The content of the article
A shrub dog is a carnivorous canine mammal. This animal really prefers to live in shrubbery, but, in addition, it inhabits a variety of tropical and mountain forests. The habitat is the territory of Central and South America.
Now shrubbery dogs practically do not exist in the wild, since the forests where they are used to living are quite actively cut down, as a result, dogs often have to migrate a lot and they gradually reduce their population. In addition, there are factors such as rabies epidemics, the spread of other diseases, parasites. To preserve shrub dogs, they are partially transferred to zoos and reserves, nurseries.
Appearance description
Outwardly, a shrub dog resembles a mixture of a bear and a weasel, also this animal is quite comparable to a large badger on short legs. A cursory glance allows you to compare a shrub dog with a simple mongrel, but only on short legs and with a short muzzle. Moreover, earlier the size of these animals was much larger, but evolution did its job, and brought it to the optimum for this species, because dogs need to move a lot in search of food, therefore it is more profitable to have a relatively small body.
A distinctive feature of this land animal is the presence of membranes on its paws. Actually, marine animal species also have membranes, and both of these facts indicate waterfowl ancestors. As well as people, shrub dogs retained the ability to swim perfectly and use this ability, which is described in more detail below.
In color, the body always has a standard combination of brown and brown. However, young individuals are distinguished by a lighter body color. Sometimes it is possible to observe a brighter coat in adult animals, but rarely.
The head of these canine representatives is distinguished by small and oval ears, which make the small muzzle look like a little bear cub or something similar. The body grows to the upper part, is quite dense. A description of a shrubby dog is found in various rather ancient tales and legends, and this fact confirms the duration of the existence of representatives on the planet and a gradual decrease in the number of individuals, which previously (given the rather active mention in various sources) were much larger.
Typical behavior
The animal is quite active and mobile, mainly acts during the day, and sleeps at night in burrows or rocky depressions. The animal prefers to hunt in the mornings and evenings, partly this fact is determined by the weather in the forests of South America, where the air can warm up during the day, partly - by the behavior of other animals, which are the food base. In order to get a hole at one’s disposal, a dog can independently dig a ground, and can appropriate a mink of another animal.
Shrub dogs are quite social, and gather in flocks (4-12 individuals, sometimes can exist in a stable pair), in which they travel through forests and other spaces. Dogs sniff each other and thus receive information about who belongs to which pack and with whom it is necessary to continue social interaction. If the flock travels through the forest, and cannot sniff each other and maintain visual contact, then a bark that looks like a dog bark is used, only slightly higher in tonality, or howl.
Like other dogs, these mark their territory with urine and are guided by such marks in order to understand the boundaries. At the same time, shrub dogs quite clearly follow their own borders and can violently defend the territory. They defend well and, as a rule, fight until the last gasp, if there is no help, try to cling to the enemy in the throat, act very selflessly.
Enemies
The natural enemies of these animals are other larger predators. In particular, we are talking about jaguars and cougars, which also prefer to spend a lot of time in the jungle. In addition, ocelots often eat bush dogs.
Despite the previous passage, it should be noted the friendliness of shrub dogs, which do not show aggression towards humans and behave for the most part with curiosity. They begin to be interested in people, make contact and actively communicate. Some people even tame these animals and use them for hunting purposes or just keep them at home.
Diet features
As mentioned above, a shrub dog is a predator, that is, it feeds on other living things. She prefers various rodents and lizards, sometimes birds.
Nutrition
Shrub dogs are excellent swimmers, and therefore can afford to eat various inhabitants of water bodies, in particular, they love to feast on larvae, fry and waterfowl insects.
They hunt quite often in packs and then they can look for larger prey: capybara, young deer or ostriches. In order to make this process productive, animals are divided into two groups, one of which drives the prey to water, and the other expects from the water.
During the division of prey, they almost never quarrel, unlike other representatives of the wolf, they do not chew on the flesh, but swallow it almost immediately.
Propagation Features
Pairs of shrub dogs do not break up, that is, they continue to be in communication after the birth of offspring. As said earlier, a couple can generally exist separately and constitute a kind of mini-flock. One way or another, when the female is engaged in feeding the young, the male is engaged in the search for food, which brings food for the female, and at the same time, she feeds her young with milk for about 8 weeks after birth.
Puberty occurs one year after birth. Young growth can act in the conditions of the existing flock, but new ones can also form.
Interesting Facts
In conclusion, a number of facts about shrub dogs to summarize basic information.
- They have a rather impressive range of communication and can use a variety of sounds - from a loud roar to a quiet whimper.
- They have an equally varied menu, which includes all kinds of small rodents and mammals, insects, and sometimes just the fruits of the trees that they can see along the way.
- They have the smallest number of teeth (38 in total) compared to all other representatives of the wolf squad.
- It is a little-known representative of the fauna, since it is very difficult to study shrub dogs in the wild, and in captivity they behave in a completely different way, and they do not particularly tolerate captive conditions. Therefore, scientists do not even know what is the natural lifespan of one individual.
For this period, shrub dogs live in the wild in the amount of about 10 thousand individuals, and this fact classifies them as endangered. Therefore, hunting for these animals is prohibited, but sometimes it is still allowed during periods of rabies, when animals threaten to infect the rest of the population, and can harm other animals and people.
A shrub dog is a good example of how the human factor affects the biodiversity of the planet.
Video: shrub dog (Speothos venaticus)
Submit