A fat clumsy groundhog in the steppes of Asia. Baibak (Marmota bobak) - the largest of the squirrel family

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How nice it is in the steppe in spring. Young emerald greenery and a motley carpet of blooming herbs are pleasing to the eye, the fragrance of herbs and flowers is spreading in the air. At such moments, you forget that very little time will pass, some couple of months, and what blooms so brightly and smells sweet will hide underground from the summer drought and winter frosts and will wait for next spring to bloom again when the steppe wakes up again. The first steppe marmot wakes up after a long winter hibernation.

Groundhogs begin to emerge from their burrows already in March, when the snow has not yet melted. They "walk" through the thawed patches, looking for tubers, bulbs and roots in the ground, basking in the spring sun, which they missed so much. After all, more than half of his life bobak is busy sleeping. But this is not at all because he is lazy and slow, not at all. It's just that his whole life is connected with the steppe, and he is ideally adapted to life in the steppe. The steppe sleeps, the groundhog sleeps too. The steppe will wake up, and the groundhog is already here - standing in a column at the hole.

GROWTH INTERFERED TO LIVE

The steppe marmot, or bobak, is a typical inhabitant of the steppe. In the recent past, it was distributed everywhere from Ukraine to Kazakhstan. The plowing of the virgin steppe has significantly reduced the number of places suitable for its habitation. And since the animals continued to be hunted for their meat, healing fat and skins, the threat of complete extinction loomed over the species very soon. However, thanks to protection measures and mass resettlement, the number of bobak has increased significantly. But the original habitats of the bobak, the virgin European steppes, have been preserved only in some reserves.

In other places, marmots have to settle in ravines, gullies, on steep slopes and in floodplains - on those lands that cannot be plowed up. Groundhogs prefer to live in open areas, avoiding tall grass and bushes that block the view and prevent them from noticing danger in time. In the steppes on the territory of "Askania-Nova" marmots were exterminated, but work is underway to restore them.

DIET

You can’t find food reserves in the burrow of a bobak - only subcutaneous fat is stored for the winter, and it is usually enough not only for the period of sleep, but also for the first time after waking up, when there is still little green grass. As soon as fresh grass appears, marmots begin to eat intensively, devoting all daylight hours to food. In between meals, bobaks like to take sunbaths, sitting comfortably near the hole. On hot days of midsummer, marmots come out of their burrows to feed only in the morning and evening, and during the day they sleep in a burrow, fleeing from stinging sun rays. Animals often interrupt feeding to look around. Noticing the danger, the groundhog stands up in a column and warns the neighbors with a loud cry.

FAMILY EXCHANGE

Groundhogs are social animals, the family occupies a significant place in their lives. Marmot cubs are born in June, they can be from 1 to 15, but most often 4-6. Marmots are born naked and blind, weighing only 30-40 g. None of the rodents have such a long childhood as marmots. Their eyes open only on the 23rd day. After 40 days, young marmots begin to emerge from the burrow and try grass for the first time. But the mother continues to feed the cubs with milk until the age of 50 days. But even after that, young marmots do not part with her. Until the first wintering, the female protects the babies and teaches them to avoid danger. One-year-old marmots are already quite independent, but still remain in their parent's hole, learning various worldly tricks. Observations of tagged marmots showed that some of the cubs leave their native burrow before the second wintering and move to ... neighbors. And marmots from other families come to their place. Why groundhogs need such an exchange is still not known.

ADVANTAGES OF THE COLONY

Each marmot family occupies a certain territory and protects it from the invasion of strangers. The size of a family plot can be from 0.5 to 6 hectares. Adult animals regularly go around the boundaries of their possessions and leave odorous marks - odorous glands are located on the muzzle, on the soles of the front paws and at the base of the tail. Marmot border conflicts are rare, neighbors usually live peacefully and even visit each other, young people from neighboring areas often start joint games. But a stranger, an unfamiliar marmot from the site is usually driven away. It has been noticed that the larger the marmot colony, the better the animals feel. Of course, the more around the eyes and ears, the easier it is to notice the approaching danger.

HOP SPECIALIZATION

From enemies, the scorching sun, winter frosts and lack of food, the marmot is saved by its reliable hole. More precisely, holes, there are several of them on each family plot. Summer broods are not very deep, but very complex. Numerous corridors lead from the nesting chamber to the surface. There can be 6-15 exits from such a hole in different places of the site. A latrine is arranged in special otnorks, and all other "rooms" are never polluted. In addition, marmots regularly clean their burrow, throwing out accumulated droppings and old bedding. When constructing such a complex hole, about 10 cubic meters are brought to the surface. m of soil, from which a high hill is formed near the hole, called marmot, or butane. Together with the soil, a large number of microelements appear on the surface, and garbage and droppings thrown out of the hole additionally fertilize the soil. Herbaceous vegetation rapidly develops on marmots. Often such plants settle here that could not germinate among the steppe felt, and they feel great in the ground dug up by marmots. Among the sun-dried steppe, marmots stand out as green herbal plantations. In places where many marmots live, towering butanes give the steppe a characteristic appearance.

On the family plot there are usually several feeding holes - temporary shelters where marmots take refuge if danger catches them while feeding away from the main hole. The winter hole is also quite simple, but it is very deep - the cold should not reach it even in the most severe winter. Sometimes marmots have to arrange a "bedroom" at a depth of 5-7 m. There is no nesting chamber in such holes and usually there is only one entrance. At the end of September, marmot colonies gather in a wintering burrow, tightly close the entrances with plugs from a mixture of soil, stones and their own droppings, and fall asleep until spring.

: the length of his body is 50-70 cm, the mass of fattening males reaches 10 kg. The body of the bobak is thick, on short, strong paws, armed with large claws. The head is large, flattened, the neck is short.

It is easy to distinguish baibaka from other marmots by short tail(no more than 15 cm) and monophonic sandy-yellow color. Due to the dark tips of the guard hairs, its back is covered with dark brown or black ripples, thickening at the back of the head and on the top of the head. Cheeks are light reddish; brown or black streaks under the eyes. The belly is noticeably darker and redder than the sides; the end of the tail is dark brown. There are albino marmots. Moulting at bobak once a year; begins in May and ends (for old marmots) by the end of August, sometimes dragging on until September.

Spreading

In the past, the bobak was widespread in the steppe and partly in the forest. steppe zone from Hungary to the Irtysh (it was absent in the Crimea and Ciscaucasia, but at present the baibak is observed in the steppe part of the Crimea, on the Tarkhankut peninsula), but under the influence of plowing of virgin lands, it disappeared almost everywhere, remaining only in areas of untouched virgin lands on the Don, in the Middle Volga region, southern Urals and in Kazakhstan. Now the bobak lives in the Rostov, Volgograd regions, Belgorod, Voronezh (Stone steppe between the Bityug and Khoper rivers), Kursk region, Samara region, in the northeast of Saratov, in the south of Ulyanovsk and Nizhny Novgorod regions, as well as in Chuvashia, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan . On the territory of Ukraine, it occurs in several isolated foci in Luhansk, Sumy (Romny district), Kharkiv and Zaporozhye regions. Beyond the Urals and in northern Kazakhstan, its range is less fragmented; here the bobak is found from the river. Ural to the Irtysh: in the Orenburg and Chelyabinsk regions, in the south of the Omsk region of Russia, in the northern part of West Kazakhstan, the western part of Aktobe, Kustanai, North Kazakhstan, in the north of Karaganda and in the East Kazakhstan region of Kazakhstan.

Lifestyle and nutrition

Baibak is a natural inhabitant of plain grass-forb steppes. In the case of plowing the steppe, marmots soon leave for the nearest virgin lands or, in extreme cases, for “inconveniences”: deposits, unplowed slopes of ravines, gullies, river valleys, borders, pastures, and even on the sides of country roads. Sites suitable for the bobak habitation now make up an insignificant share of arable land. Habitat on crops of grain and vegetables is uncharacteristic for him; in such places the bobak settles involuntarily and temporarily. For longer periods it lingers on crops of perennial grasses. Moderate grazing and close human proximity do not affect it.

Baibaks live in large perennial colonies, arranging burrows for various purposes and complexity for housing. Protective (temporary) holes - small, short, with one entrance, without a nesting chamber; in them marmots hide from danger, occasionally spend the night. There are up to 10 such holes in a marmot within the feeding area. Permanent burrows are more difficult, they are winter and summer. Summer (brood) burrows are a complex system of passages; they are connected to the surface by several (up to 6-15) outlets. From the main passage of the burrow, a series of ditches or dead ends depart, in which marmots arrange latrines. At a depth of 2-3 m, there is a nesting chamber, up to 0.5-0.8 m³ in volume, into which the groundhog drags dry grass and roots. Winter (wintering) burrows can be arranged in a simpler way, but the nesting chambers in them are located deeper, in non-freezing soil horizons - up to 5-7 m from the surface. There are also summer and winter burrows. The total length of passages and burrows of a permanent burrow reaches 57-63 m. In especially complex burrows, there are several chambers of different sizes, and the passages form several floors. When constructing a permanent hole, up to a dozen cubic meters of soil is thrown to the surface, forming a marmot hill. Usually marmot stands out sharply against the background of the steppe chernozem in a lighter color; the soil here is drier, saturated with nitrogen and minerals from marmot droppings. The height of the hill reaches 40-100 cm with a diameter of 3-10 m. On the marmot near the inhabited hole there is a trampled platform, from where marmots inspect the surroundings. The rest of the marmot is gradually covered with vegetation that is very different from the surrounding flora: wormwood, couch grass, and kermek grow here. In places densely populated by marmots, up to 10% of the surface is covered with marmots, which is why the landscape acquires a peculiar wavy character.

Food

Baibaki feed on plant foods. Their favorite plants are wild oats ( Avena sativa), wheatgrass ( Agropyrum cristatum), chicory ( Cichorium intybus), clover ( Trifolium repens) and field bindweed ( Convolvulus arvensis); vegetable and agricultural crops are rarely damaged. Forage specialization is seasonal, consisting in the preference for different parts of the plant. So, in early spring, marmots eat mostly overwintered rhizomes and bulbs; in summer - young sprouts of cereals and herbs, as well as flowers. In the second half of summer, when the steppe vegetation burns out, bobaks move farther and farther from their holes in search of wet areas with lush grass. Ripe fruits and seeds in their stomachs are not digested, dispersing along with the droppings. During the day of baiting, the bobak eats up to 1-1.5 kg of plant matter. Water usually does not drink, being content with the moisture contained in plants, or morning dew. It also consumes animal feed - locusts, molluscs, caterpillars, ant pupae, usually eating them along with grass. However, in captivity, marmots willingly eat meat, including the meat of relatives, although in nature they do not feed on vertebrates. Baibak does not make stocks for the winter.

Lifestyle

Baibaki come out of hibernation in late February - early March. After a little fattening, they begin to repair or dig new protective holes; later - to correct and expand residential burrows. Activity begins at sunrise, when the animals wake up and go to feed. On the surface, marmots maintain visual (postures in a column) and sound (roll call, danger signal) communication. Usually two marmots in a colony act as sentries while the others feed. The groundhog's hearing is less developed than sight, so the main danger signal is not so much a whistle as the sight of a relative running towards the hole. Seeing this, other groundhogs also rush to the holes, even if there was no cry. At noon, bobaks usually rest in burrows, and in the evening they again go out to feed. On the surface of the earth they spend 12-16 hours.

The groundhog moves in jerky dashes, sometimes stopping and freezing in place. Fleeing from persecution, it runs quite quickly, reaching speeds of 12 - 15 km/h on flat areas, and tries to hide in the nearest hole.

In March-April, the mating season begins for baibaks. Pregnancy lasts 30-35 days; usually in a litter of 3-6 cubs. Newborn marmots are naked and blind, 9-11 cm long and weighing 30-40 g (this is about 1% of the mother's weight). Their eyes open only on the 23rd day. During pregnancy and lactation, the male moves to another hole. The female feeds with milk for up to 50 days, although at the age of 40 days, in late May - early June, the marmots already begin to feed on grass. Previously, it was believed that marmot families consisted of parents and two broods of weather cubs. But observations of tagged animals have shown that some of the underyearlings leave their families and settle in other families as foster children, and their parents, in turn, accept other people's cubs. Surchatas stay with their parents until next summer, after which they build their own burrows. But they also spend the second wintering together with their parents. In general, the nature of marmots is peaceful; they rarely fight and drive away only alien animals.

By the end of summer, the groundhog accumulates up to 800-1200 g of fat, which is up to 20-25% of its weight. Animals are less and less likely to leave their burrows; they renew their nests by dragging dry grass into them. At the end of August - September (no later than the 20th) marmots gather in wintering burrows in groups from 2-5 to 20-24 individuals. They clog all the entrances to the hole with dense plugs from a mixture of feces, earth and stones and fall into deep hibernation, which lasts 6-8 months. The air temperature in the hole, even in very coldy does not fall below 0 °C. During hibernation, the life processes of marmots almost freeze: body temperature drops from 36-38 to 4.6-7.6 ° C, breathing slows down to 2-3 breaths per minute instead of the normal 20-24, and heartbeat - up to 3-15 beats per minute instead of 88-140. In winter, marmots do not eat and hardly move, subsisting on stored fat reserves. However, since the energy expenditure during hibernation is low, marmots often wake up quite well-fed in spring, with a reserve of 100-200 g of fat.

population

In connection with the plowing of the steppes, reforestation and intensive fishing, the number of bobaks to century. decreased sharply. The most critical situation was in the 40-50s. XX century, but the protection measures taken ensured the preservation of the species in local foci in Ukraine, in the Ulyanovsk and Saratov regions, Tatarstan and its subsequent reacclimatization and introduction in a number of areas. AT recent decades the range began to expand and the number of boibaks to grow. The most numerous bobak is in the Rostov and Ulyanovsk regions. Quite stable are the colonies of its Kazakh subspecies in the Orenburg and Chelyabinsk regions. The number of the European subspecies of the Baibak in the city reached 209,700 individuals, the Kazakhstani subspecies - 112,800 individuals. Despite the permission of licensed hunting in the Central, Volga and Southern federal districts, the number of marmosets continues to grow. In the Omsk region, the animal is listed in the Red Book.

Baibak is hunted for the sake of warm and light fur. Its meat is edible (it is highly valued in some parts of Mongolia) and its fat has been used in engineering and folk medicine. For Agriculture bobak is practically harmless - it rarely touches cultivated plants; occasionally eats alfalfa and sunflower. In the gardens bred in the marmot colony, they sometimes eat cabbages and above-ground parts of carrots. Baibak is a popular object of special hunting - Varminting, in which shooting is carried out from a long distance from a special weapon.

Symbolism

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Notes

An excerpt characterizing Baibak

“I think not,” he said, “but yes. She does not deign to be smart ... No, she is charming, and nothing more. Princess Mary again shook her head disapprovingly.
“Oh, I so desire to love her!” Tell her that if you see her before me.
“I heard that they will be in the next few days,” said Pierre.
Princess Marya told Pierre her plan of how, as soon as the Rostovs arrived, she would get close to her future daughter-in-law and try to accustom the old prince to her.

Marrying a rich bride in St. Petersburg did not work out for Boris and he came to Moscow for the same purpose. In Moscow, Boris was in indecision between the two richest brides - Julie and Princess Mary. Although Princess Mary, despite her ugliness, seemed to him more attractive than Julie, for some reason he was embarrassed to look after Bolkonskaya. On her last meeting with her, on the old prince's name day, to all his attempts to talk to her about feelings, she answered him inappropriately and obviously did not listen to him.
Julie, on the contrary, although in a special way, peculiar to her alone, but willingly accepted his courtship.
Julie was 27 years old. After the death of her brothers, she became very rich. She was now completely ugly; but I thought that she was not only just as good, but much more attractive than she had been before. She was supported in this delusion by the fact that, firstly, she became a very rich bride, and, secondly, that the older she became, the safer she was for men, the freer it was for men to treat her and, without assuming any obligations, enjoy her dinners, evenings and lively society, gathering with her. A man who ten years ago would have been afraid to go every day to the house where there was a 17-year-old young lady, so as not to compromise her and not to tie himself up, now went to her boldly every day and treated her not as a young lady, but as a a friend who has no gender.
The Karagins' house was the most pleasant and hospitable house in Moscow that winter. In addition to parties and dinners, every day a large company gathered at the Karagins, especially men who had dinner at 12 o'clock in the morning and stayed up until 3 o'clock. There was no ball, festivities, theater that Julie would miss. Her toilets were always the most fashionable. But, despite this, Julie seemed disappointed in everything, told everyone that she did not believe in friendship, or in love, or in any joys of life, and expected peace only there. She adopted the tone of a girl who has suffered great disappointment, a girl who seems to have lost a loved one or was cruelly deceived by him. Although nothing like this happened to her, they looked at her as such, and she herself even believed that she had suffered a lot in life. This melancholy, which did not prevent her from having fun, did not prevent the young people who visited her from having a good time. Each guest, coming to them, gave his debt to the melancholy mood of the hostess and then engaged in secular conversations, and dances, and mental games, and burime tournaments, which were in vogue with the Karagins. Only some young people, including Boris, went deeper into Julie's melancholy mood, and with these young people she had longer and more solitary conversations about the futility of everything worldly, and to them she opened her albums covered with sad images, sayings and poems.
Julie was especially affectionate towards Boris: she regretted his early disappointment in life, offered him those consolations of friendship that she could offer, having suffered so much in her life herself, and opened her album to him. Boris drew two trees for her in an album and wrote: Arbres rustiques, vos sombres rameaux secouent sur moi les tenebres et la melancolie. [Rural trees, your dark boughs shake off gloom and melancholy on me.]
Elsewhere he drew a tomb and wrote:
"La mort est secourable et la mort est tranquille
Ah! contre les douleurs il n "y a pas d" autre asile.
[Death is saving and death is calm;
O! there is no other refuge against suffering.]
Julie said it was lovely.
- II y a quelque chose de si ravissant dans le sourire de la melancolie, [There is something infinitely charming in a smile of melancholy,] - she said to Boris word for word the passage written out from the book.
- C "est un rayon de lumiere dans l" ombre, une nuance entre la douleur et le desespoir, qui montre la consolation possible. [This is a ray of light in the shadows, a shade between sadness and despair, which indicates the possibility of consolation.] - To this, Boris wrote poetry to her:
"Aliment de poison d" une ame trop sensible,
"Toi, sans qui le bonheur me serait impossible,
"Tendre melancolie, ah, viens me consoler,
Viens calmer les tourments de ma sombre retraite
"Et mele une douceur secrete
"A ces pleurs, que je sens couler."
[Poisonous food of a too sensitive soul,
You, without whom happiness would be impossible for me,
Gentle melancholy, oh come comfort me
Come, calm the torments of my gloomy solitude
And join the secret sweetness
To these tears that I feel flowing.]
Julie played Boris the saddest nocturnes on the harp. Boris read Poor Liza aloud to her and interrupted the reading more than once from excitement, which took his breath away. Meeting in a large society, Julie and Boris looked at each other as the only people in the world who were indifferent, who understood each other.
Anna Mikhailovna, who often traveled to the Karagins, making up her mother's party, meanwhile made accurate inquiries about what was given for Julie (both Penza estates and Nizhny Novgorod forests were given). Anna Mikhailovna, with devotion to the will of Providence and tenderness, looked at the refined sadness that connected her son with rich Julie.
- Toujours charmante et melancolique, cette chere Julieie, [She is still charming and melancholic, this dear Julie.] - she said to her daughter. - Boris says that he rests his soul in your house. He has suffered so many disappointments and is so sensitive,” she told her mother.
- Oh, my friend, how I became attached to Julie recent times, - she said to her son, - I can’t describe it to you! And who can't love her? This is such an unearthly creature! Oh Boris, Boris! She was silent for a minute. “And how I feel sorry for her maman,” she continued, “today she showed me reports and letters from Penza (they have a huge estate) and she is poor and all alone: she is so deceived!
Boris smiled slightly, listening to his mother. He meekly laughed at her ingenuous cunning, but he listened and sometimes asked her attentively about the Penza and Nizhny Novgorod estates.
Julie had long been expecting an offer from her melancholic admirer and was ready to accept it; but some secret feeling of disgust for her, for her passionate desire to get married, for her unnaturalness, and a feeling of horror at the renunciation of the possibility true love still stopped Boris. His vacation was already over. Whole days and every single day he spent with the Karagins, and every day, reasoning with himself, Boris told himself that he would propose tomorrow. But in the presence of Julie, looking at her red face and chin, almost always strewn with powder, at her moist eyes and at the expression on her face, which always showed readiness to immediately move from melancholy to the unnatural rapture of marital happiness, Boris could not utter a decisive word: despite the fact that for a long time in his imagination he considered himself the owner of the Penza and Nizhny Novgorod estates and distributed the use of income from them. Julie saw Boris's indecisiveness and sometimes the thought came to her that she was disgusting to him; but immediately a woman's self-delusion offered her consolation, and she told herself that he was shy only out of love. Her melancholy, however, began to turn into irritability, and not long before Boris left, she undertook a decisive plan. At the same time that Boris' vacation was coming to an end, Anatole Kuragin appeared in Moscow and, of course, in the Karagins' living room, and Julie, suddenly leaving her melancholy, became very cheerful and attentive to Kuragin.
“Mon cher,” Anna Mikhailovna said to her son, “je sais de bonne source que le Prince Basile envoie son fils a Moscou pour lui faire epouser Julieie.” [My dear, I know from reliable sources that Prince Vasily is sending his son to Moscow in order to marry him to Julie.] I love Julie so much that I should feel sorry for her. What do you think, my friend? Anna Mikhailovna said.
The idea of being fooled and losing for nothing this whole month of hard melancholic service under Julie and seeing all the income from the Penza estates already planned and used properly in his imagination in the hands of another - especially in the hands of stupid Anatole, offended Boris. He went to the Karagins with the firm intention of making an offer. Julie greeted him with a cheerful and carefree air, casually talking about how fun she had been at the ball yesterday, and asking when he was coming. Despite the fact that Boris came with the intention of talking about his love and therefore intended to be gentle, he irritably began to talk about female inconstancy: about how women can easily move from sadness to joy and that their mood depends only on who looks after them. Julie was offended and said that it was true that a woman needed variety, that everyone would get tired of the same thing.
“For this I would advise you ...” Boris began, wanting to taunt her; but at that very moment the insulting thought came to him that he might leave Moscow without achieving his goal and losing his labors in vain (which had never happened to him). He stopped in the middle of her speech, lowered his eyes so as not to see her unpleasantly irritated and indecisive face, and said: “I didn’t come here at all to quarrel with you. On the contrary…” He glanced at her to see if he could continue. All her irritation suddenly disappeared, and restless, pleading eyes were fixed on him with greedy expectation. "I can always arrange myself so that I rarely see her," thought Boris. “But the work has begun and must be done!” He blushed, looked up at her, and said to her, “You know how I feel about you!” There was no more need to speak: Julie's face shone with triumph and self-satisfaction; but she forced Boris to tell her everything that is said in such cases, to say that he loves her, and never loved a single woman more than her. She knew that for the Penza estates and Nizhny Novgorod forests she could demand this, and she got what she demanded.
The bride and groom, no longer remembering the trees that showered them with darkness and melancholy, made plans for the future arrangement of a brilliant house in St. Petersburg, made visits and prepared everything for a brilliant wedding.

Count Ilya Andreich arrived in Moscow at the end of January with Natasha and Sonya. The countess was still unwell, and could not go, but it was impossible to wait for her recovery: Prince Andrei was expected to Moscow every day; besides, it was necessary to buy a dowry; The Rostovs' house in Moscow was not heated; in addition, they arrived for a short time, the countess was not with them, and therefore Ilya Andreich decided to stay in Moscow with Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, who had long offered her hospitality to the count.
Late in the evening, four carts of the Rostovs drove into the courtyard of Marya Dmitrievna in the old Konyushennaya. Marya Dmitrievna lived alone. She has already married her daughter. Her sons were all in the service.

Baibak (Marmota bobak) belongs to the genus of marmots, the type of chordates, and is one of the largest family of squirrels.

The paws of the bobak are short, but strong, and are armed with rather large claws. The body of this rodent is thick with a large head and a short neck. The mass of the male can reach up to 10 kg. and the body length is from 40 cm to 70 cm.

Baibak can be easily distinguished from a marmot by its uniform yellow-sand color, and also by its tail, which is no larger than 15 cm in size. Through the darkened tips of the guard hairs, the back of this rodent is covered with brownish or black ripples, which on the head. The cheeks of the bobak have a light reddish tint, and under the eyes they are closer to black or brownish. Baibaki molt once a year, starting from the beginning of May until August, and sometimes until September.

Previously, this rodent was mostly distributed in the forest-steppe and steppe zone from the Irtysh to Hungary, it was absent in Ciscaucasia and Crimea, and more recently it has been seen in the Crimean steppes, the Tarkhankut peninsula. AT given time bobaks have disappeared in many places of their early habitat, and have survived only in areas of virgin lands untouched by anyone on the Don, in the Urals and also in Kazakhstan. Now bobaks live in Volgograd, Voronezh, Rostov and other regions. In Ukraine, the bobak lives only in Zaporozhye, Kharkiv, Sumy and Lugansk regions. Also baibaki live in few places Northern Kazakhstan and beyond the Urals.

Baibaks live in large colonies, equipping their holes for any complexity and purpose. On the territory of the stern section of the bobak, there can be about 10 small holes with only one entrance, which are called (temporary), they sometimes spend the night in them and also hide in case of danger. But the permanent burrows of the bobak are much more difficult. Summer burrows, the so-called (brood burrows), are a very complex pattern of passages that have from 5 to 15 exits to the surface.

From the very main entrance to their hole, rows of otnorks depart, which lead to dead ends where the bobak make their own latrines. Their nesting chamber is adapted underground at a depth of 2 or 3 m, into which they drag roots and dry grass. Winter burrows, the so-called (wintering) ones, are much simpler, and the nesting chambers are more complicated, since they are located approximately at a depth of 5 to 7 m in the non-freezing soil of the earth. The length of the permanent burrow of the boba reaches 55-65 m and can be arranged in several floors. One can only imagine how many cubic meters of earth they throw to the surface when arranging a permanent hole.

The menu of baibaks includes mainly plant foods. Particularly favorite plants for them are chicory, field bindweed, oats, clover and wheatgrass. In summer they can eat flowers, young sprouts of cereals and herbs. For a day, a bobak can sit down from 1 kg. up to 1.5 kg. vegetation. He quenches his thirst with dew or moisture contained in plants, which allows him to drink almost no water. Marmots can also consume small animals such as mollusks, caterpillars and locusts. In captivity, they can eat meat with great pleasure, and this may even be the meat of their relatives, but in nature they do not feed on vertebrates.

He leaves his bobak at the beginning of March. After a little fattening, groundhogs begin to dig or repair their protective burrows, and later expand their permanent housing -burrows. As the sun rises, they wake up and go to feed. When the bobaks are feeding, several of the rodents observe and, if necessary, warn of danger. The most important sign of danger is the bobak running to its hole, since their eyesight is more developed than their hearing, so all the other marmots, seeing this, also run away to their holes.

Appearance

Baibak is one of the largest squirrels: its body length is 50-70 cm, the mass of fattening males reaches 10 kg. The body of the bobak is thick, on short, strong paws, armed with large claws. The head is large, flattened, the neck is short.

Baibaka is easily distinguished from other marmots by a short tail (no more than 15 cm) and a uniform sandy-yellow color. Due to the dark tips of the guard hairs, its back is covered with dark brown or black ripples, thickening at the back of the head and on the top of the head. Cheeks are light reddish; brown or black streaks under the eyes. The belly is noticeably darker and redder than the sides; the end of the tail is dark brown. There are albino marmots. Moulting at bobak once a year; begins in May and ends (for old marmots) by the end of August, sometimes dragging on until September.

Spreading

In the past, the bobak was widely distributed in the steppe and partly forest-steppe zone from Hungary to the Irtysh (it was absent in the Crimea and Ciscaucasia, but now the bobak is observed in the steppe part of the Crimea, half of Tarkhankut), but under the influence of plowing virgin lands, it disappeared almost everywhere, preserved only in areas of untouched virgin lands on the Don, in the Middle Volga region, the southern Urals and in Kazakhstan. Now the bobak lives in the Rostov, Volgograd regions, Belgorod, Voronezh (Stone steppe between the Bityug and Khoper rivers), in the northeast of Saratov, in the south of Ulyanovsk and Nizhny Novgorod regions, as well as in Chuvashia, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. In Ukraine, it occurs in several isolated foci in Lugansk, Sumy (Romny district), Kharkov and Zaporozhye regions. Beyond the Urals and in northern Kazakhstan, its range is less fragmented; here the bobak is found from the river. Ural to the Irtysh: in the Orenburg and Chelyabinsk regions of Russia, in the northern part of the West Kazakhstan, western parts of Aktobe, Kustanai, North Kazakhstan, in the north of Karaganda and in the East Kazakhstan region of Kazakhstan.

Lifestyle and nutrition

Baibak is a natural inhabitant of plain grass-forb steppes. In the case of plowing the steppe, marmots soon leave for the nearest virgin lands or, in extreme cases, for “inconveniences”: deposits, unplowed slopes of ravines, beams, river valleys, borders, pastures, and even on the sides of country roads. Sites suitable for the bobak habitation now make up an insignificant share of arable land. Habitat on crops of grain and vegetables is uncharacteristic for him; in such places the bobak settles involuntarily and temporarily. For longer periods it lingers on crops of perennial grasses. Moderate grazing and close human proximity do not affect it.

Food

Lifestyle

Adult bobak

By the end of summer, the groundhog accumulates up to 800-1200 g of fat, which is up to 20-25% of its weight. Animals are less and less likely to leave their burrows; they renew their nests by dragging dry grass into them. At the end of August - September (no later than the 20th) marmots gather in wintering burrows in groups from 2-5 to 20-24 individuals. They clog all the entrances to the hole with dense plugs from a mixture of feces, earth and stones and fall into deep hibernation, which lasts 6-8 months. The air temperature in the hole, even in severe frosts, does not fall below 0 °C. During hibernation, the life processes of marmots almost freeze: body temperature drops from 36-38 to 4.6-7.6 ° C, breathing slows down to 2-3 breaths per minute instead of the normal 20-24, and heartbeat - up to 3-15 beats per minute instead of 88-140. In winter, marmots do not eat and hardly move, subsisting on stored fat reserves. However, since the energy expenditure during hibernation is low, marmots often wake up quite well-fed in spring, with a reserve of 100-200 g of fat.

Baibak or steppe marmot belongs to the order of rodents. It is the original inhabitant of the steppes of Europe and Asia. At present, as a result of plowing the steppes, the number of rodents has significantly decreased. He lives in separate areas in Ukraine, in the Middle Volga region, in southern regions Urals, Kazakhstan. More evenly distributed in the southern regions from the Ural River to the Irtysh.

The rodent is large. Body length is 55-70 cm. Maximum weight comes up to 10 kg. The body is thick, the limbs are short, there are claws on the paws. The head is large in relation to the body. The tail reaches a length of 12-15 cm. The color is yellowish-red. The tips of the guard hairs are dark. Therefore, it gives the impression of a blackish ripple on the back. Fur on the top of the head dark color. The lower part of the muzzle is light red. The eyes are bordered below with dark streaks. The lower part of the body is darker than the upper. The tip of the tail has dark brown color. The molt takes place in the summer.

Reproduction and lifespan

The mating season takes place in the spring in March-April. Pregnancy continues for a month. There are 3 to 6 cubs in a litter. They are born blind and naked. The weight of newborns reaches 40 g. The eyes open 3 weeks after birth. Milk feeding lasts 1.5 months, then the kids switch to plant foods. Young people live with their parents for 2 years, and then they begin an independent life. Sexual maturity occurs at the age of 3 years. AT wild nature bobak lives 16-17 years.

Behavior and nutrition

Steppe marmots live in burrows in colonies. Burrows are characterized by complex systems of passages and several exits. The nest chamber is made at a depth of at least 2 meters. Its bottom is covered with dry grass. The total length of the passages can reach several tens of meters. The earth thrown to the surface forms a hill, the height of which reaches 50-100 cm. These animals fall into hibernation, which lasts from 6 to 8 months. To do this, by the end of summer, the rodent is fattening up more than a kilogram of fat. Dry grass is dragged into the hole, a group of animals from 5 to 25 individuals gathers, all exits are covered with earth and stones. The temperature in such a nest does not fall below 0 degrees Celsius.

Hibernation begins in September and continues until March. After hibernation, marmots feed and dig new burrows. On the surface, they are from sunrise to sunset. During feeding, one or two animals stand on their hind legs and watch the surroundings. In the event of the appearance of a predator, they immediately rush to the hole and drag their relatives with them. Rodents move in dashes, can reach a speed of 15 km / h.

Food is made up of plants. These are clover, wild oats, wheatgrass and others. The steppe marmot almost never feeds on agricultural crops. Therefore, representatives of this species do not pose any danger to humans. During the day, the animal eats up to 1 kg of plant food. Almost never uses water. Satisfied with the moisture contained in plants. It is also common for bobak to eat insects. They enter the stomach along with the grass. For the winter, these rodents do not make any stocks.