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 animals show their maximum activity at night, and not during the day, in the daytime they prefer to relax or are inactive.
Nocturnal animals
The variety of living creatures that are 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 some, for example, owls, the number of species exceeds 100, and according to other sources - even 200. So, what kind of animals are nocturnal? Here is some of them:
- most species of owls and their direct relatives;
- goats;
- Lions
- Humboldt squids;
- hippos (hippos);
- pit vipers (about two hundred species);
- red wolves;
- the bats;
- coyotes;
- nocturnal monkeys;
- most cats, including domestic ones;
- hedgehogs;
- Hares
- wild goats;
- wild 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, shrubs), waiting for the sunset to continue hunting again. One of them helps the night to hide from predators, and, in turn, on the contrary, to find prey. So this eternal struggle takes place.
Humboldt Squids
These predatory invertebrate mollusks see perfectly in the dark and are able to camouflage, changing their color, which allows them to get their own food at night and elude dangerous predators who are not averse to eating them themselves. Usually they move and hunt in schools of up to 1200 individuals. During feeding, they become extremely aggressive and can attack divers. Because of their ability to flicker in 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 when it gets dark they 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 the aggressive behavior of the Humboldt squid to objects unfamiliar to them are recorded. In addition, they are cannibals: a wounded or weakened relative is attacked by representatives of the pack. Due to this, they quickly gain weight and size, live, however, not for long - only 1-2 years. The habitat ranges 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 wonderful night hunters. To do this, they have excellently developed all the senses: vision, 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 the crossing of a gray wolf and a coyote. A 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 thanks to Texas populations, in which red color prevailed.
These nocturnal animals are unpretentious in food, their diet consists of rodents, rabbits, raccoons, nutria, muskrats, insects, berries and carrion. Sometimes a flock preys on a deer. The red wolves themselves are also not in danger: they become victims of their relatives and other wolves, alligators and red lynx hunt for young animals . They live under natural conditions 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. Owl - a bird of prey, its diet consists of: mouse-like rodents (main prey), medium-sized birds, frogs, lizards, insects; fish owls and eagle owls have fish. Some individuals kept in captivity, with pleasure eat fresh greens. They inhabit and nest almost everywhere (in abandoned nests, hollows, crevices of rocks, ruins, under the roofs of houses, on belfries, abandoned buildings), some in burrows. Inhabit any terrain and landscape, except for Antarctica and some islands.
Most owls have a soft plumage, which helps them to dive silently on prey, so that she could not 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! Hearing from owls is also at their best: they are able to hear the rustling of a cockroach crawling on the wall! Such "equipment" makes them excellent hunters.
Species of owls
There are two subfamilies of these birds: Real Owls and Barn Owls. The latter differ from the former by a heart-shaped facial mirror (in owls it is round), and also have a serrated claw on their 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 Baltic states and Western Ukraine.
Usually, owls hunt at night, but there are species that also get food during the day (hawk, marsh, cave, passerine owl, fish owl and fish owl). Females differ from males in size - the "ladies" are larger, but the color is the same.
The largest representatives of owls:
- eagle owl - the largest (wingspan 1.5-1.8 m);
- owl owl (up to 1.5 m);
- long-tailed owl (up to 1.2 m).
Owls can be confused with owls because of the 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); a little larger - a sparrow owl.
Eastern tarsier - Indonesian nocturnal primate
Among the many inhabitants of the fauna of the region, there is an exotic nocturnal animal of Indonesia - the eastern tarsier, or torsion, as it is also called. It belongs to the Primate detachment 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.
Torsioners are unique jumpers: they are able to overcome a distance exceeding 10-20 times the length of their body in one jump. On a horizontal surface, they move like a kangaroo, keeping the front paws tucked up and pushing back. These nocturnal animals are threatened with extinction - only a few thousand individuals remain in nature.
Nocturnal monkeys
The very name of these primates suggests that animals lead an active nightlife. The habitat region is the forests of Central and South America, in the hollows of trees and thickets of which night monkeys hide in the afternoon. The nightlife of animals begins about 15 minutes after sunset: they get out in search of food, but closer to midnight they again return to their shelters, where they rest for 1.5-2 hours, and then go out again in search of food. It is worth noting that in complete darkness the monkeys do not see anything, so they are almost not active in the new moon. Primate retinal studies by scientists led to the conclusion that they used to be day animals, which for some reason changed their daily routine.