The speckled ground squirrel lives mainly in the steppes. This is a fussy creature, vigilantly guarding its own hole. Everyone who has ever been to the steppes has repeatedly seen the silhouettes of these animals, standing in columns, with their front legs folded on their chests and looking around the neighborhood. One instant - and the gopher disappeared!
Interestingly, folk legends attributed special properties to them. Nomads believed that these animals knew where the gold treasures were buried in the steppes, and that if you go to bed in an open field, then the gophers could go up to the resting person and reveal all their secrets in his ear.
Spread
Speckled ground squirrel is common in the southern forest-steppes and steppes of the East European Plain. There are also 2 small isolated habitats: in the west of Belarus and north-west of Ukraine.
Speckled Gopher: a description of the appearance
This is one of the short-tailed and small gophers. Its weight reaches 500 g, while males are slightly larger than females. The head is large, with huge eyes. The paws of the animal are short, with movable long fingers. The speckled ground squirrel has a rather rare and short, adjacent hairline; only on his tail the hair is fluffy and long. The color of the back is variegated and bright: large, clearly defined, yellowish or whitish specks, merging on the back of the head in a ripple, are scattered on the brown or gray-brownish background.
Interestingly, young animals have speckles in rows. The upper part of the head is the same color with the back, periodically a little darker. A light ring surrounds the eyes; there are brown spots under them. The head below and the neck are white. The belly changes color from ocher yellow to light gray. The tail is two-tone, has a light border. The general color tone within the range dims and brightens towards the south.
The speckled ground squirrel in the karyotype has 34 chromosomes.
Breeding
In these animals, the breeding period begins one and a half weeks after leaving hibernation. In this case, the race lasts about two weeks. It is accompanied by the arrival of males in the territory of females. The males at this time are very aggressive - they chase each other, “box”, bite. Mating always takes place in the hole. In this case, the pregnancy lasts about 27 days. After this, about seven cubs are born.
At the very beginning of June, a young animal (ground squirrel) first leaves its hole. Then the female leaves her offspring for 3 days, thereby forcing him to start eating solid foods. A few days later, the young growth itself leaves its mother, settling in its burrows.
The speckled ground squirrel gives infertile hybrids in the middle Volga region with the small ground squirrel. And on average, Transnistria with a European gopher.
Food
But this is not only interesting mottled gopher. What does this animal eat? The composition of its feed is vegetable. It has about 50 items, the main part is cereals (feather grass, fescue, bluegrass, wild oats), as well as flowering herbs (yarrow, clover, dandelion). A pronounced change in diet depending on the season. In early spring, the animal eats plant roots, green parts in summer, and seeds in autumn.
Cultivated cereals (wheat, rye, sometimes barley) are eaten whole (stalks, seedlings, grain, leaves), and do not enter further than 50 meters from the extreme part of the field. During the period of active flight of bugs, he eats them. It makes small stocks - 500 g each, and then - in case of bad weather in summer (animals don’t eat in winter). During periods of young growth and rutting in dense settlements, there are also cases of necrophagy and cannibalism (eating congeners caught in the trap).
Lifestyle
The inhabitant of feather grass steppes, the southern part of the forest-steppe and upland meadows is a gopher. Description of his lifestyle, we consider in this article. Its original habitats are elevated steppe areas used for pastures, pastures and mowing. But due to the extensive plowing of the steppes, the ground squirrel was driven out onto the slopes of dry beams, the outskirts of forest belts, and the boundary.
During the years of its high numbers, it temporarily settles along country roads, in vineyards and old orchards, along the edges of fields with crops of wheat and corn. Lowlands are rarely used and only as feed sites.
The speckled ground squirrel, whose photo is presented in this article, lives in colonies (dense and sparse) along roadsides, floodplains, and so on. There are also single animals. In addition, each adult takes its own hole. There are temporary and permanent burrows. There gophers hibernate, breed and fly.
Sometimes burrows have extra passages and snouts. Temporary dwellings are smaller and simpler. Animals lead a settled life, while they do not make migrations in search of food. Only males are mobile during the rutting season, as well as young animals during the resettlement period.
Number
The total number of speckled ground squirrels has declined in recent decades due to ongoing fighter activities using chemicals and plowing virgin lands.
