Interesting facts about the mongoose

His popularity in Europe, small animal mongoose obliged, of course, a fairy tale by Rudyard Kipling "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" and we - and even animated film adaptation, filmed in 1965. Fairy tale well and gave very realistic image of a fearless animal, loyal to his friends - and animals, and people. But it also gave rise to several myths.
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Not every meeting ends with a snake hot battle. Mongoose fighting only in exceptional cases where the escape is impossible. If the snake is too big for him, animal prefers to retire. You should not judge a mongoose on a popular attraction in India's special - his battle with the cobra. In nature, this occurs infrequently.



It is also not true that the immune system of the mongoose makes it immune to snake venom. Scientific research increasingly confirms that it is not. Kind of antidote in the form of special herbs, supposedly named after the bite eaten, mongoose is also unknown. So all he can do in the fight to win - to use his extraordinary speed and agility.



Tale extols the mongoose as the savior and protector of birds' nests of rats. Alas. In the absence of snakes, mongooses do not disdain to destroy the bird's nest. He learned to cleverly split bird eggs, kicking their hind legs with the expectation to break the shell of a stone or any hard object. As for the rats ... In Indian villages mongoose appreciate more and for the ability to instantly clean the area from small rodents - this is their usual meal. Not by chance in Central India mongoose - a sacred animal.



Once mongoose tried to bring to the Caribbean, to the lime there are plenty of snakes, hosted on the precious sugar cane plantations. At first all went well. But the meeting with rattlesnakes, have a more rapid response than cobras, mongooses ended for death. Then they switched over to native animals and birds, as well as imported chickens. Man has had to contend with mongooses ...



Friendship mongoose with a person - the truth. For thanks to his biped creature pays loyalty and affection. (In part, this is due to the mongoose belong to the suborder feliformia.) Like a cat, mongoose rubs on people's feet, rolled into a ball on his knees when he stroked - purring with pleasure.



There are 12 species of mongoose and some of them - such as meerkats - are social animals that live in Central and West Africa. They live in underground dwellings dug sobstvennolapno or in abandoned burrows of others. Often formed a real underground "town" where the peaceful neighborhood, it is not interfering with each other, live yellow mongooses, meerkats, and ground squirrels. In the old termite mounds often found a colony of dwarf or banded mongoose.



African meerkats, unlike the Indian mongoose, cobra hunt, if they met, in small flocks. Provoke her constant assaults, and a cobra falls and then rise to disclose your hood and look. It quickly exhausts her. Then the strongest male attacks the snake and kills her, biting through the scales on the back of his neck to the spine. Together, meerkats hunters cobra tear apart.



Like many mammals, striped mongooses jointly grow their offspring. The first 3-4 weeks of life baby is totally dependent on the mother. Then comes the choice of "guardian." Kid approaching young mongoose out of their flocks, often male, and starts beeping heart-rending. "Nanny" is to banish any annoying or give in and bring him food. In the second case, the mongoose will feed your baby for almost a month.



By the way, a recent study of Swiss biologists have shown that the sounds of mongooses, not just squeak. To the surprise of their "speech" it was similar to the human language! We found that each sound is made up of syllables with vowels and consonants. "Language" mongoose is very informative, and this information does not depend on the current situation. The same was human speech in its infancy, tens of thousands of years ago.

Source: 1001fact.ru/2014/03/interesnye-fakty-o-manguste/



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