Learning the nature of the native land - dressing
28 февраля 2020
Dressing - a species of mammal from the family marten (Mustelidae). It lives in Eastern Europe, Western and Central Asia. The habitual habitat for dressing is deserts, steppes, woodlands. In addition, the animal rises to mountains up to 3 thousand meters above sea level. Ligation is widespread for the most part in Eastern Europe and throughout Asia. If we describe the habitat of the ferrets, it turns out that they live from the Balkan Peninsula, touching the south of Russia, to the northwestern regions of Mongolia and China. The animal rarely immigrates, only if the food on the territory has run out. The dressing lives either in other people's holes, or digs itself. The animal does not try to avoid people and settlements, so you can easily meet him in gardens, vineyards and parks. Dressings are often kept at home, because their contents differ little from hamsters or ferrets.
Appearance
Ligation - a small animal a little smaller than a ferret. Dressing for an interesting color, many call the "marble ferret." The body length is from 30 to 40 cm, with almost half falling on the tail. The weight of the largest adult individuals reaches 730 g, the average weight of females is only 300-400 g. The dressing has a physique typical of most representatives of the marten family. An elongated body, a long tail, short legs, a small head - these are the main characteristics of its appearance. However, the dressing can be easily distinguished from the next of kin by a specific color. The top of the body and the back of the animals are painted in a dark brown tone with numerous bright yellow spots and stripes. The lower body and neck are black. The muzzle is also black, with a beautiful pattern of wide white stripes.
Behavior and Nutrition
Dressings lead a twilight and nightlife. In the afternoon, they rest in burrows abandoned by other animals or dug independently. Ligation is an active predator; its main prey is small rodents: ground squirrels, grouses, and field voles. Dressings hunt both on the ground, where they sometimes stand on their hind legs to have a better view of the terrain, and on trees that they can climb on. Outside of the breeding season, both males and females prefer solitude. Sites of individual individuals may overlap, while fights in the struggle for territory do not occur. The animals avoid contact with each other. Dressings, like skunks, use the foul-smelling secret of the anal glands to scare away enemies. Before the attack, they warn the enemy, taking a threatening pose and ruffling the fur on end. The dressing has a peculiar voice. She can scream loudly, scream and even grunt. But if the animal is in a frightened state, then a distinct growl is heard.
An interesting fact in the hunt for dressing is that it sometimes combines with another animal, the fox, to attack a colony of gerbils. The fox guards the rodents at the exits from the holes, and the dressing destroys them in the underground passages themselves.
Reproduction and longevity
Ligation females become sexually mature at the age of three months. Males need about a year to complete growing up. Pregnancy dressings last 11 months. As with most mustelids, these animals have a delay in the development of the embryo. At the same time from one to eight babies are born. They are very small and blind, but they grow quickly and after a month they wean from milk. A month after birth, they wean from the mother’s milk and begin to eat on their own. The male is involved in the rearing of young only in captivity. Puppies open their eyes after 40 days. After 1.5 months, the puppies wean from the mother’s milk and begin to hunt on their own. In freedom, the animal lives about 6 years, but in captivity they survive to 9.
Enemies
In the 20th century, the dressing population declined rapidly. The reason for this was not so much the hunt for their fur, which, compared with the fur of other marten, is not very highly valued, as the transformation of their habitat into agricultural land. In addition, the large-scale extermination of rodents that serve them prey, often deprives them of food. The Balkan subspecies of dressings Vormela peregusna peregusna is considered to be endangered, although in general the type of dressings is not yet under acute threat.
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