All animals of our planet adapt to the conditions of existence and the environment. And due to various factors, some of them chose to lead a nocturnal lifestyle. This means that the animals show their maximum activity at night, and not during the day, during the daytime they prefer to rest or are inactive.
Night Animals
The variety of living creatures active at night is truly great. Some of them are very rare and few in number, and some representatives are found only in one country. However, there are also, for example, owls, the number of species of which exceeds 100, and according to other sources - even over 200. So, what animals are nocturnal? Here are some of them:
- most owl species and their direct relatives;
- nightjars;
- lions;
- Humboldt squid;
- hippos (hippos);
- pit vipers (about two hundred species);
- red wolves;
- bats;
- coyotes;
- nightmonkeys;
- most felines, including domestic ones;
- hedgehogs;
- hares;
- wild goats;
- boars and many others.
In the dark, these representatives of the fauna get food for themselves and their offspring, and during the day they hide in their dwellings or in dense vegetation (trees, bushes), waiting for the sunset to continue hunting again. Night helps one of them to hide from predators, and those, in turn, on the contrary, find prey. This is how the eternal struggle goes on.
Humboldt squid
These carnivorous invertebrate molluscs can see perfectly in the dark and are able to disguise themselves by changing their color, which allows them to get their own food at night and elude dangerous predators that would not mind eating them. They usually move and hunt in shoals of up to 1200 individuals. During the feeding period, they become extremely aggressive and may attack divers. Due to their ability to flicker red and white during the hunt, they received the nickname "red devil".
These nocturnal animals live in the ocean, spend daytime at a depth (about 700 m), and at nightfall rise closer to the surface (about 200 m) for hunting. These are large animals, sometimes reaching 1.9 m in length along the mantle, and their weight is about 50 kg. The facts of aggressive behavior of Humboldt squids towards unfamiliar objects have been recorded. In addition, they are cannibals: a wounded or weakened relative is attacked by members of the pack. Due to this, they quickly gain weight and dimensions, live,True, not for long - only 1-2 years. Habitat - from Tierra del Fuego to California, and it extends north to the shores of Washington, Oregon, Alaska and British Columbia.
Red wolves
These predators are excellent night hunters. To do this, they have excellently developed all the senses: sight, hearing and smell. They were considered an extinct species, but, fortunately, their population was found in North America, where they are now under vigilant protection. This is the rarest subspecies of the common wolf, the result of crossing a gray wolf and a coyote. The red animal is smaller than its gray counterpart, but it has longer legs and ears, but shorter fur, the color of which includes red, gray, black and brown. It got its name due to the Texas populations, in which the red color prevailed.
These nocturnal animals are unpretentious in food, their diet consists of: rodents, rabbits, raccoons, nutria, muskrats, insects, berries and carrion. Sometimes the pack hunts deer. The red wolves themselves are also in danger: they become victims of their relatives and other wolves, alligators and red lynxes prey on young animals. Under natural conditions, they live for about 8 years, in captivity - up to 14. Previously, there were 3 subspecies of red wolves, two of which turned out to be extinct in different years.
Owls: silent hunters
Among the huge variety of owls, the vast majority are nocturnal animals. The owl is a bird of prey, its diet consists of: mouse-like rodents (the main prey), medium-sized birds, frogs, lizards, insects; in fishowls and owls are fish. Some individuals kept in captivity are happy to eat fresh greens. They live and nest almost everywhere (in abandoned nests, hollows, rock crevices, ruins, under the roofs of houses, on bell towers, abandoned buildings), some - in burrows. They inhabit any terrain and landscapes, except for Antarctica and some islands.
Most owls have soft plumage, which helps them silently swoop down on their prey so that they cannot notice the predator in time. These birds have the sharpest vision - they only need 0.000002 lux to see a motionless mouse on a dark night! The hearing of owls is also on top: they are able to hear the rustling of a cockroach crawling along the wall! This "equipment" makes them excellent hunters.
Owl varieties
There are two subfamilies of these birds: True Owls and Barn Owls. The latter differ from the former in having a heart-shaped facial mirror (which is round in owls), and also have a serrated claw on the middle finger. There are 11 species of barn owls living in many states; in the former USSR, these nocturnal animals are found in Belarus, the B altic states and Western Ukraine.
Usually owls hunt at night, but there are species that forage during the day (hawk, marsh, cave, pygmy owl, fish owl and fish owl). Females differ from males in size - "ladies" are larger, but the color is the same.
The largest representatives of owls:
- owl is the largest (spanwings 1, 5-1, 8 m);
- Tawny Owl (up to 1.5 m);
- Tawny Owl (up to 1.2 m).
Tawny owls can be confused with owls because of their size, but they do not have "ears" - feathers growing on their heads in a special way, resembling animal ears.
The smallest owls: North American elf owl (length 12-15 cm, weight 50 g); slightly larger - the pygmy owl.
Eastern tarsier - Indonesian nocturnal primate
Among the numerous inhabitants of the fauna of the region is an exotic nocturnal animal of Indonesia - the eastern tarsier, or torsieur, as it is also called. It belongs to the order Primates and can fit in the palm of your hand, since its average size is 10 cm. Tarsiers live in families in the forests and parks of Indonesia, preferring trees with voids, where they hide and sleep during the day. Their main diet consists of grasshoppers and insects, but at the same time, being primates, they do not eat vegetables and fruits at all.
Torsiers are unique jumpers: in one jump they are able to overcome a distance exceeding 10-20 times their body length. They move along a horizontal surface like a kangaroo, holding their front legs tucked in and pushing off with their hind legs. These nocturnal animals are endangered with only a few thousand left in the wild.
Night monkeys
The very name of these primates suggests that the animals lead an active night life. Habitat - forests of Central and South America, in hollows of trees and thicketswhich night monkeys hide during the day. The night life of animals begins about 15 minutes after sunset: they go out in search of food, but closer to midnight they return to their shelters again, where they rest for 1.5-2 hours, and then go out again in search of food. It is worth noting that monkeys do not see anything in complete darkness, so they are almost inactive on new moons. Studies of the retina of primates by scientists have led to the conclusion that they used to be diurnal animals that, for some reason, changed their daily routine.
