Hedgehogs belong to heterothermic , a collective term for a class of hedgehog mammals in the subfamily Erinaceinae. It has short fat, sharp claws, small eyes, short hair, covered with short and dense spines, the back and side of the body are covered with spines, the head, tail and ventral surface are covered with hairs; the mouth is long and the tail is short; the front and back feet have 5 toes, and the front and back feet are 5 toes, and the front and back feet are 4 toes; and the teeth are 36 to 44, all with sharp tooth tips.
Hedgehogs are heterothermic because they cannot stabilize their body temperature to keep it at the same level, so hedgehogs hibernate in the winter.
The hedgehog has hard spines all over its body in addition to its belly, and when it encounters danger, it will roll into a ball with thorns, its shape and docile personality are very cute, some breeds are only slightly larger than the palms, so some people in Australia raise it as a pet.
Hedgehogs have a very long nose and a well-developed sense of touch and smell. Its favorite food is ants and termites, and when it smells food in the ground, it will dig out the hole with its claws, and then stick its long, sticky tongue into the hole and turn it around to get a hearty meal.
Hedgehogs live in bushes, swim and are afraid of heat.
Hedgehogs begin to hibernate in late autumn and do not wake up until the following spring, when temperatures are warm enough. Hedgehogs like to snore and are similar to humans.
Because they prey on a large number of harmful insects, hedgehogs are beneficial animals to humans.
Hedgehogs also eat young birds, eggs, frogs, lizards, etc., and occasionally eat crops.
Hedgehogs are active at night, feeding on insects and worms, and can eat 200 grams of bugs in one night, eliminating pests and thus benefiting agriculture. Unlike porcupines, hedgehogs cannot shed their spines. Also because of the slow movement, sometimes it will be killed by high-speed vehicles. Hedgehogs' main predators are predators such as mink, owls and foxes. When some smelling plants are found in the environment, they will chew them and spit them on their own thorns, so that they can maintain the smell of the local environment to prevent detection by predators, and also make them stab with certain poisons to resist the enemies that attack it.
The hedgehog is a very reclusive animal, living in the bushes, timid and easy to frighten, like quiet and tired, like dark and afraid of light, afraid of heat and cold. Hedgehogs move slowly and generally lie out day and night. Hedgehogs burrow into nests, hide in nests during the day, and only come out after dusk. Hedgehogs are generally resistant to many poisons, but are unable to resist insecticides and are sometimes poisoned by accidentally eating insecticide-killed bugs. In general, hedgehogs stay away from human activity areas and prefer to nest on the edges of country wastelands or streams.
When a hedgehog hibernates in its nest, its body temperature drops to 6 ° C, in which case the hedgehog is the animal with the lowest body temperature in the world, breathing 1-10 times / min. Dead branches and leaf litters are hedgehogs' favorite places to hibernate. At this time, if people burn the fallen leaves, it will be the destruction of the hedgehog. The hibernating hedgehog will wake up occasionally, but will not eat, and soon fall asleep again, and if he wakes up prematurely, he will starve to death.
The desert hedgehogs distributed in arabia and the Sahara Desert sleep in summer; the Indian hedgehog can live 4 to 6 weeks in the condition of food and water deprivation; the big-eared hedgehog also hibernating in India; the hedgehog has the ability to tolerate the decline in body temperature and metabolic rate during the dormant period to survive the difficult period of cold, heat or food shortage.
Hedgehogs sleep at temperatures greater than 6 to 9 °C (2 to 15 °C), and Daur weasels are about 10 °C. In addition to this spontaneous arousal, other external causes, such as electricity, machinery, cold or warming, chemical stimulation, and injection of drugs or hormones, can awaken hibernating animals. At the beginning of awakening, breathing changes from rhythmic to intermittent. After several paroxysmal breaths, it becomes rhythmic breathing, and the frequency is getting faster and faster, such as hedgehogs can reach 60 times per minute, and after waking up, they tend to calm down, becoming 36 to 40 times per minute. The heart rate also gradually accelerates beyond normal levels and then returns to calm, and this hyperpnea and heart rate is associated with the shuddering heat at the beginning of the awakening. At the same time, the blood vessels in the front of the body are relaxed, strengthening the blood circulation of the heart, lungs and brain, and after the front of the body is warmed, the blood vessels in the back of the body begin to relax and quickly re-warm. Due to this active rewarming, the whole process only takes 1.5 to 2.5 hours to raise the body temperature by more than 30 ° C and fully awaken.
During hibernation, the animal is in a hibernation array alternating between activity (room temperature) and paralysis (low temperature). The active period is about a few hours to a few days. Some species of animals excrete or eat during this period. Most species of animals do not eat, but make some adjustments to their physiological balance.
Hibernating animals maintain their lives without eating or drinking during the hibernation season for more than 100 days, because they have sufficient energy reserves, and their metabolism is reduced to a minimum level, which is 1 to 2% of the time of activity. Its respiratory quotient is close to 0.7, mainly relying on oxidizing fat to supply energy and water. Hibernating animals store 30 to 50% of their body weight during the fating period, most of which are concentrated under the skin, which not only provides energy but also has a thermal insulation effect. Hibernating animals have more brown fat than non-hibernating animals, and after hibernation they decrease the most. It was once considered to be an endocrine gland related to hibernation, known as a hibernation gland. It is now known to be closely related to the awakening of hibernating animals.
hedgehog
The temperature drops to 12 ° C, and the hedgehogs refuse to "hibernate", and still rely on eating more to maintain their body temperature in order to expel the cold. When the temperature drops to 7 °C, the hedgehog enters hibernation. Hedgehogs hibernate for up to four or five months, and after hibernation, their body temperature drops and other physiological functions weaken. For example, a awake hedgehog breathes about fifty times a minute, up to eight breaths per minute during hibernation, sometimes only once, or even for several minutes, and a awake hedgehog beats two hundred beats per minute, reducing to twenty during hibernation.
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