Russian muskrat (second name - Ukrainian) is an unusual endemic animal from the order of insectivores, living near water bodies in Central Russia. Muskrat is also a relict species, which existed in the same form about 30-40 million years ago. Currently, the number of muskrats is very small, so it is included in the list of animals from the Red Book of Russia.

Reproduction of the Russian desman

Muskrats can give birth to offspring in spring and autumn.

Pregnancy lasts about a month and a half, then up to 5 cubs are born, which are absolutely helpless and weigh 2-3 grams. After about six months, the cubs become independent, and after 11 months they reach reproductive age. IN natural conditions Muskrats live about 4 years, and in captivity they live up to 5.

Protection of the Russian muskrat

The Russian muskrat is included in the list of animals from the Red Book of Russia with the status of a rare relict species, declining in number.

Currently, 4 reserves and about 80 reserves have been created in which this animal is studied by scientists. Measures are being taken to protect these animals and restore their population. In 2000, a special project was created called “Let's save the Russian muskrat”, which is engaged in assessing the number of muskrat individuals and developing measures for its conservation.

Classification

View: Russian muskrat

Family: Moles

Squad: Shrews

Class: Mammals

Type: Chordata

Subtype: Vertebrates

Dimensions: body length: 18-22 cm and tail about the same length; body weight: up to 500 g

Lifespan: 4 years in the wild, up to 5 years in captivity

The muskrat is one of the strangest and most mysterious species of animals, on the verge of extinction.

Modern photos This animal may become the last in nature if efforts are not made to preserve this amazing species.

Finding a high-quality photo of a muskrat, much less seeing it in its natural habitat, is becoming increasingly difficult.

This amazing and very strange animal is rapidly dying out. Whether our descendants will see it in nature is a big question.

Looking at the photo, it seems that the positive and eternal smile never leaves the face of this animal.

Habitat

The muskrat, also known as the khokhulya or simply the Russian muskrat, is an endemic species, that is, living in a narrow territory.

Mostly in Russia (the basins of the Ural, Don and Dnieper rivers, in the upper reaches of the Volga), but also in some areas former USSR- in Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

In fact, the fur only seems wet from the outside - it is just a thin film of water, under which it is dry and warm

Unlike many other mammals, this underwater inhabitant does not hibernate in winter: activity remains at the same level.

Moreover, in the winter months, work is literally in full swing to raise a new generation of cubs, which. By the way, it happens again in the summer.

Interesting! The name “khokhulya” comes from the obsolete verb “khukhat”, that is, “to stink”. This is due to the musk odor released by the muskrat's scaly tail.

Nutrition

The muskrat eats a lot - up to a volume equal to its own weight per day! The animal is an excellent hunter, despite its natural blindness.

Long whiskers are the main source of signals coming from outside about the outside world and about the movement of potential prey as well.

The species is positioned as an insectivore, but in practice the diet is much richer. In summer, the khokhulya eats leeches, river insects, and gastropods.

In winter, he manages to catch small fish and partially switches to a plant-based diet.

To find food, this furry hunter carefully examines the bottom of the reservoir with his amazing nose and digs up the mud with his paws. The prey is brought into the hole or safe place, where hunting gives way to eating.

A good catch is the river mussel. But it's just a light snack

The “water moles” themselves often become victims of larger predators: foxes and stoats, as well as birds like the kite, golden eagle or marsh harrier.

The list of dangerous enemies of the small waterfowl is long. However, the biggest danger is not in predators, but in animals such as mink.

They displace muskrats from their places natural habitat.

Reproduction

The mating season for muskrats begins during the spring flood.

Sexually mature individuals (about 11 months old) create pairs just at the time when they leave the flooded burrows.

These days, the silence on the river banks is broken by the loud chirping of males and the melodic sounds made by females. Tough battles between males are common.

Couples are formed at the time of a general disaster - the flooding of familiar homes

Pregnancy lasts about 50 days. One female gives birth to no more than 5 cubs. Sometimes there is only one.

The babies are hairless, in addition they are blind and completely helpless. They need protection, for which the mother makes a nest from bottom plants.

The cubs weigh about 3 g and grow in conditions of very low temperature and incredible humidity. Muskrats breed in May-June and November-December.

Males remain nearby with the brood. After only 4 months, babies become adults and completely independent.

Interesting!In case of danger, the female can transport the cubs to another hole on her own back.

Relationship with a person

As already mentioned, man's main contribution to this species is its destruction. Once upon a time, the khokhulya was a commercial species.

The reason was the musk secreted by the glands on the mammal's tail. Until the 17th century, this factor remained the only one due to which the animal was mercilessly exterminated.

This allowed the population to increase. From 1940 to 1957, trapping continued, and then was banned again. Now it was possible to catch Khokhulya only for the purpose of resettlement.

Man has become the main culprit in the disappearance of this relict species, and today zoologists are making great efforts to preserve it

Considerable work has been done in this direction. Muskrats were populated in areas where they had never existed before. Nature reserves and sanctuaries were created.

Today, work to preserve the rare relict species continues.

Most of all in Russia, the endemic is found in the areas:

• Kursk region;
• Smolenskaya;
• Bryansk;
• Tambovskaya;
• Ivanovskaya;
• Kostroma;
• Yaroslavl;
• Vladimir regions.

The maximum number of individuals (about two thousand) lives in the Kurgan region. In Siberia, the number of species in last years dropped to critical levels.

There is no specific data on keeping muskrats at home.

This is not difficult to understand from the description of the mammal’s lifestyle: it needs a lot of food, a special microclimate, a place where it can dig a large hole or trench, as well as a reservoir.

This photo is very rare. This is due to the secretive lifestyle and the low probability of meeting a representative of this species in nature.

But the animal is still bred in captivity - zoological parks have such experience.

There it also increases average age animals compared to their counterparts living in the wild for an average of one year.

Thus, there can be no talk of any home maintenance. Except in cases where all the necessary conditions are available, but this is impossible to do in a city apartment.

Today, scientists have a great responsibility on their shoulders: the task of preserving the muskrat in its natural habitat.

If you don’t make every possible effort, then in 50 years children will only learn about this funny waterfowl from documentaries and those few photos that can be found on the Internet.

Muskrat: The most unusual inhabitant of rivers

The muskrat is one of the strangest and most mysterious species of animals, on the verge of extinction. Modern photographs of this animal in nature may become the last if efforts are not made to preserve this amazing species.

The muskrat is a close relative of the mole. For its ability to swim beautifully and dig long underground holes, it received another name - water mole. This animal comes to land only in cases of extreme necessity. His appearance a little unusual, especially the elongated snout and webbed clawed feet.

Once upon a time, the muskrat was common not only in Russia, but also in many European countries. Now there are only 2 species of this animal left in the world - the Russian muskrat (Latin Desmana moschata) and the Pyrenean muskrat (Galemys pyrenaicus).

Its habitat is very scattered and is mainly concentrated in areas such large rivers like the Volga, Dnieper, Ural and Don. In the rest river basins its numbers are small.

The most comfortable place for them to live is not very deep reservoirs with standing or slowly flowing water. The ideal option is small oxbow lakes or lakes with low sandy shores and nearby forest.

The entire appearance of the muskrat indicates its adaptability to the underwater lifestyle. This can be seen in its streamlined body shape, small ears and eyes, waterproof thick fur and swimming membranes on the front and hind legs.

The animal itself is small. It grows no more than 45 cm in length, half of which is in the powerful tail. The muskrat weighs about 500-550 grams. The small body is covered with thick and warm fur. Its hairs have an unusual structure: they are slightly thicker at the top than at the base. This feature is often found in waterfowl mammals. This gives the fur a certain strength and allows air particles to be distributed between the hairs, which is an excellent heat insulator. The back is painted dark brown or grey colour, and the abdomen is silver-gray.

Now let's pay attention to the long and slightly laterally compressed tail. It performs a wide variety of functions, from steering to heat regulation in the hot season. Unlike the body, the tail is not covered with fur, but with horny scales. A stripe of coarse hair runs along the top, forming a kind of keel. At the base of the muskrat's tail there are also special scent glands.

Webbed feet, bordered with bristles, act as a rowing oar. But small front paws are not very useful in this matter. Most of the paddling is done by the more powerful hind legs. Therefore, while swimming, the muskrat often tucks its forelimbs close to its body.

The long muzzle allows the animal to take a breath of air without sticking its entire body to the surface of the water. At the end of the elongated stigma there are nasal openings, which are closed by special valves during immersion in water. Due to the special structure of the palate and pharynx, when eating at the bottom of a reservoir, water does not enter the windpipe.

Everything seems to be fine with the muskrat’s underwater equipment, but his eyesight has let him down. But it is fully compensated by an excellent sense of touch and smell.

The most comfortable habitat for a muskrat is water. Here she feels almost like a fish. But its main home is a hole. Most often there are several of them: one is the main one, where the nesting chamber is located, the rest are temporary (a kind of resting place). In burrows, muskrats live either alone or in small families. But in winter time in one hole there can be up to 10-12 individuals of different sexes and ages.

The entrance to the hole is always under water. The length of the dwelling is 2.5-3 meters. It has several nesting chambers lined with grass and leaves. Animals rest and dry out in them after spearfishing or swimming. Finding the way from the main hole to the temporary ones is quite easy. “trodden” odorous paths – trenches – lead to them.

It is possible to determine the location of such a trench. When moving along it, the animal releases the collected air and a number of small bubbles appear on the surface. In winter, thanks to these same bubbles, porous ice forms above the trench. As a result, conditions for better oxygen saturation are created in these places and various mollusks, fry, insect larvae (for example, rainbow beetles or caddis flies) and leeches tend to get here - all this is the main food of the muskrat. Thus, the prey itself falls into the clutches of the predator. All he can do is walk along his usual route of movement and collect the “harvest.” Sometimes the weight of what is eaten per day is equal to the weight of the animal itself.

During spring floods, their burrows quickly flood, which often leads to the death of the animal if they do not leave their home in time. As we already said, the ice above the trenches is porous and therefore breaks faster. Most often, this provides a chance for salvation.

In dry weather, they also have a hard time, especially if the reservoir begins to dry up. They are simply forced to go in search of a new home. On land, their movement speed is very low, and they can barely see. All this makes them easy prey for forest predators: foxes, ferrets, otters, wild cats and stray dogs, as well as kites and other large birds of prey. But the sharp musky smell of muskrats sometimes makes them change their mind about attacking it.

Their mating season coincides with the spring flood. It is at this time that many animals come out onto land, and the gentle melodic sounds of females and the loud chirping of males begin to be heard throughout the area. Fights often occur between males for the female.

After about 2 months of pregnancy, in May-June, from 1 to 5 cubs are born in one of the nesting chambers. They look a little scary: naked, blind and very small. Their birth weight is only 2-3 grams. The second peak in fertility occurs in November-December. If threatened, the female carries her offspring on her back to another burrow. The male is nearby all this time and protects the “family”. By 4-5 months, babies already become independent, and at 10-11 months they reach puberty.

In the 17th-20th centuries, the muskrat was considered a valuable game animal, hunted for its fur and the special secretion of its musk glands, which was used as a scent fixer for perfumes.

The muskrat is listed in the International Red Book and the Red Book of Russia as a species declining in numbers. The main reasons for its disappearance are the development of net fishing, as a result of which many animals die in the nets, drainage and pollution of water bodies, as well as deforestation.

Now their number, according to rough estimates, is about 30-35 thousand. In many places this animal appeared thanks to artificial resettlement. To protect and spread it, special reserves and sanctuaries are being created, where more than 30% of total number these animals.

The Russian muskrat is a relict mammal from the mole family, which lives mainly in some areas of Eurasia. This animal today lives in the basins of the Don, Dnieper, Ural and Volga, in Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Russia, and Ukraine. There is only one subspecies of this animal left in Europe - the Pyrenean muskrat, which lives along the mountains of the same name on the border of France and Spain, as well as in the mountainous regions of central Portugal. Both subspecies are included in the order of insectivores.

The Russian muskrat is a relict mammal from the mole family, which lives mainly in some areas of Eurasia

Description of appearance

The muskrat looks like a small animal whose body is covered with shiny fur. Depending on the subspecies maximum dimensions bodies range from 11 (Pyrenean desman) to 22 cm (Russian type). The weight of the European subspecies reaches 80 g, while the Russian subspecies weighs close to 0.52 kg.

The Iberian desman has a tail about 16 cm long, while in Russian specimens it equal to length bodies. The tail itself is covered with scales of keratinized tissue, and on top of it grow hairs that form a keel. At the base, the animal’s tail has the largest diameter, and at its extension there are odorous glands similar to pears. The oily liquid is squeezed out of them through holes located in the lower part of the tail.

The animal has a movable proboscis, and its entire body is covered with long, sensitive hairs - vibrissae.

Features of the animal Russian muskrat (video)

The animal's limbs are short and have 5 fingers. The front feet are narrower than the hind feet. A membrane for swimming is stretched between the fingers. The animal has long claws that are slightly curved. Along the edges of the animal's paws there are hard, bristly hairs that increase the surface of the limbs, which helps the animal to swim well.

Currently, there are 2 types of muskrats: Russian and Pyrenean. The Russian muskrat is in many ways a unique animal that has been thriving on Earth for more than 30 million years. Our muskrat is much larger than the Pyrenean one.

In this case we will talk about the Russian muskrat. Both before and in our time, the appearance of this secretive animal, similar to a rat and belonging to the mole family, has not changed significantly for its amazing ability to build deep holes.

Description of the muskrat

Main hallmark The muskrat has a long nose resembling a trunk, paws with membranes between the toes, a powerful tail covered with hard, rough scales, which the animal uses as a rudder. The body of the Russian muskrat (khokhuli) is streamlined and seems to be created for an active life both on land and in water, the animal’s abdomen is silver-white in color, and its back is dark.

This coloring of the animal makes it hardly noticeable in aquatic environment . The fur is very thick and does not get wet, since the animal constantly lubricates it with musk, which is produced using special glands. While the color of a muskrat allows it to camouflage itself, its strong smell often gives it away.

This is interesting! The muskrat's vision is very weak, but it does not play a key role in their way of life, moreover, this deficiency is almost completely compensated by a very acute sense of smell.

The hearing of this animal is also highly developed, but still has certain characteristics. She may not hear fairly loud sounds, such as people talking, but she instantly reacts to small rustles, crunching branches or splashing water. Scientists explain this feature by living conditions.

Appearance

This is a fairly small animal, body length adult The Russian muskrat is about 20 cm. Without the tail, it is about the same length, covered with horny scales and stiff hairs. It turns out that the total length reaches approximately 40 cm.

The weight of the animal is about 500 g. The muskrat has a large, movable nose, on which there are very sensitive whiskers - this is very important tool in an animal. The eyes are small, like black beads, which are surrounded by an area of ​​light skin that is not overgrown with hair.

This is interesting! The hind and front legs are very short, with the hind legs clubbed, and the toes are webbed, which makes them an excellent tool for moving underwater. Very sharp claws make it easy to dig deep holes in which these animals live.

Lifestyle

These animals lead an aquatic-terrestrial lifestyle. The Russian muskrat chooses places to live along quiet rivers, creeks and lakes. It digs holes - and these are real engineering structures 10 m long or more, with many passages and branches.

This allows muskrats to store food supplies that they eat in times of famine, hide from enemies and move around in search of food. Such tunnels are especially good in winter: they are quite warm and there is an opportunity to find prey. On the banks of reservoirs you can find entire networks of underground tunnels, the entrances to which are hidden under the water column.

In the hot season, when the water level drops noticeably, the animal deepens its underground burrows, again leading them under the water surface. It is very difficult to detect such dwellings, since they are very careful animals.

Many dangers, hunters and predators taught these animals to lead a secretive lifestyle. Over the course of 30 million years, muskrats have become good at hiding from outside world. But still, their habitats often reveal the remains of food that they leave near their burrows. This is what predators take advantage of.

How long does a muskrat live?

IN natural conditions These are very vulnerable animals; their lives are affected by too many aggressive factors: fluctuations in water levels in reservoirs, predators and humans. Therefore, as a rule, for more than 3-4 years they have been in natural environment don't live.

This is interesting! IN ideal conditions reserves or zoos, when the muskrat is not disturbed or threatened, it can live up to 5-6 years.

It was the short life expectancy, vulnerability to natural factors and low fertility that largely made this species endangered. It is especially difficult for muskrat cubs, as they appear helpless and any incident can end their lives. Therefore, at an early stage of development, muskrat offspring need special care.

Area, distribution

The Russian muskrat is widespread in middle lane Russia. Their main habitats are located along rivers with weak currents or near standing bodies of water. It is very good if the banks of such reservoirs are covered with dense vegetation, and the soil consists mainly of sandstones and loams. These are the most suitable conditions for the Russian muskrat.

This is interesting! They often coexist with beavers and peacefully share habitats with them, since they are not competitive species, and beavers are not interested in them as a food resource.

Previously, these animals were often found in the forests of the Eastern and part Western Europe, they are currently on the verge of extinction and are under the protection of international organizations.

Diet, nutrition Khokhuli

IN warm time From May to October, the main diet of the muskrat consists of small insects, larvae and crustaceans, and less often leeches and marsh plants. Because these animals do not hibernate in winter, they do not accumulate fat reserves. In winter, things are much more difficult for Khokhuli with food.

They can catch a hibernating frog as food. small fish, which at this time also becomes easy prey, as well as river mollusks. These animals have an excellent appetite, sometimes the weight of the food eaten is equal to the weight of the animal itself. This is explained by the fact that they are very mobile and have a fast metabolism.

Reproduction and offspring

The muskrat's offspring are usually born in the spring and late autumn. Pregnancy lasts about a month and a half, later up to 5 cubs are born, which are completely independent and weigh only 2-3 grams - this is 250 times less than an adult.

At the first stage, both parents take part in their upbringing and feeding. After about 6 months, the cubs become independent and leave their parents. Upon reaching 11-12 months, individuals become reproductive. Not everyone survives to this stage; some of the offspring inevitably die.

This is interesting! Mating games of quiet-looking animals are accompanied by loud sounds made by males and melodic tunes by females. There are very fierce fights between males for the female, which is difficult to expect from these small animals.