What is the name of the earth hare. Large jerboa (earth hare). See what "Earth Hare" is in other dictionaries

The large jerboa is a peculiar kind of animal from the jerboa family. Its body length is about 22 cm. It belongs to a number of rodents, but due to its appearance and internal structure, it stands out as a separate group of five-toed earth hares. In the structure of an earthen hare, the most characteristic are a short body, a large head with a blunt muzzle, large rounded ears, bent up to the end of the muzzle, large round eyes and long mustaches - vibrissae. This animal has highly developed hearing and sense of touch and exceptional gloomy vision, which are necessary for him while looking for food and protection from enemies at night. Large jerboas move remarkably only on their hind legs, in connection with which they developed very specialized features: the hind legs are long, strong, the feet of which are 10 cm long, and the lateral fingers (1st and 5th) are poorly developed and not very strong. up to three averages. Such a peculiar structure of the hind legs is an adaptation to movement only by jumping. The front paws of the earthen hare are short. With them, he captures and holds food, to some extent digs holes, in which these animals have achieved exceptional skill. The long, thin tail exceeds the length of the body, ending in a wide brush, as if combed on both sides, the tail ensures the balance of the body during jumps, especially when the animal turns sharply or jumps quickly. The color of the hairline of large jerboas is brownish-gray on top with a rusty tint. The throat, chest and belly are white. The tail brush is bright white with a black base.

Jerboas are distributed mainly in the forest-steppe and steppe zones on the Left Bank of Ukraine, penetrate south to the coasts of the Black and Azov Seas. In the right-bank regions of Ukraine, they are very few; here lies the western limit of their distribution. They live most often on cultivated lands, paths, pastures, adapting to a wide variety of soil conditions. They avoid only well loosened, cultivated lands.

It is very difficult to meet a hare jerboa in nature. These are typically nocturnal animals that appear on the surface of the earth only after sunset, with the onset of complete darkness. During the day they sleep soundly, well camouflaged in their peculiarly constructed burrows with a rather complex arrangement. Burrows are torn out mainly with teeth - long incisors, with which they loosen the soil. The front paws serve them mainly for raking the already loosening soil. There are several types of jerboa burrows: permanent, temporary, nocturnal and winter; where they hibernate. The simplest temporary holes. They begin with a vertical long passage, which ends dully at a depth of about 80 cm, without a nesting chamber. Such burrows are built in case of danger. In the life of earth hares, this type of burrow was of great importance, because earth hares in search of food will often walk far from their permanent holes, and these temporary holes are a reliable refuge. All types of burrows of earth hares differ from the burrows of other rodents of the fauna of Ukraine in that they are not outwardly noticeable, because their inlets are clogged from the inside. They are open only in temporary burrows.

Earthen hares feed almost exclusively on plant foods - juicy roots and bulbs that are dug out of the soil, weed seeds - wheatgrass, quinoa, etc. The favorite food of these rodents are watermelons, melons, pumpkins. Only occasionally do they consume insects and their larvae, but they do not play a significant role in their diet.

Large jerboas breed once a year, giving birth in May - early June, two or three, very rarely more than babies, which already reach the size of adults by autumn. With the first night frosts (more often at the end of September), earth hares, having recovered very much, lie down in winter hibernation in specially dug winter burrows, which go deeper than 2 m, at the end of the hole there is a well-lined nest. Winter hibernation continues until the end of April, until warm days come.

Ground hares do not belong to the mass pests of agricultural crops, although in some areas of their habitat they can cause some losses, in particular in farms where gourds are cultivated. Here they collect freshly sown seeds, which greatly thin the crops. But due to the fact that these animals are very few, the harm from them is insignificant and they have no practical significance. Jerboa (three-toed jerboa), as an exceptionally rare species now, listed in the Red Book.

Earth hares have few natural enemies. This was facilitated by exceptionally skillful disguise of holes and extremely fast running, during which animals can make jumps over 2 m long. Among the most obvious predators that prey on large jerboas are steppe polecats, weasels, foxes, and owls.

B large jerboa, or earthen hare- the largest representative of five-toed jerboas: body length 190-250 mm, length of the back foot 85-93 mm, condylobasalskull length 40-47 mm. The head is relatively short and broad. The muzzle is elongated, somewhat flattened in front, the ears are long, the hind limbs are five-fingered, there are no brushes on them, a “banner” is well expressed at the end of the tail; the black part of the banner on the lower surface is not interrupted along the tail shaft by a white stripe.

There is no white ring ahead of the black part of the "banner"; the black part of the banner on the lower surface is usually not interrupted along the tail shaft by a white stripe.

The general tone of the back color varies in different geographical forms from brownish-gray to pale sandy-gray; the ventral side and the inside of the legs are white; in the back of the body on the thighs there is a sharply defined wide white stripe on the underside, going to the base of the tail. The outer thighs are rusty-yellow. The edges of the sole of the hind foot are covered with black-brown hair. The tail to the main part of the banner is light rusty-brown; the main part of the banner is black, the end is white.

The longitudinal groove on the upper side of the penis reaches only its middle and branches into two grooves diverging at an angle; its upper surface usually has about 60 small spines. The anterior upper premolar (P4) is 2-3 times smaller than the last molar (M3). The anterior parts of the zygomatic arches (when the skull is viewed from above) depart almost perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the skull.

Distributed in the forest-steppe, steppe and semi-desert zone of the European part of the USSR, Western Siberia and Kazakhstan - west to the Krivoy Rog district of the Dnepropetrovsk region, east to Novosibirsk and Barnaul. Approximate northern border: the rivers Desna, Oka, Kama, Belaya, Verkhneuralsk, Troitsk, Chelyabinsk, Shadrinsk, Kurgan, Omsk, with. Ordynskoye, Novosibirsk region. Southern border: the lower reaches of the Dnieper, the steppes of Crimea, the coast of the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov, the foothills of the Caucasus Range, the northern coast of the Caspian Sea, the northern Ust-Urt, the river. Syr-Darya, Chimkent city, Dzhambul city, Almaty region, lake. Zaisan, foothills of Altai. Finds of the Pleistocene age are known from different places in the European part of the range from the region of the lower reaches of the Urals to the Kama region in the east and from the southern steppe Crimea to the Chernigov region in the west.

The large jerboa inhabits mainly semi-deserts and deserts, with the exception of sandy ones. In areas with dense soil and sparse vegetation, it is widely distributed in the steppe zone (especially to the west of the Volga River), and also penetrates into the forest-steppe and the southern part of the taiga zone of Western Siberia. Here he settles on the slopes of the beams of river valleys, along roadsides, on borders and pastures. In the mountains - up to 1100 m above sea level. m. (northern Kyrgyzstan).

During the Pleistocene, at least two forms of this species lived here, but their elucidation requires a detailed comparative study of the bones of the skeleton of the limbs, since the remains of the skull, like in other jerboas, are usually not preserved. Outside the modern range, only one locality is known - in the Upper Pleistocene asphalts of the Apsheron Peninsula.

The large jerboa is found in a variety of habitats - from the meadow steppe in the north of the range to the outlying parts of the clay desert - in the south. In the steppe and forest-steppe zones, it settles mainly on denser soils with a low sparse grass cover - on pastures, slopes of beams, along roadsides, etc. Burrows have 1-2 emergency exits, and one of them is often not brought 2-5 cm to surfaces and is easily broken by the animal when it unexpectedly jumps out through this exit.

The earth hare is active from sunset to dawn; most of the animals come to the surface 30-40 minutes after sunset and go into burrows, depending on the time of year and latitude, 20 minutes -1.5 hours before sunrise. The animals that have come to the surface first of all begin to satisfy their hunger and, after saturation, they begin to run and play. Inclement weather somewhat reduces the activity of animals, but even in strong wind and rain, you can observe grazing earth hares. Slowly moving during feeding, the animal lowers the front part of the body low, so that the front legs almost touch the ground. From time to time, the rodent stretches upward, rising on long hind legs, slightly moving its large ears. At this moment, he especially resembles a miniature hare. If you are careful and do not make sudden movements, then you can come very close to a feeding large jerboa. Frightened, he jumps back several meters and freezes in a tense pose, leaning on his tail, and the disturbed one again flies away with long "flat" jumps. A rodent pursued by a car can reach speeds of up to forty kilometers per hour and can run in this mode for about two kilometers.

Among the burrows, the following categories can be outlined: 1) permanent burrows with a chamber, a passage clogged with earth and 1-2 emergency exits closed with earth plugs; 2) temporary daytime burrows, which have a simpler device and a shallower depth (20-35 cm), and the chamber and the part of the passage clogged with earth are absent; 3) temporary night burrows, representing a short straight channel with an open hole; 4) winter burrows, which differ from other types mainly in greater depth (up to 2 m or more). The outlet of permanent burrows is most often clogged with an earthen plug. Temporary burrows are shallow, simpler structure, in the form of an open passage going obliquely underground, at the end with or without a camera. Temporary burrows can be rebuilt by animals into permanent ones, and summer ones into wintering ones.

In the lower Volga region, they hibernate at the onset of the first night frosts, awaken in late March - early April.

Mating occurs shortly after awakening (March-April); in each litter 1-4 cubs. Since large jerboas develop slowly, the mass resettlement of young ones is observed no earlier than the second half of June.

The large jerboa feeds mainly on seeds, roots and basal parts, bulbs and tubers; when eating seeds, it cleans them from the shell, even in those cases when they are very small. With the onset of seed maturation, the latter become the main food. They also partially feed on insects. When digging out the underground parts of plants, it leaves characteristic pits ("kopanki"). Sometimes they also partially feed on insects (Fenyuk, 1928, 1929).

In some areas (Lower Volga region, Kazakhstan), a large jerboa harms by eating sown seeds of watermelons, melons and pumpkins. After the ripening of the bread, in some places it harms by eating grains, it also eats sunflower seeds, peas and lentils. Damage was also noted to the rubber plant tau-saghyz (eating seeds and seedlings). In the twenties and thirties, these jerboas were mined for the sake of a beautiful skin. However, the very fragile core of the skins of earthen hares "saved" them from systematic fishing. Noted as a natural carrier of plague pathogens.

Geographic variation and subspecies. The color of the upper part towards the south is lighter, brighter, reddish tones appear in it; at the same time, the area occupied by the black part of the "banner" decreases.
6 subspecies have been described.

Literature:
1. Mammals of the USSR. Reference-determinant of the geographer and traveller. V.E. Flint, Yu.D. Chugunov, V.M. Smirin. Moscow, 1965
2. Rodents of the fauna of the USSR. Moscow, 1952
3. Fokin I. M. Jerboas. Series: The life of our birds and animals. Issue 2. Publishing house Leningrad. un-ta, 1978. 184 p.
4. Mammals of the fauna of the USSR. Part 1. Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Moscow-Leningrad, 1963
5. B.S. Vinogradov. Jerboas. Mammals vol. III, no. 4. Fauna of the USSR. Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1937

earth hare

(Alactaga jaculus Brd.) is one of the species of the jerboa family (Dipodidae), the order of rodents (Rodentia). In the genus Alactaga, unlike other genera of this family, the hind legs have 4-5 fingers, but only three middle fingers, metatarsalia (metarsus bones) of which are fused together, touch the ground. The Z. hare has 5-toed hind legs and is 4 times as long as the front legs. The ears are the same length as the head. On the sides of the upper lip there are very long hairs (moustaches) arranged in 8 longitudinal rows on each side. The upper side of the body is yellow-gray, the lower and inner surface is almost white. The tail is reddish-yellow, the brush at its end is black at the base, and white at the top. Body length 18 cm, tail 26 cm. Found in the steppes of southern and southeastern Russia, in the steppes of Western Siberia and the Caspian; to the north does not go further than 52 ° N. sh. It does not occur in loose sands. Z. hares live in small communities; the day is spent in burrows, from which they emerge only at dusk. When a Z. hare grazes, it rests on four legs; during the flight, which he turns to at the slightest danger, he rides on his hind legs alone, making huge leaps and constantly changing direction. Underground burrows in which they live in 2-3 pairs together are quite extensive; the main passage, often divided into branches, leads to the central chamber, connected to the side ones. From this chamber there is a deaf passage, ending near the surface of the earth. Pursued in the hole, Z. the hare jumps out through this deaf passage, breaking its cover. Z. hare eats plants. In summer, the female throws 5-6 cubs in a hole. In September, Z. hares clog the exit from their hole and, curled up in several pieces together into a ball, fall into hibernation, from which they emerge in April. Other closely related species in Asia and Africa. - See jerboas.


Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron. - St. Petersburg: Brockhaus-Efron. 1890-1907 .

Synonyms:

See what the "Earth Hare" is in other dictionaries:

    Exist., number of synonyms: 2 jerboas (4) coinage (2) ASIS synonym dictionary. V.N. Trishin. 2013 ... Synonym dictionary

    earth hare- Spec. A rodent of the jerboa family. An earthen hare jumped out from behind the bushes of a Tatar man, rose on its hind legs, moved its long erect ears and seemed to freeze (A. Perventsev. Tierra del Fuego) ... Phraseological dictionary of the Russian literary language

    earth hare- didysis kiškiašoklis statusas T sritis zoologija | vardynas taksono rangas rūšis atitikmenys: lot. Allactaga major engl. great jerboa vok. Erdhase; großer Pferdespringer; jerboa; Pferdespringer rus. big jerboa; earth hare pranc.… … Žinduolių pavadinimų žodynas

    Large jerboa (Allactaga major), a mammal of the jerboa family (See. Jerboas) of the rodent order ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

    - (according to Pavsky hare) husband. the generic name of the animal, from the category of rodents, Lepus; bonfire fast, pitch, eagle. vytorepen, orenb., Tatars. kuyan, sib. ushkan, psk. crooked, joke. oblique, stubby, lop-eared; novg. biley (white, white). Hunters have yarovik, ... ... Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary

    Hare: hare is a representative of the family of mammals hare (lat. Leporidae) from the order of lagomorphs: hare hare hare hare hare tolai climbing hare hare polar Manchurian hare and others. Hare is a constellation of the southern hemisphere. Hare ... ... Wikipedia

    Catch a rabbit. Novosib. In the wedding ceremony: to block the street in order to delay the groom's train demanding a ransom for the bride. SRNG 17, 101; FSS, 107. Overtake the hare. Novg. Shuttle. Run fast. NOSE 6, 97. Saying a hare at the top, a pike ... ... Big dictionary of Russian sayings

    hare; m. 1. A small animal of the rodent order with long hind legs, long ears and a short tail. Hares run fast. Russian hare. // The fur of this animal. Bunny hat. ● The traditional character of Russian folklore is weak, defenseless, ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

    hare- for / eggs; m. see also. bunny, bunny, bunny, bunny, bunny, bunny, bunny 1) ... Dictionary of many expressions

    Aya, oh. 1. to Earth (1.Z .; 4 6 signs); connected to the earth. 3rd work. Third block. Z. put on. 2. Made from earth; made up of earth. Z. floor. Third embankment. Third fortification. Sakli with flat earthen roofs. 3. Living or being in the ground. Z… … encyclopedic Dictionary

Large jerboa (ground hare) Allactaga major (Kerr, 1792) Order Rodents Rodentia Family Five-toed jerboas Allactagidae

Status in Russia and adjacent regions. The species is listed in the Red Books of the Lipetsk and Tambov regions.

Spreading.

It lives in the European part of Russia (to the Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod regions to the north), in the south of the West. Siberia and Ciscaucasia, in the semi-desert, steppe and forest-steppe. Adheres to sagebrush wastelands, clayey plains, salt marshes. In the Voronezh region habitats are known in the Usmansky pine forest and the Bogucharsky district.

Description.

Small animal: body length up to 26 cm, tail up to 30 cm; body weight 260415 g. The head is relatively short and wide. The coloration of the upper body is from brownish-gray to pale sandy-gray with reddish tones, the belly and lower part of the limbs are white, the thighs are rusty-yellow on the outside, a white stripe extends behind them. The "banner" of the tail is well developed; the black field below is solid, there is no light ring in front of it. In the karyotype 2n = 48.

Features of biology and ecology.

Inhabits desert steppes, semi-deserts and deserts, except for sandy ones. In areas with dense soil and sparse vegetation, it is widely distributed in the steppe zone (especially west of the Volga), penetrates into the forest-steppe and even the southern part of the taiga zone (West Siberia). Here he settles on the slopes of the beams of river valleys, roadsides, on borders and pastures.

Digs burrows independently: permanent and temporary. Lives alone. May occupy abandoned ground squirrel burrows. Leads a twilight and nocturnal lifestyle. It feeds mainly on seeds, underground parts of plants and their young shoots, insects.

The female brings 1 litter per year, usually 34 cubs in a litter, up to a maximum of 8. The population density can reach 58 ind./ha. Number and tendencies of its change. In habitats has declined significantly and continues to decline.

limiting factors. Reduction of areas suitable for habitation due to changing modes of agricultural use. Weak replenishment of the population with young individuals due to low rates of reproduction and slow development of young individuals.

Security measures taken and required. Protected in the Voronezh region. since 1994. Establishment of protected areas in key habitats of the species is required.

Information sources: 1. Barabash-Nikiforov, 1957. 2. Klimov A. S., 1996b. 3 . www.ecosystema.ru Compiled by: N. I. Prostakov, N. N. Kharchenko.