Mitchell's hopping mouse

Transcription

for plants and animals much of Australia is a difficult place for most of the year little rain falls and the moisture the does reach the ground evaporates quite quickly -living things tend to dry out temperature variations to r extreme on a hot summer afternoon the ground surface may be over 70 degrees Celsius at a winter dawn the temperature maybe below freezing. The soil in many places is dry and Sandy it plans managed to survive here and other animals to once I love animal life is occasional holes in Santa ground each about four centimeters in diameter such holes are often found amongst the porcupine grass plants have Central and Western Australia plan sometimes called spinifex usually business I know what is responsible for the holes unless you go looking after doc this little animal with its large eyes long years from tale with a tough to appear on the end and long hind legs is a desert hopping mouse biologists know it has not only is Alexis the spinifex hopping mouse hoping my so usually about and active at night porcupine grass like many other plans so the dry in land produces an abundance of seed this is an important item in the hopping mouse tired hoping my school so eat other vegetable matter and any small insects they find as they move about they continually made other mice usually the smell is a familiar one for helping my sis live together with others in the group ok perhaps 10 to 15 or so all have a familiar odor sometimes though a hopping mouse with an unfamiliar smelled comes into a feeding area usually the strange a retreat from the area from time to time the mice go back down their holes and into their underground burrows a hopping last photo can be in large and complex affair with underground tunnels larger chambers and vertical shafts leading to popo's at the ground surface to make their Baron hoping mice dig their first up on Downers untangle until they are well below the surface then the horizontal tunnels the Chamber's and the popos the original opening is filled in inside the Baram hoping mice continually made other mice from there own colony part of the time spend grooming themselves but for much of each day the my sleep huddled together in one of the chambers deep inside the Barrow occasionally this significant rain in the area followed by a flash revenue growth this can lead to a new patent activity in the hopping mouse colony several weeks after the rain young animals make their appearance two or three small naked young are born to each female each is blinded first like the young other mammals young hopping mice are cared for by the adults the mother provides a supply of milk the young develop fairly quickly at seventeen days or so there eyes still closed but they can feed and groom themselves by 21 days there Iza open by other 28 days they can look after themselves and by about fifty days they to a capable of breeding provided that the food supply is sufficient if the food supply remains good over a long period as a topping mice may keep reading and become very numerous many new colonies begun the fact that hopping mice can live at all in inland Australia and become very abundant at times suggest that this somehow will suited to the dry conditions and temperature extremes found them nights in winter can be cold and the day's cold too but by living much of the time underground helping my stay warmer than that the surface it may be 0 above-ground and fifteen degrees in the nest chamber by huddling together to individual hopping mice lose less heat and stay warmer the hottest weather is met on summer days with the stand at the surface at sixty or seventy degrees and too hot to walk on the temperature a meter under the soil is really about 32 degrees Celsius there the mice remain until surface conditions a cooler in hot with the two the my soul is an active as a result they produce less heat they also stop huddling and spread themselves out in this way they lose more heat and even if their body temperature rises they can tolerate a greater temperature rise than most other mammals the way they behave then helps them to survive temperature extremes they also have ways of coping with the water shortage we're hoping my slew there's little water to drink they gain much of their water from the food they eat and seem to be very good retaining this water in their bodies living in a bottom and coming out only at night for instance hopes to save water with conditions more humid then they lose less water by the operation also adult animals take in the urine produced by the yen as a result the water that makes up much of the year and has saved and the adults themselves produce very little urine so the behavior updates at helping my eyes and the ways in which their bodies function seem to help these little animals to survive the water shortage and extreme temperatures have been land Australia their body structure to seems to help their survival not many animals for example have long back legs like there's a popping mice those legs are a structural feature that seems to help them survive in particular circumstances like other organisms hopping mice have predators which feed on them one is the bomb now mice on the ground I continually on the alert watch what happens when dangerous detected rapid movements with many changes of direction the my so hard to catch now watch them in slow motion look particularly at the way they use their back legs the long back legs up hopping mice them are a structural feature that affects the way they move and seems to help them avoid attacks by predators like towels study of the lives of desert helping my eyes suggests that the way their bodies a build the ways in which they function and the ways in which the animals behave all suit them very well to the life they lead in the sandy desert country inland Australia helping my sis well adapted to their environment and way of life p up