Nightlife: overview, list, features and description

All animals of our planet adapt to the conditions of existence and the environment. And due to various factors, some of them preferred to lead a nocturnal lifestyle. This means that 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 beings active at night is truly great. Some of them are very rare and few, and some representatives are found only in one country. However, there are also such, for example, owls, the number of species which exceeds 100, and according to other data - even for 200. So, which animals are nocturnal? Here are some of them:

• Most species of owls and their direct relatives;
• Kozodoi;
• Lions;
• Squid Humboldt;
• Hippos (hippos);
• Yamkogolovye adder (about two hundred species);
• Red wolves;
• Bats ;
• Coyotes;
• Night monkeys;
• Most felines, including domestic animals;
• Urchins;
• Hares;
• Wild goats;
• Wild boars and many others.

In the dark, these fauna representatives feed themselves and their offspring, and in the daytime they hide in their dwellings or in dense vegetation (trees, bushes), waiting for the sunset to resume hunting again. One of them helps the night escape from predators, and in turn, on the contrary, to find prey. This is how this eternal struggle takes place.

Squids of Humboldt

These carnivorous invertebrates can see perfectly in the dark and are able to disguise themselves, changing their color, which allows them to get their food at night and escape from dangerous predators who are not averse to eating them themselves. Moved and hunted usually in jambs up to 1200 individuals. During the period of feeding they become extremely aggressive and can attack divers. Because of their ability to flicker in red and white, they were nicknamed "the red devil" during the hunt.

These nocturnal animals dwell in the ocean, daytime is spent at a depth of about 700 m, and with the onset of darkness 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 Humboldt squid to unfamiliar objects are recorded. In addition, they are cannibals: a wounded or weakened relative is attacked by representatives of the flock. 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 extends northward to the shores of Washington, Oregon, Alaska and British Columbia.

Red Wolves

These predators are fine night hunters. To do this, they have excellent development of all senses: sight, hearing and smell. They were considered an extinct species, but fortunately, they managed to find out their population in North America, where they are now under vigilant protection. This is the rarest subspecies of the ordinary wolf, the result of crossing the gray wolf and coyote. The red animal is smaller than its gray counterpart, but its legs and ears are longer , but fur is shorter, the color of which includes red, gray, black and brown. Its name came from Texas populations, which were dominated by a reddish color.

These nocturnal animals are unpretentious in food, their ration consists of: rodents, rabbits, raccoons, nutria, muskrats, insects, berries and carrion. Sometimes the pack hunts deer. The red wolves themselves also do not avoid danger: they become victims of their relatives and other wolves, young animals are hunted by alligators and red lynxes. In natural conditions live about 8 years, in captivity - up to 14. Previously there were 3 subspecies of red wolves, two of which in different years were extinct.

Owls: noiseless hunters

Among the vast variety of owls, the vast majority are night animals. The owl is a bird of prey, its diet consists of: mouse-shaped rodents (the main prey), small birds, frogs, lizards, insects; In fish owls and owls - fish. Some specimens contained in captivity are happy to eat fresh herbs. They inhabit and nest almost everywhere (in abandoned nests, hollows, crevices of rocks, ruins, under roofs of houses, on bell towers, abandoned buildings), some in burrows. Populate any terrain and landscapes, except for Antarctica and some islands.

Most owls have soft plumage, which helps them to dive noiselessly on prey, so that she could not notice the predator in time. These birds have the sharpest vision - they only have 0.000002 lux to see a fixed mouse in a dark night! The hearing at the owls is also at an altitude: they are able to hear the rustling of a cockroach crawling along the wall! Such "equipment" makes them excellent hunters.

Varieties of owls

There are two subfamilies of these birds: Real owls and Sipuchi. The latter differ from the first heart-shaped facial mirror (in owls it is round), 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 Baltic and Western Ukraine.

Usually owls are hunted at night, but there are species that get food in the daytime (hawk, swamp, cave, passerine owl, fish eagle owl and fish owl). Females from males differ in size - "ladies" are larger, but the colors are the same.

The largest representatives of owls:

• Owl - the largest (the wingspan is 1.5-1.8 m);
• Bearded owl (up to 1.5 m);
• Long-tailed owl (up to 1.2 m).

Othells can be confused with owls because of their size, but they do not have "ears" - feathers that resemble feathers resembling animal ears in a special way.

The smallest owls: the North American elf owl (length 12-15 cm, weight 50 g); Slightly larger - a passerine owl.

East tarsier - Indonesian night primate

Among the numerous inhabitants of the fauna of the region is the exotic nightlife of Indonesia - the eastern tarsier, or the torsion, as it is also called. It belongs to the order of Primates and is able to fit on the palm of your hand, because its average size is 10 cm. They live in taiga with families in the forests and parks of Indonesia, preferring trees with voids, where they hide and sleep during the day. Their main diet is grasshoppers and insects, but while being primates, they do not consume vegetables and fruits at all.

Torsiers are unique jumpers: they can overcome a distance exceeding 10-20 times the length of their body for one jump. On a horizontal surface move like a kangaroo, holding the front paws podzhatymi and pushing back. These animals, leading nightlife, are under threat of extinction - in nature there are only a few thousand individuals.

Night monkeys

The very name of these primates suggests that animals are active in nightlife. The habitat is forests of Central and South America, in the hollows of trees and thickets of which night monkeys hide during the day. The nightlife of animals begins about 15 minutes after sunset: they are chosen to seek food, but closer to midnight they return to their shelters, where they rest for 1.5-2 hours, and then go out again to find food. It is worth noting that in total darkness monkeys do not see anything, so in the new moon they are almost not active. Researches of retina of primate eyes conducted by scientists led to the conclusion that earlier they were daytime animals, which for some reason changed the daily routine.