1, foxes: typical matriarchal society
Inhabiting the vast African savannah, the lemur is 25–30 cm long and weighs 600–1000 g, and is a small omnivorous mammal, but prefers meat. Chinese netizens know that foxes are mostly derived from the cartoon "The Lion King": flocks of foxes tiptoeing on their feet, folding their limbs, staring intently in the direction of the rising sun. The fox has a unique dark black spot around its eyes, and its shape is the same as that of sunglasses, and it still sees the objects of the grassland under the scorching sun, and even dares to look directly at the sun.
The fox badger population is a typical matriarchal society, ranging from 4/5 to 40/50, and a large number of foxes enjoy the resources of the group in strict accordance with the hierarchy. After a fierce struggle, the winning female fox will become the leader of the group, and zoologists will name her the Queen of the Fox. The Queen of the Foxes is responsible for distributing food and arranging predation missions in the group.
What's more, the queen of the fox is the only female in the group who is eligible to procreate, and once it is found that other female foxes, including the queen's sister, are pregnant, they are either pecked by the fox and miscarried, or they are simply expelled from the group. Female foxes, who have lost the shelter of the group, are constantly hunted by snakes, wolves, and eagles, and sometimes have to succumb to the queen and return to the group.
The queen of the fox gave birth to children, the female in the group status is significantly higher than other foxes; the male is forced to leave after adulthood and re-integrate into other groups. All females have the obligation to take care of the queen and give birth to children, but every female fox has the ambition to become a queen: if she succeeds, she will become a new queen and have the right to breed offspring; failure must leave the group, so every female fox does not dare to easily provoke the queen.
In fact, the African savannah seems to favor matrilineal animals. In addition to foxes, elephants and spotted hyenas are also female dominant groups, but they have also caused many incidents. Before an adult male is forced to leave the group, one of the male elephants in the group will teach him how to please the female and how to mate. Infuriatingly, for nearly 40 years, the African savannah has seen a wave of hunting male elephants, with the ultimate goal being the high price of ivory, and the decline in male elephants has led to adult males not learning how to mate before leaving the population.
Male elephants who are separated from the group are in heat many times a year, but they have no venting, and often regard rhinos as female elephants to show love. The male elephant's genitals are 1-2 meters long, and how the rhino can withstand the elephant's toss, the vast majority will die. According to South Africa's Animal Service in 2010, at least 200 rhinos were tortured to death by elephants in a year.
The matrilineal population of spotted hyenas is even more bizarre. The male is at the bottom of the entire population, inferior to a newly born female cub. To show submission to the upper spotted hyena, male spotted hyenas lick the female's genitals with their tongues, and in rare cases it is possible for a female to lick the male's genitals.
2. Why the Queen of the Fox prevents other females from reproducing
Back to the fox. Other female foxes breed more conducively to the growth of the population, why should the queen of the fox stop it?
Foxes eat a huge amount of food, up to swallow nearly 1/3 of the body weight of food, but the body can not store fat, that is to say, need to eat non-stop every day, otherwise it is easy to starve and die, which can also be seen from the emaciated body of the fox.
In the case of limited territorial resources, the fox queen, out of selfishness, must first satisfy the food safety of her children to ensure that they can survive, and naturally kill other pregnant females. Otherwise, the number of foxes in the whole colony is increasing, and the resources in the territory are simply not enough to eat, and eventually they will die.
The above is not alarmist, the well-known documentary "Fox Dynasty" clearly documents the whole process. In a group of foxes, due to special circumstances, the queen of foxes did not kill the cubs born by her sisters, and her own cubs totaled 7, active in the territory. But with the change of environment, only 1 cub survived in the end. Since then, the queen of the fox has changed her temperament, encountering a pregnant female fox, even if it is a sister born of a mother, she will still beat and kick until she miscarries or leaves the group.
Female foxes have the obligation to care for their cubs, and unbelieving females breastfeed their cubs under the queen's leadership. They also protect the cubs from any threat. In dangerous situations, these female lemurs will take their cubs underground to take refuge, and if they cannot hide underground, the female lemurs will gather around the cubs and use their bodies to block the cubs.
Perhaps the fox is weak in attack, small and cute, and the fox ranked sixteenth in the 2013 CNN list of the world's cutest species.
Original: Old High