Tarbagan or Mongolian groundhog is a mammal. He belongs to the Belichy family, the detachment of “rodents”, the genus “Surki”. For the first time, the Mongolian ground was described by the Russian naturalist Gustav Radde (1862).
Two subspecies were allocated: ordinary and Hanga Tarbagan.
Appearance
Tarbagan’s body has a length of 56.5 centimeters, and the tail is 10.3 centimeters. Weighs about seven to eight kilograms. By the end of the summer season, the weight increases, and its fourth part is fat accumulations.
The head looks like a rabbit and sits on a short neck. The forehead is narrow and tall, the cheekbones are wide. Bugor behind the eyes is much smaller than other species. The ears are small in size and round. Surok has excellent hearing, smell and vision. There are no clutter bags.
Surka has soft and short wool. The color is yellow-gray, the tips of the hairs have a dark brown shade. Below the wool has a reddish-gray coloring. The upper head is darker and resembles a hat. Cheeks and where the vibrissas are located, the gap between the ears and the eyes of lighter tones. The tail of the same color as the back, but at the end of a dark or gray-brown hue.
The incisors are well developed. The paws are short and equipped with long claws intended for digging the earth.
Tarbagans who live in the northern regions are smaller than.
Where it lives
The habitats of Tarbagan are:
Their favorite habitats are steppes in the mountains and near the mountains, since there are enough food in such areas.
Mongol wax migration migration. When the vegetation burns out, they move to shady areas. Biological processes associated with seasonality affect life activity and propagation. When performing fodder migrations, tarbagans can move to heights in the redistribution of thousands of meters. Rodents select such habitats, where there is good visibility, that is, in the steppes with stunted grass.
Tarbagan ordinary lives in East Mongolia, China and Transbaikalia. And in Tyva (Russia), Tarbagan Hangai lives in the central and western parts of Mongolia.
What eats
Tarbagans, having got out in the spring of their holes, should feed so as to accumulate more fat to the onset of cold days. They eat:
They eat, sitting on their hind legs, and keep food in the front paws. Seeds in plant fruits are not digested, and they sow them with their feces, which are fertilizer, thereby improving the steppe landscape.
In one day, the Mongolian marf eats one and a half kilograms of plants. Together with plants, the animal absorbs crickets, snails, caterpillars, grasshoppers. They drink very little.
Lifestyle
Surki unite for life in small colonies. They consist of a married couple and her offspring, born over the previous two to three years. If in their habitat, there are enough feed, then in the colony it can be within 18 individuals, and if there is not enough food, the number decreases three to four times.
With failure insufficient, tarbagans carefully guard their possessions and do not allow other people’s surks in them. If there is enough food, then they are calm about the presence of neighbors and are not aggressive.
Animals communicate with specific sounds. If a predator is approaching, then Tarbagan makes a whistling sound. With an alarming signal, all animals run to the holes and hide.
Tarbagans build deep holes. Nora is made in the form of one large camera. For the winter period, the output is closed with a cork of dirt and grass. There are earthen mountains near the Nor of the Nor of the Mongolian Surki. They are called marmots (Butans). Lashchins reach a height up to one meter, and there are 8 or more meters in diameter.
Tarbagan leaves the hole in the evening for eating food. By autumn, stipulated enough fat for marmonds, rest on the surface of the surchises, and not gaining fat savings, graze on herbs.
When cold occurs, tarbagans practically do not leave the hole. Before hibernation, the animals are harvested in the winter chamber litter. In winter, they hibernate.
Reproduction
Surks propagate in the colony where they live. It happens that families are formed outside the colony. Propagation can be carried out from the age of three, although tarbagans reach puberty by two years.
Mating is carried out in burrows in the first decade of April. In females, pregnancy proceeds from about 40 to 42 days. Offspring appears in the amount of 4-8 cubs. Kids feed their mother’s milk for about six weeks. From a month of life, they are already beginning to eat plant foods. In the nesting chamber, both parents and others living in the hole in the hole show care of the cubs.
Enemies of the Mongol Swark
In nature, the enemies of the groundhog are such representatives of birds of prey as Berkuts, steppe eagles, hawks, kanyuki. Predatory mammals also love to enjoy Tarbagan meat. Hunting is being led to the Surkov:
The harm to Tarbagans cause lice, fleas and ticks, larvae of skin gadflies, nematodes, coccidia. Such parasites can bring animals to complete exhaustion or to death.
Mongols, Buryats and Tuvans hunt tarbagans, as they eat them for food and for the preparation of drugs.
Population and status
Over the past hundred years, the population of Tarbagan has declined. In particular, a large reduction in the species is observed in Russian territory. The main reasons are: hunting for Tarbagan, the development of Transbaikal virgin lands, extermination in order to prevent infection with plague (he is a carrier of the disease).
The number of animals is reduced because the local population is constantly hunting for them. Tarbagans move from Mongolia to the territory of Eurasia. Due to this, their number is still supported.
In the nineties, hunting for tarbagans in Mongolia led to a sharp reduction in the population. This species fell into a category in the status of “threat of disappearance”.
Security measures
Now on the territory of our country in the TransBaikal Territory and Buryatia, the Mongol Surok is under guard. Two reserves (Sokhondin and Daursky) and two reserves were created (Borgo and Orot). The animal is listed in the Russian Red Book.
In Mongolia, Tarbagan is listed in a list of rare species of animals and only two months a year is allowed to hunt for it. An interesting fact is that the monuments in the following cities are erected to the Tabargan:
The safety of tarbagans is necessary due to the fact that their vital activity has a positive impact on the improvement of the flora. Surki play a key role for the favorable development of biogeographic zones.
