time it achieved incredible distribution, but in 1825 it penetrated not far beyond Kingston to the north of Canada and in the past decade had not yet reached the upper reaches of the Missouri.
However, it is reliably known that it is now widespread in all parts of the Great Ocean and is found even on the most deserted and secluded islands. Being larger and stronger than the black rat, it takes over everywhere the places in which it previously lived, and increases in number to the same extent as it decreases*.
* Since the ecological niches of gray and black rats are not identical, complete displacement of one species by the other did not occur. The black rat is more thermophilic, is the best climber, and in places where it lives together with the pasyukov it moves away from competition to the upper floors and attics.
In their way of life, in their morals and habits, as well as in their habitats, both types of rats are so similar that when describing one, you depict the other. If we accept that pasyuki nest more often in the lower rooms of buildings and mainly in damp cellars and basements, drainpipes, sluices, cesspools and garbage pits and along river banks, while the black rat prefers the upper parts of houses, for example, grain barns, attics, then There will be very little left that is not common to both breeds. Both types of these harmful animals live in all sorts of nooks and crannies of human dwellings and all places that provide them with the opportunity to obtain food for themselves. From the cellar to the attic, from the state rooms to the latrine, from the palace to the hut - they are found everywhere**.
* * Pasyuki can even live in refrigerators with a constant temperature below 10 degrees below zero. In general, there are entire populations of gray rats that live year-round, or only in the summer outside buildings - in fields, vegetable gardens, orchards, parks, and vacant lots. In the southern regions of Russia they also inhabit natural landscapes, preferring near-water biotopes.
They live where there is at least the slightest possibility of existence, however, the black rat still has more rights to the name of a domestic animal and, if possible, only moves a little away from the human home itself. These rats, gifted both physically and spiritually with all qualities, in order to become enemies of man, do not cease to torment, bother, bother and constantly cause harm to him. Neither a fence, nor a wall, nor a door, nor a lock protects against them; where there is no road, they make one for themselves, gnaw and tear out passages through the strongest oak floorboards and thick walls. Only if the foundation is deeply buried in the ground, if all the cracks between the stones are covered with strong cement and, perhaps, as a precaution, a layer of broken glass is poured between the stone walls, only then can one consider oneself somewhat safe. But it’s a disaster for a well-protected space if even one stone in the wall becomes loose, because in that case they will certainly find a loophole there! And this destruction of homes, this terrible gnawing in all directions of the walls of our houses is still the least of the evils caused by rats. They do much more harm by looking for food for themselves. They eat everything that is edible. A person does not eat anything that rats do not also eat, and this applies not only to eating, but also to drinking it. Not content with the already rich selection of foods, they attack everything equally greedily, and sometimes even animals. The dirtiest refuse of human economy is still suitable for them; rotting carrion finds lovers in them. They eat leather and horn, grains and tree bark - in a word, everything you can imagine, plant and animal matter, and what they cannot eat, they at least chew. They sometimes cause significant damage to sugarcane and coffee plantations. There are examples, the reliability of which can be vouched for, that they ate small children alive, and every more prosperous landowner experienced how cruelly rats pursue his yard animals. They eat holes in the body of very fat pigs, eat away the swimming membranes between the toes of geese sitting tightly pressed together, and drag young ducks into the water and drown them there*.
* By the nature of their diet, rats are more likely to be carnivores than omnivores; plant foods included in the diet are usually high-calorie - seeds, fruits. There are known cases of rats attacking people in a helpless state. There are frequent cases of cannibalism and active predation towards smaller rodents. Near humans, rat populations have found a permanent food supply in the form of food waste and feces.
If in any place they multiply more than usual, then this is truly barely bearable. There are places where they appear in such numbers that one can barely form an idea. In Paris, in one of the slaughterhouses, 16,000 horses were killed over the course of 4 weeks, and in one slaughterhouse near the same capital, they destroyed 35 horse corpses to the bones in just one night.
* According to some calculations of public utilities that carry out deratization (extermination of rats and mice), the number of rats in large cities exceeds the number of people by about 5 times. According to this logic, at least 50 million rats live in Moscow.
As soon as they notice that a person is powerless against them, their impudence takes on truly amazing proportions, so that if they didn’t have to be half-dead angry with these animals, then sometimes there might even be a desire to laugh at their shamelessness, which surpasses all boundaries. Las Cases says that on June 27, 1816, on the island of St. Helena, Napoleon and his companions had to be left without breakfast, because the previous night rats had gotten into the kitchen and everything had been taken away by them. They were found there in large numbers, they were very angry and too shameless. Usually it only took them a few days to gnaw through the stone walls and plank partitions of the emperor’s simple home. During Napoleon's lunch they came to the hall, and after eating they waged a real war with them. For the same reason, we had to refuse to keep yard birds, since the rats devoured them, they took the birds out at night even from the trees on which the latter slept. In the trading posts of distant countries, wherever pasyuks are also landed on land along with goods, they are a very serious scourge and often cause serious harm. All travelers, and especially collectors of collections, complain about them, telling how many very rare and difficultly acquired items are often destroyed by these terrible beasts***.
* * * Rats pose a serious threat as a constant reservoir of dangerous epidemic diseases typhoid, tularemia, plague, etc.
* Once in the holds of ships on remote archipelagos, rats become the most terrible enemies of the local fauna, which developed in the absence of predators and lost its protective devices. Many endemic animal species have disappeared forever from the face of the earth thanks to rats unwittingly introduced by humans. Many island nations are implementing rat control programs to save the remaining native fauna.
Rats are great masters of all bodily exercises. They run quickly and dexterously, climb excellently, even on fairly smooth walls, swim expertly, confidently jump quite long distances and dig very well in the ground, although they are not willing to do this for a long time. The stronger pasyuk is apparently even more agile than the black rat; at least it swims much better. Its diving ability is almost as great as that of real aquatic animals. He can safely go fishing, as he is agile enough in the water to pursue even real inhabitants of the wet elements. Sometimes he acts as if water were his real residence. Being frightened, he instantly flees into a river, pond or ditch and, if necessary, without stopping, swims across a wide expanse of water or runs forward along the river bottom for several minutes*. The black rat does this only as a last resort, but it is also very good at swimming. However, rats are by no means lacking in courage; they defend themselves against all kinds of pursuers and even often rush at a person if he greatly oppresses them.
* Gray rats of natural populations gravitate to floodplains and shores of water bodies and actually lead a semi-aquatic lifestyle. The basis of their diet is fish, shellfish, frogs, and crustaceans.
Among the senses of rats, hearing and smell are in the foreground, the first is especially excellent, but vision is also not bad, and their taste is too often revealed in practice in pantries, where rats always know how to choose the most delicious food for themselves. Regarding their mental abilities, after all that has been said, I only have a little to add. It is absolutely impossible to deny their intelligence, and even less their calculating cunning and famous family the cunning with which they know how to avoid a wide variety of dangers and get the desired tidbit. They have already talked many times about the method by which they carried away eggs without breaking them along the way. Doubts that may arise regarding the method they practice no longer have any basis after the naturalist Dalla Torre reported in 1880 the following case, which he personally saw: “In the cellar of a house in Innsbruck this winter, several eggs began to disappear every now and then , kept there for this time of year. Suspicion, of course, fell first on the maid, who then began to try in every possible way to prove her innocence, but in vain, being in such a delicate position, she began to lie in wait for the rats and became a witness to the thieves' trick that they used. To get the eggs, they were piled up, first one gourmet rat came out of the hole, and soon after, another one grabbed one egg with its front paws and, with the help of the second, pushed it slightly to the side, as far as they could do it with several strong ones. Then the first rat grabbed the egg with its forelimbs and grabbed it tightly, like spiders carrying an egg sac. It is clear that now it could no longer move, since its forepaws had to hold the prey tightly. Then the second one grabbed the tail of the first one in her mouth and with great haste and non-stop dragged her to the hole from where they came out. The entire operation, prepared, as could be concluded from the number of missing eggs, a large number exercises lasted about two minutes, no more. An hour later, after the thieving couple had disappeared from the scene, they appeared again, undoubtedly for the same purpose, and thanks to the kind invitation of the family where what just described happened, I had the opportunity to be an eyewitness to this trick, which, according to the assurances of the maid, was always played out in the same way. Here it would be useful to make observations on the mind and instinct of animals and the differences that exist between them. I will only allow myself to note that the fairly widespread opinion here in the region that marmots in a similar way demolish or, rather, steal their own supplies of hay, is not at all implausible, since both of them, like rodents, can have the same customs." However, regarding marmots, in any case, we will adhere to the doubts we expressed above until there are reliable observations on this score.
In some rats, in case of great danger, special cunning was observed. They pretend to be dead, like a possum does. My father once caught a rat that lay motionless in a rat trap and allowed itself to be shaken in all directions. But her still shining eye was too clear a sign of life for such a knowledgeable observer to be deceived. My father shook the magician out of the trap in the yard, but did it in the presence of her worst enemy - the cat, and the supposedly dead woman immediately came to life and came to her senses and wanted to run away as quickly as possible, but the pussy sat on her neck before she could take one step.
Mating is accompanied by loud noise, squeaking and screaming, as the loving males fight fiercely for possession of the females. About a month after mating, females give birth to anywhere from 5 to 22 cubs, cute little animals that everyone would like if they weren't rats*.
* A rat colony consists of several families, including a male, one or more females and their offspring. Families have a common feeding territory, but males guard areas with nesting chambers of their family. Rats breed all year round, more intensively in spring and summer. There are up to 3 litters a year, with an average of 7 cubs each (from 1 to 17); after 3-4 months, the pups already leave the family and become sexually mature. Rats have developed natural birth control mechanisms, possibly at the hormonal level. It is known that in stable populations no more than 20% of females reproduce at the same time.
When well cared for in captivity, rats kept in captivity become so tame that they not only allow themselves to be touched, but also play with children, learn to leave and enter the house, run around the yard and garden, follow their teacher like dogs, come when called, in short , become pets or indoor animals in in the best sense words**.
* * Experiments with tame and wild rats have shown that they are distinguished by extraordinary intelligence, are able to easily learn, and adapt their behavior to the most diverse and changing conditions. Many of the cases described by Brehm confirm this. Thanks to their abilities and pronounced individual behavioral traits, “cultured” rats are extremely interesting and attractive as pets.
Free-living rats sometimes develop a special disease. Several of them grow together with their tails and then form the so-called “rat king”, which in the old days was imagined, of course, completely differently than now, when you can see it in one or another museum. Previously it was thought that the rat king, adorned with a golden crown, sits on a group of closely fused rats, as if on a throne, and from here rules the entire rat kingdom. What is certain is that sometimes large numbers of rats are found with their tails entangled with each other, which, out of compassion, are fed by other rats, since they themselves are unable to move. In Altenburg they preserve one such “rat king”, consisting of 27 rats; in Bonn, at Schnepfenthal, in Frankfurt, in Erfurt and in Lindenau near Leipzig, other similar “kings” were found. The latter is officially described in detail, and I think it would not be superfluous to present here the content of the acts related to this.
“On January 17, 1774, Christian Kaiser, a farmhand from the mill in Lindenau, appeared at the county court in Leipzig and stated that last Wednesday early in the morning at the mill in Lindenau he caught a “rat king” of 16 rats fused together tails, which he, since the latter wanted to jump on him, immediately threw to the ground and killed this rat king Johann Adam Fasgauer from Lindenau, under the pretext that he wanted to copy him, did not want to take him away from his owner, Tobius Egerna, a miller in Lindenau. give it back, and since that time he has earned a lot of money with his help, so he most humbly asks the court to force cum expensis Fasgauer to immediately return the rat king to him and pay all the money earned from him.
On February 22, 1774, he again appeared in the zemstvo court.
Christian Kaiser, a farmhand from the mill in Lindenau, testified: “that he actually caught a rat king from 16 rats at the mill in Lindenau on January 12th. On the indicated date, he heard a noise in the mill, namely under the floor of the upper floor, near the stairs, after which he climbed up the stairs in that place and saw several rats looking out from there in the underground, which he killed with a piece of wood. Then he put a ladder to the same place to see if there were any more rats there, and threw off this rat king with his help. ax to the floor; many of the rats were still alive, although they had fallen from a height, but some time later he also killed these sixteen rats, tightly intertwined with each other, namely 15 with their tails, and 16 with their own. its tail was attached to the hair on the back of the other. When they fell from the upper floor, none of them separated from the others, after which many were still alive for some time and jumped, but in this way they could not tear themselves away from each other. They were so tightly intertwined. , that he does not think that it would be possible to tear them apart, or, at least, that this could be done only with great difficulty, etc. " Then follow several other testimonies that confirm what has been said. At the end there is a description of the doctor and surgeon who, at the request of the zemstvo court, examined the case in detail. The doctor reports the following about this: “To be convinced of what can be believed from the story about the rat king, conveyed by many with great embellishment, I went on January 16 to Lindenau and there I found that in the Postal Pipe tavern, in a cool room on the table There were 16 pieces of dead rats, 15 of them were so entangled with each other with their tails that the latter formed a thick knot, resembling a rope with several ends, and many of the tails were completely entangled in this knot at a distance of about 1-2 inches from the head. their tails were directed towards the periphery, and their tails towards the center of the knot they formed. Near these closely connected rats lay the sixteenth, which, according to the statement of the painter Fasgauer, who was standing here, was torn off from the knot. To satisfy my curiosity, I was least interested in questioning. Moreover, the most absurd and funny answers were given to the questions of the visitors who came there every now and then, marveling at the miracle; I just examined the bodies and tails of the rats and found: 1) that all these rats had a completely natural structure of the head, body and four legs; 2) that some were ash-gray in color, others were somewhat darker, and others were almost completely black; 3) that some were the size of a whole palm; 4) that their thickness and width were proportional to their length, but in such a way that they seemed more emaciated than fattened; 5) that their tails could be considered a little more or less a Leipzig cubit in length; they were a little dirty and damp.
When I lifted up the bundle and the rats hanging on it with the help of a piece of wood, I very clearly noticed that it would not have been particularly difficult to tear off some of the tangled tails from each other, but the painter who was present with some indignation prevented me from doing this. In the sixteenth rat mentioned above, I clearly noticed that its tail was with it without the slightest damage and that, therefore, it was separated from the rest without any difficulty. Having weighed all these circumstances with all possible care, I came to the complete conviction that the said 16 rats do not represent any special “rat king”, but simply a known number of rats of various sizes, thickness and color, and also (in my opinion) of different ages and floor. Regarding how rats intertwine with each other, I imagine the matter like this: a few days before the opening of this disgusting gathering of rats, a very severe cold set in and forced these animals to crowd into one corner to keep warm, lying next to each other or on top of each other; undoubtedly, they took such a direction that their tails were directed more outward, and their heads towards a place more protected from the influence of frost. Did the excrement of the higher sitting rats, falling of necessity onto the tails of the lower ones, cause the tails to freeze? Is it not possible that the rats, whose tails were frozen together, wanting to go for food, could not free themselves from the others and formed such a strong tangle that later, even when there was danger to their lives, they were not able to tear themselves away from the others? At the request of the highly respected zemstvo court, I openly stated here my thoughts, as well as what, according to this report, Mr. Eckgolden and I found during our research and the authenticity of which we signed with our own hands.”
It is possible that accumulations of this kind are more common than is thought, but very few of them are found, for in most areas superstition is so great that any rat king found is destroyed as quickly as possible.
The means that have already been used to exterminate rats are innumerable. Traps of all kinds are set against them, and every method of hunting helps temporarily. If animals notice that they are being strongly persecuted, they are often evicted, but are reintroduced when the persecution subsides. If they came back again, then for short time multiply to such an extent that the previous torment is resumed in full force. The most common means of exterminating them are poisons of various kinds, which are placed in places favored by rats, but in addition to the fact that, by poisoning animals, they cause them the most terrible and painful death, these means are still dangerous, because rats sometimes vomit, thereby poisoning bread or potatoes and can thus become dangerous to other animals and even to people. It is much better to give them a mixture of malt and quicklime: it makes them thirsty and causes death, after they have drunk the proper amount of water necessary to quench the lime.
The best exterminators of rats remain in all respects their natural enemies, primarily owls, weasels, cats and rat-catching dogs, although it often happens that cats do not dare to attack rats, especially pasyuki. Dene saw dogs, cats and rats walking together on the banks of the canals in Hamburg, and none of the animals mentioned even thought of declaring war on the other, and I personally know of many examples of cats not paying any attention to rats. As among other domestic animals, so among cats, there are good breeds whose members are passionately devoted to hunting rats, although they first have to work hard to overcome these toothy rodents. Hardly less service is provided by the ferret and the weasel, the former in the house, the latter in the garden and stables.
Against these predators, who also carry an egg, a chicken, a pigeon and even a hen, you can still protect yourself by locking the barn tightly, but against rats all protection is in vain, and therefore you should groom and protect these slender predators wherever possible.
In conclusion, I will describe, for the benefit and edification of many of my readers, a mousetrap, which, although it does not do honor to the human heart, works excellently. In places frequently visited by rats, for example, between stables, near latrines, locks and others, dig a hole 1.5 meters deep and line it inside with smooth stone slabs. A rectangular slab of one square meter forms the base, 4 others, narrower at the top, form the walls. The pit should be half narrower at the top than at the bottom, so that the walls overhang on all sides and would deprive the rats of the opportunity to climb back out. Then melted lard, honey diluted with water and other strongly odorous substances are poured into the bottom, a clay vessel with a narrow hole at the top is placed there, smeared with honey and filled with corn, wheat, hemp, oats, fried lard and other delicacies. Then they put a little chopped straw at the bottom of the hole and finally put a grate over the hole so that a chicken or some other young awkward domestic animal does not accidentally fall into it. Now everything is ready and you don't need to worry about anything else. “The pleasant smell and the warm chaff from the straw,” says Lenz, “encourage the rat to jump down cheerfully and in pleasant anticipation. Everything smells so wonderful there: lard, honey, cheese, and grains, but you have to be content with only the smell, because the inside it is impossible to get through the pot and there is nothing else left but for one prisoner to devour another." The first rat that fell down, of course, soon begins to feel hungry and tries in vain to get out of the terrible prison, then the second one falls from above. They begin to sniff each other, maybe they are consulting on what to do, but the first captive is too hungry to indulge in long discussions. A terrible fight begins, a struggle for life and death, and one captive kills the other. If the first one remains the winner, then she immediately pounces on the corpse of her friend to devour it, but if the second one wins, then the same thing happens a few hours later. It is extremely rare to find three rats in this trap at once, and the next day one of them will probably be missing. In short, one captive eats another, and the pit remains fairly clean, although it is a cave of death in the most terrible sense of the word.
A simpler, but equally permanent and much less cruel trap consists of a directly placed, open barrel at the top, to the edge of which a rough bar leads. Across the opening of the barrel, a smooth board is mounted on an easily movable bolster, equipped with a small weight on the outside, thanks to which it very easily tips over, but immediately straightens again. At the end distant from the plank, a piece of fried lard is fastened to a wire on a plate in such a way that it cannot be reached from the edge of the vessel. Attracted by the smell, the rats run up the plank and climb onto the plank to get the bait: the plank immediately overturns and the rat falls into the barrel. There is water in it, but it is covered with a layer of finely chopped straw, which so interferes with the rat's ability to swim that it soon gets tired and drowns. This trap works perfectly, all that remains is to remove the dead*.
* Traps are not able to seriously reduce the number of rats, since smart animals soon recognize the catch and avoid the traps. Rats gradually develop immunity to many poisons. Nowadays, anticoagulants and substances that lead to infertility are mainly used for deratization.
Mice are much smaller and cuter than these nasty long-tailed house thieves, although they, despite their beautiful appearance and cheerful, sweet disposition, are the evil enemies of man and are persecuted by him with almost the same hatred as their larger and nastier relatives.
We can safely say that everyone will find a mouse sitting in a cage charming, and even ladies, who usually feel a strong, although completely groundless fear, if a mouse crosses their path in the cellar or kitchen, and they should recognize it as a charming creature when they get to know each other better with her. But, of course, the sharp incisors and passion for feasting on mice are so highly developed that they can fill even the meek heart of a woman with anger and a thirst for revenge. It is too unpleasant to constantly fear for all food supplies, even when they are under lock and key; It’s too outrageous not to have a single place in the house where you could be a complete master and where these annoying little guests wouldn’t bother you! And since mice can crawl everywhere and even penetrate into places inaccessible to rats, they have started a whole war of persecution against themselves, which is unlikely to ever stop.
House mouse(Mm muscuhis) in appearance still has some similarities with the black rat, but it is much more beautiful, its body parts are more proportional, and it is much smaller in height. Its entire length is approximately 18 cm, of which 9 cm is on the body. The tail has 180 scaly rings. It is monochromatic: the yellowish, grayish-black color of the upper body and tail gradually turns into a lighter lower part, legs and fingers of a yellowish-gray color.
Wood mouse(Sylvaemus sylvaticus) * reaches 20 cm in length, its tail, consisting of approximately 150 scaly rings, is 11.5 cm in length.
* The wood mouse inhabits all of Europe east to Belarus and Ukraine, but in Russia it is replaced by a similar species - the small wood mouse (S. uralensis). The genus of wood mice includes up to 12 very similar species, partially replacing each other in the temperate zone and subtropics of Eurasia. Brem gives a generalized image of a representative of the genus.
This mouse is two-colored, the upper part of the body and tail are light gray-brown, the lower part, legs and fingers are white, and their color is sharply different from the color of the back. Both of these species differ from the next one by having longer ears. U the following type the ears reach only about a third of the length of the head and, being pressed to the side of the head, do not reach the eyes, whereas in the former they have half the length of the head and, pressed to the head, reach the eyes.
Field mouse(Apodenms agrarius)** reaches 18 cm in length, the tail has 8 cm.
* * The field mouse is the most common of the 9 species of the field mouse genus. Previously, forest mice were also included in this genus.
It is tricolor: the upper part of the body is reddish-brown with black stripes along the back, the lower part and legs are white and are sharply different from the upper part of the body. The tail has about 120 scaly rings.
All these mice are unusually similar to each other in terms of their location, character and way of life, although both have their own characteristics. In one respect, all three of them agree: they show, at least sometimes, great love for a person. These breeds are often found in homes, from the cellar to the attic, especially in winter, and the house mouse is more common than others***. Not one of them is tied exclusively to the place from which it got its name: the wood mouse lives equally willingly both in barns or houses and in the field, and the field mouse limits its location to the field just as little as the house mouse does to the human dwelling. that on occasion one can see all three species together. Since ancient times, the house mouse should be considered the most faithful companion of man.
* * * Wood mice often move into human dwellings in winter, but the field mouse usually remains to spend the winter in natural habitats.
Aristotle and Pliny already mention it, and Albertus Magnus is well acquainted with it. Nowadays it is widespread throughout the earth. She made her way after the man and followed him to the far north and to the huts of the highest Alps. In all likelihood, there are few places at the present time where it does not exist; It’s more likely that she hasn’t been noticed there yet. On the Sunda Islands, for example, it has not yet come across. Its location is all parts of human dwellings. In the village she sometimes lives freely, in the garden or in nearby fields and groves; in the city, it is limited exclusively to residential premises and its extensions. Here, every crevice, every recess - in a word, every corner provides her with a reliable shelter, and from there she launches her raids. She runs on the ground at great speed, climbs excellently, makes fairly large jumps and moves very quickly and for a long time in short leaps.
You can watch a hand mouse how deftly it makes all these movements. If she climbs along a string or twig stretched obliquely upward, then every time she is afraid of falling, she quickly wraps her tail around the rope, like real prehensile-tailed animals, again returns to the balance position and runs on; if you place it on a very flexible stalk, then it climbs up it to the very top, and if the stalk bends, the mouse clings to its lower part and then slowly descends without the slightest difficulty. She can also swim, although she only goes into the water as a last resort. If you throw it into a pond or stream, you can see that it swims almost as fast as a water rat, and rushes to the first dry place in order to climb up it and reach dry land again.
Her senses are excellently developed: she hears the slightest noise, her sense of smell is acute and senses over a long distance, she sees well, during the day, perhaps even better than at night. Her mental abilities make her a true favorite of those who seek to understand the life of an animal. She is good-natured and carefree and is not at all like her evil, insidious and perky sisters - rats, she is curious and explores everything thoroughly, cheerful and smart, very soon she realizes where she is spared, and over time she gets so used to a person that she runs before his eyes back and forth and goes about her household chores as if no danger existed for her.
In a cage she becomes tame within a few days; even old mice quickly get used to humans, and those caught young are superior in their good nature and carefree nature to most other rodents kept in captivity. Pleasant sounds lure her out of her shelter and make her forget all fear. She appears in broad daylight in rooms where some instrument is played, and places where music is constantly playing become her favorite abode.
All the pleasant qualities of our partner, unfortunately, are significantly diminished by her greed and impudence. It is difficult to imagine an animal more desirous than a house mouse, which can dispose of the pantry supplies with complete arbitrariness. She proves in the most obvious way that her sense of taste is perfectly developed. She certainly prefers sweets of all kinds, milk, meat, cheese, fat and grains, and if given a choice, she chooses the best of everything. Her sharp incisors make her even more hated by everyone. She knows how to make her way wherever she smells something edible, and it costs her nothing to work for several nights in a row to gnaw through even strong oak doors. If she finds a lot of food to her liking, then she takes it to her hole and, with the haste of a miser, collects and multiplies her treasures. “In those places where it is little disturbed,” says Fitzinger, “you can sometimes find whole heaps of walnuts or ordinary nuts, heaped half a cubit high in the corners; they are so regularly and neatly folded and covered with various scraps of paper or cloth that Could anyone suspect this to be the work of a mouse? She doesn’t drink water at all if she can get other juicy edible substances, but even with dry food she drinks only occasionally; on the contrary, she laps up all kinds of sweet drinks with pleasure. That it also attacks alcoholic drinks, as a wood mouse sometimes does, is proven by one observation that the forester Blok told me. “One day, around 1843, while I was writing, I was disturbed by a noise, and I saw a mouse climbing up the smooth legs of a small table. Soon it found itself at the top and diligently began to pick up the crumbs that lay on the plate after breakfast In the middle of the plate stood a thin glass, half filled with kummel. In one jump, the mouse found itself on the edge of the glass, bent forward, began to lap it diligently and then jumped down, after drinking a little more of this sweet poison. Disturbed by the noise on my part, it jumped off the table in one jump. and disappeared behind a cabinet with glassware. Now, it seemed, the alcohol began to affect her, because she immediately appeared again and began to make the most amusing movements, trying, although in vain, to climb onto the table again. I stood up and went up to her. but he didn’t scare me away, but brought the cat; then the mouse ran away for an instant, but immediately appeared again. The cat jumped from my hands to the ground, and the drunken mouse found itself in its claws.”
The harm that a house mouse causes by devouring various food supplies is generally insignificant; their most significant harm is that they gnaw on valuable objects. In libraries and in natural history collections, mice are in charge in the most disastrous manner and can cause immeasurable harm if their passion for destruction is not curbed by all means. They seem to gnaw at things only out of prank, and it is very likely that this happens more often when the mice are thirsty than in places where they have something to quench it. Therefore, in libraries, in addition to the grains that are prepared for them, they also provide vessels with water - in a word, they are positively watered and fed at public expense*.
* The house mouse is truly omnivorous; animals of natural populations, for example the Kurganchik mouse, willingly eat insects in the summer and switch to grain in the winter. The winter food reserves of the kurgan mouse, located in several rooms of a complex burrow inside the kurgan, a bulk heap of earth, sometimes reach 10 kg. The house mouse is a serious agricultural pest and a carrier of epidemic diseases.
The house mouse reproduces unusually quickly. She gives birth 22-24 days after mating from 4 to 6, rarely 8 cubs, and during the year probably from 5 to 6 times, so that the immediate offspring of one year reaches at least 30 heads. The female gives birth in each corner, as long as it has soft bedding and provides some security. They often find nests in hollowed out bread, in rutabaga, in pockets, in human skulls and even in mousetraps. It usually consists of straw, hay, paper, feathers, and other articles carefully collected together; It happens, however, that only sawdust and even nutshells serve as bedding. Mice that have just been born are unusually small and completely naked, transparent, but they grow quickly; between the seventh and eighth days they become covered with hair, but only on the thirteenth day do they become sighted. Then they stay in the nest for another two days, no more, and then go off to get food on their own. The old mouse treats them very tenderly and puts herself in danger for their sake**.
* * There is a strict hierarchy in house mouse populations. The dominant male proves his superiority by skirmishes with other males. Mice breed all year round. bringing up to 5 litters of 3-7 cubs (up to 15). Pregnancy lasts 17-21 days, sexual maturity occurs at the age of 2 months. In nature, mice usually live 5-13 months; in captivity, the maximum lifespan is 6 years. There are cycles of numbers, with mass reproduction every 3-4 years.
The common mouse became a pet, in the proper sense of the word, among the inhabitants of China and Japan, who brought the breeding of animals and plants to a high degree of perfection. Haake tells us the following about the mice that have recently been delivered to us from there. “From time to time I receive from an animal dealer two different breeds of house mice. The dealer called some Chinese climbing mice, and the other Japanese dancing mice. The first are distinguished solely by their varied colors, since they seem to be able to climb no better than other mice. The coloring is extremely varied. Along with monochromatic gray, pale yellow and white, I also had piebald, gray with white, black with white, yellow with white and blue with white, as well as yellowish ones. and bluish-white mice always have red eyes, but gray and black and white mice never have tricolored mice, it seems, that we also have white, black and yellow mice, and sometimes the Chinese have taken advantage of this. different colors of mice to satisfy his passion for raising strange-looking animals.
The Japanese, no less lovers of animal breeding, managed to make a truly amazing animal out of a mouse. The Japanese mouse, rightly called the dancer mouse, is also found in a variety of colors, I had black and yellow with white, also gray and blue with white. It differs from an ordinary mouse in its smaller size and elongated head. But its main characteristic feature is the innate habit of describing circles with furious speed or spinning in one place with incredible speed. Two, rarely three mice often come together for such a dance; the dance usually begins at dusk and is resumed from time to time at night; for the most part it is performed alone, and the tireless dancers, with their movements, completely clear some places on the floor of their cage from the thick layer of sawdust covering it . And with ordinary movements, this mouse shows its living nature. With the speed of lightning, apparently aimlessly, she turns this way and that and constantly sniffs the air with her muzzle. One merchant with whom I talked about the dancing mice, probably based on what I had heard, tried to interpret for himself the inheritance of a different passion of these living BOTH YH in his own way. He claimed that dancing mice originated from Peru and made nests in ripe cotton fruits and circled in order to create a void in the soft cotton wool, as a result of which the dancing mouse is also called the “cotton mouse.” In any case, it originates, just like the climbing mouse, from Japan or China, although I was unable to obtain more precise information on this matter. In books and temporary publications I could not find anything regarding the domestic mice of the Chinese and Japanese."*
* Many “cultivated” breeds of house mice have been developed and are used as decorative pets and laboratory animals. The albino white mouse is the most common laboratory animal in the world.
The most worst enemy The house mouse has always been and will remain a cat. In old buildings, her faithful assistant is the owl, and in the village the ferret and weasel, the hedgehog and the shrew provide good services, at least better than any kind of traps.
The wood and field mice share most of the qualities of the house mouse. The first, with the exception perhaps of the countries of the far north, is widespread throughout Europe and Central Asia and in the mountains it reaches 1000 meters above sea level. She lives in forests, along the edges, in gardens, and less often in open treeless fields, and in winter she likes to climb into houses, cellars and storerooms, but as soon as the opportunity arises, she climbs up and wanders in attics and under roofs. In its movements it is at least as dexterous as a house mouse, but differs from it in that it jumps in large leaps, like a jerboa, makes several jumps in a row and then only rests a little.
* * Some species of the genus of wood mice, for example, the large and bright yellow-throated mouse (S. flavicollis), gravitate towards deciduous forests, live in hollows, and climb trees well.
According to Radde's observations, her vision is not very developed; You can, carefully moving forward, approach her at a distance of about 60 centimeters and kill her without much difficulty. In the wild, she eats insects and worms, fruits, cherry pits, nuts, acorns, beech nuts, and, if necessary, also the bark of young trees. She also prepares herself a supply for the winter, but is not subject to hibernation and feasts on the accumulated treasures only on stormy days*.
* The diet of forest mice is dominated by high-calorie plant foods: cereal seeds, acorns, and nuts. In the burrows of yellow-throated mice, they found kchads with 4 kilograms of hazelnuts.
Two or three times a year, the wood mouse lays 4-6, less often 8, naked young, which grow rather slowly, and receive a beautiful, reddish-yellow shade of their skin only in the second year.
The distribution boundaries of the field mouse are much narrower than those of related breeds; it lives from the Rhine to western Siberia, and from northern Holstein to Lombardy. In Germany it is very common almost everywhere, but is absent on high mountains**.
* * To the north, the field mouse reaches the border of the southern taiga. The range in Eurasia is divided in the region of Lake Baikal and Mongolia into European-Siberian and Far Eastern Chinese parts.
Its habitat is cultivated fields, forest edges, sparse bushes, and in winter, stacks of grain, barns and stables. During the harvest, whole clusters of them can be seen running through the stubble. Pallas says that in Siberia they sometimes move from place to place in irregular groups. In its movements, the field mouse is much less dexterous, and in its morals it is either much more good-natured or much stupider than its relatives. Its food consists mainly of grains, plant seeds, bulbs, insects and worms. She collects supplies in the same way***.
* * * In addition to seeds, field mice willingly eat insects, berries, and greens. They do not make large reserves for the winter.
In the summer, she lays 4 to 8 cubs three or four times.
No matter how beautiful, no matter how comely all the little mice are, no matter how charmingly they behave in captivity, but the most small view this family tiny mouse(Micromys minutus), still superior to others in all respects. She is more agile, dexterous, more cheerful, in a word, a much more attractive animal than all the others. It is 13 cm long, of which almost half is the tail****.
* * * * The little mouse is the only representative of the genus and. probably one of the world's smallest rodents. Its weight is on average only 6 g (3.5-13 g). It differs from other species of mice by its blunt muzzle, small ears and eyes, and semi-grasping tail covered with hair. Unlike other mice, the little one is more often active during the day.
The color of the coat is variable and comes in two colors: the upper body and tail are yellow-brown-red, the belly and legs are completely white, however, there are also darker or lighter, redder or brownish, grayish or yellowish; the belly is not particularly different from the upper part. Young animals have a slightly different build than older ones, and a completely different body color, namely, a much grayer color on the back.
The little mouse has long been a mystery to zoologists. Pallas discovered it in Siberia, described it exactly and drew it quite well, but after him almost every naturalist who came across it passed it off as a new species, and everyone considered himself right. Only through continuous observations did the irrefutable truth become clear that our little one is actually distributed from Siberia through all of Russia, Hungary, Poland and Germany to France, England and Italy, and only in exceptional cases is it not found in some areas. It lives on all plains where agriculture flourishes, but it is not always found in fields, but mainly in swamps, reeds and reeds. In Siberia and in the steppes at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains it is very common; in Russia, England, and Holstein it is often found. But in other European countries it can sometimes be found in abundance*.
* The baby lives throughout the temperate zone of Eurasia, prefers the meadows of the southern forest zone, forest-steppe, along the corresponding altitudinal zones it penetrates into the mountains of southern Eurasia to northern India and Vietnam. In the Caucasus it is found up to 2200 m.
In the summer you can meet this cute little animal in the grain fields, and in the winter in huge numbers under stacks, as well as in barns, where they end up along with the grain. If she winters in an open field, then, although she spends part of the cold time in hibernation, she never falls into complete torpor and therefore in the summer she prepares supplies in her burrows so that she can feed on them in times of need. She eats the same thing as all other mice: bread and seeds of all kinds of herbs and trees, as well as all kinds of small insects.
In its movements, the little mouse differs from all other species of this family. Despite her small size, she runs unusually fast and climbs with the greatest perfection and dexterity. Hanging on the thinnest branches of bushes and on the stems of grass, which are so thin that together with her they bend towards the ground, she runs upward along them, and almost as quickly runs through the trees, and with particular dexterity she clings on with her pretty little tail. She is also equally good at swimming and diving. This way she can live everywhere.
But she shows her greatest perfection in another respect. She is an artist, of which there are few among mammals, an artist who can compete with the most gifted birds, because she builds a nest that surpasses the beauty of the nests of all other mammals. She displays her pretty structure in such a unique way, as if she had adopted this art from a bird. Depending on the nature of the area, the nest is either built on 20-30 sedge leaves, the tops of which are split and intertwined so that they surround the building on all sides, or it hangs at a height of 0.5-1 meters from the ground freely on the branches of a bush, on a reed stalk and the like, so that it appears to be hanging in the air. In appearance, it most closely resembles a blunt egg, for example, a very round goose egg, which is approximately equal in size**.
* * The nest has a diameter from 60 to 130 mm. In winter, the animals move into burrows; in agricultural landscapes they prefer haystacks. stacks. sometimes barns.
Its outer shell always consists of completely split leaves of reed or sedge, the stems of which form the base of the entire structure. The baby takes each leaf with its teeth into its mouth and passes it several times between the sharp, needle-like ends, until it divides each individual leaf into six, eight or ten parts, as if several separate fibers, then all this is unusually carefully twisted and intertwined with each other. friend. The interior is lined with films of reeds, the down of some marsh plants, fluffy catkins of willows and flower clusters of all kinds. A small hole leads into the nest on the side, and if you feel the inside of the nest through it, it turns out to be uniformly smooth, both at the top and at the bottom, extremely soft and tender to the touch. Its individual components are so tightly connected and intertwined that the nest actually acquires greater strength. If you compare the less adapted tools of mice with the skillful beak of building birds, then you will have to look at their construction not without surprise, and the work of a small mouse will be ranked higher than the buildings of many birds. Each nest is always built mainly from the leaves of the plant on which it is located. A necessary consequence of this is the fact that the outside of the nest is almost or completely the same color as the bush itself on which it hangs. The baby mouse uses each of its works of art only during childbirth, which lasts only a short time, thus the cubs always leave the nest before the leaves surrounding it have time to wither and, as a result, take on a different color from the nest.
It is believed that each baby mouse gives birth two or three times a year, each time 5-9 pups. Old mothers always build their nests with greater skill than young ones, but even the latter already show a desire to achieve the skill of the old ones. Already in the first year, the cubs build rather intricate nests for themselves and rest in them. They remain in their magnificent cradle until they become sighted. The old female covers them warmly every time, or, better said, closes the entrance to the nest when she has to leave it to bring herself food. Meanwhile, she has already gotten together again with a male of her breed and is already pregnant again, while she still needs to feed her cubs with milk. Then, as soon as they are old enough to somehow feed themselves, the old female leaves them to their own devices, serving as their leader and adviser for at most a few days*.
* Most animals live only 2-3 months, so only the young from the last brood survive until winter.
If any one is fortunate enough to be in the vicinity just at the time when the old female brings out her young for the first time, he will have the opportunity to enjoy one of the most attractive family scenes in the life of mammals.
All this activity can be observed with greater convenience if you take the entire nest home and place it in a cage with fine wire mesh. Baby mice are easy to keep if you give them hemp, oats, pears, sweet apples, meat and house flies, and with their pleasant disposition they reward a thousand times the labors of the person who cares for them**. Young mice very soon become tame, but shy as they grow up, if they are not handled especially often and diligently. When the time comes when they hide in their shelters in the wild, they become very restless and try in every possible way to escape, just as migratory birds do when the time of departure approaches. In March they also show a special desire to leave the cage. In general, they soon get used to the new living conditions, cheerfully set about building their skillful nests, take leaves and pull them through their mouths with their paws to split them, put them in order and intertwine them with each other - in a word, they try to get along as best as possible.
* * The basis of nutrition for baby mice is seeds, in summer also insects and vegetative parts of plants. They make small food reserves for the winter. The baby is very gluttonous, eating about 5 g of food per day, which is only slightly less than its weight.
One of the most beautiful species of this family is striped or barbary mouse(Lemniscomys barbarus), an animal reaching about 22 cm in length, including a 12 cm long tail*. The main color of the body is a beautiful yellowish-brown or reddish clay-yellow color. A black-brown longitudinal stripe stretches from the head, covered with black speckles, to the base of the tail, and many similar stripes run, although not in a completely straight direction, along the sides of the body. The belly is completely white. The ears are covered with reddish-yellow hairs, and the black whiskers end in a mostly white tip. The tail is black-brown above, yellow-brown below.
* About 9 species of striped mice (genus Lemniscomys) inhabit tropical Africa. Only the variegated mouse is found north of the Sahara in the mountains of Morocco, reaching an altitude of 2100 m.
The barbary mouse lives in northern and central Africa, is especially common in the Atlas Mountains, but is often found in the steppes inland. I saw her several times in Kordofan, but I was always able to see her only for a few moments, when she quickly ran through the tall steppe grass. “Like all its other relatives living in the steppe,” says Bouvry, “the Arabs call the barbary mouse simply a mouse of the desert, despise it and observe it little. The natives therefore cannot say anything about it. It can be found along the entire Algerian coast, mainly in rocky countries, as well as where chains of barren hills limit fruitful valleys, on the slopes of the hills it digs passages for itself leading to a deeper room, there it stores up reserves of grain ears and herbs in the fall and feeds on them as needed in the cold. or the rainy season. The chaff remaining from the gnawed ears goes to the lining of the room. Depending on the time of year, the food of the striped mouse consists of grains and seeds or other plant substances. Fruits, especially garden fruits, make up its favorite delicacy: in the traps that I set. and where I put a piece of watermelon for bait, I caught many. Whether it also catches and eats insects, I don’t know. In its disposition, the striped mouse is in many ways similar to rats. She is gluttonous, but also evil, and if it comes to her love for her husband or children, she will not be afraid to directly attack an enemy who is stronger than her in order to put him to flight. In other respects she is a real mouse and displays the same flexibility, grace and dexterity in her movements as her other relatives. I don’t know anything about its reproduction.”*
* Striped mice are active during the day, make ground nests from grass, and sometimes occupy the burrows of other rodents. They feed on plant foods, breed all year round, or in the wet season, bringing up to 4 broods of 2-5 (up to 12) young.
Because of the beauty of its body, the barbary mouse is often brought to Europe. She tolerates our climate very well, since even in her homeland she has to endure, at least for some time, quite significant cold.
Animal life. - M.: State Publishing House of Geographical Literature. A. Brem. 1958.
- Wikipedia
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The family of lemurids, or lemur-like prosimians, unites the lemurs themselves, living on Madagascar and some small neighboring islands. These animals have thick hair with a variety of colors, a tail... ... Biological encyclopedia Biological encyclopedic dictionary
This family unites mice and rats, of which there are a great many: in addition to the well-known inhabitants of houses and surrounding forests, this includes at least 500 species of rodents from the tropical forests of Southeast Asia, Australia, Africa, in which sometimes you don’t even recognize rats. Thus, in the Philippines there live giant shaggy tree “rats” weighing 2-3 kg, similar to large squirrels. Next door, on the Sunda Islands, live small rodents that resemble shrews and feed exclusively on soil invertebrates - these are also representatives of the mouse family. But in the New World there are no representatives of this family (except for those that were brought by people): there, “mice” and “rats” are called hamster-like animals that look exactly like typical mice.
With the exception of the exotic forms mentioned, all members of the mouse family are easily recognizable. These are most often small (weighing from 5 to 300 g), proportionally built, long-tailed animals. Their division into “mice” and “rats” is quite arbitrary: the small ones are called mice, and the larger ones are called rats. Their differences from the close family of hamsters, perhaps, come down to a more complex structure of the teeth. Most people have short, soft hair; but often in mice the hair on the back is replaced by needles. Some mice, called “prickly” mice, are in no way inferior to hedgehogs in this regard, except that they cannot curl up into a ball. The tail is usually bare. The color is almost always monochromatic - brownish or gray; Only in Africa are some mice with light longitudinal stripes on their backs.
The vast majority of Asian mice and rats are forest dwellers, some of them spend a significant part of their lives in trees. However, this is not their special merit: it’s just that almost all of Southeast Asia, where representatives of the family are most numerous, is covered with dense forests; in general, there are very few purely terrestrial animals there. Accordingly, in Africa, where more than half the territory is occupied by open, arid landscapes, many mice live similar to gerbils or voles. A few species are “worldly backwaters”, inhabitants of human dwellings, warehouses, and travel with ships all over the world. They damage food and carry with them such terrible diseases as the plague, which in Europe in the Middle Ages “mocked down” the population of entire cities.
In Russia, the mouse family is represented by only a dozen species. Moreover, almost all of them are among the most common, living everywhere in mixed forests and in dwellings. So you wouldn’t think about them that in fact they are an “echo” of exotic tropical fauna.
Until recently, the forest one was the most “ordinary” and was considered widespread in Russia. But a few years ago, scientists discovered that there are several different types- “doubles”, which only specialists, and even then not all, can distinguish. So it turned out that we don’t even know exactly what kind of wood mice live in Russia: it is believed that the “ordinary” wood mouse lives in Western Europe and the Baltic states, and in our country a smaller species is common, which for now they have agreed to call the “small forest mouse” mouse" (Apodemus uralensis).
Wood mice are distributed throughout Europe, the Caucasus, throughout the south of Western Siberia and the north of Kazakhstan, the eastern limit of its range is Altai Mountains. At the same time, the common wood mouse inhabits Western and Central Europe, and the small one inhabits the European part of Russia and the Urals. Previously, in addition to this already vast territory, Asia Minor and the Iranian Plateau would have been indicated, but it seems that other species - “doubles” - live there.
This graceful mouse is small: the body length is up to 10 cm, the tail is approximately the same. The muzzle is pointed, with large black eyes and rather large ears. The hair on the back is soft, the color is reddish, the bottom of the body is white, only on the chest between the paws there is sometimes a small yellow “smear”.
The wood mouse, as its name suggests, is a typical inhabitant of mixed and deciduous forests. In central Russia, the northern limit of its range coincides with the border between mixed and taiga forests. Of course, it is also found further north, but among continuous coniferous forests it can only be found in burnt areas and clearings overgrown with small-leaved trees - birch, alder, and willow. In the southern regions, it settles not only in forests and steppe copses, but also in completely treeless areas, finding refuge in meadow tall grasses, as well as in orchards. During the ripening period, these rodents gather in large numbers in the fields; in some places there are even more mice than voles.
In summer, the wood mouse is secretive, active in the dark, and nothing gives away its presence. In winter, chains of mouse tracks in the snow fan out from some hole under the butt of a tree or hummock - the exit of the hole. They meander between trees and bushes, disappear into snow passages and reappear, talking about how difficult it is for a small animal to find food. However, mouse snow trails are short; rodents prefer to stay under the snow. And sometimes the “white book”, on which the inhabitants of the forest leave their autographs, makes it possible to understand why life under the snow is better than above: if the chain of mouse tracks unexpectedly ends, and fingers seem to be imprinted on the sides of it, it means that our mouse was dragged away and eaten by some feathered predator. However, life under the snow is not safe either: a small predator prowls there - a weasel, from which there is nowhere to hide.
As a typical forest dweller, the wood mouse climbs trees well, which it takes advantage of, often settling in hollows at a height of 3-5 meters. However, more often its shelters are located under the roots of the same trees, fallen trees, and at the base of dense bushes. In treeless areas, the wood mouse digs simple burrows with 2-3 exits, a nesting chamber and several storage chambers.
The main food of the wood mouse is the seeds of various trees, which it collects on the ground. IN middle lane these are mainly small-leaved species, in the south, especially in mountainous regions - elm, maple, ash; a special delicacy is oak acorns and beech nuts. At the end of summer, mice happily eat juicy berries, and in spring, juicy green grass sprouts. Often these rodents catch and eat small invertebrates that abound in forest litter. For the winter, wood mice carry reserves of seeds into hollows and holes, so they settle in fields, under stacks and haystacks, less often in cold weather than their field relatives.
Wood mice breed 2-3 times a year; a litter most often contains 5-6 young, and in particularly favorable years - up to 7-8. The number of mice is subject to significant fluctuations, depending on climatic conditions and the harvest of basic food.
These massive rodents are serious forest pests. During a “mouse attack,” when there are especially many of them, rodents can completely destroy the harvest of oak, beech, and linden seeds. Moreover, they raid nurseries - they dig out planted seeds from under the ground and “ring” the young shoots. However, in fairness it should be noted that the harm from it is not as great as from the next type.
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