In June 2018, in the forest of Gongga Mountain in Sichuan, an infrared camera captured a terrible scene: an yellow-throated mink jumped off the tree and suddenly attacked a snake on the ground. After the snake's head was bitten to the bloody flesh, yellow-throated mink hanged the dying snake on the branch and left with satisfaction.
A few minutes later, two yellow-throated marten came. Seeing the snake's corpse, they began to fight each other and started playing with it. During the entire time captured by the camera, the yellow-throated mink had never eaten a snake. After brutally killing her friends, she left. Do they just treat snakes as toys, just to get cruel pleasure?
The answer is NO. In fact, this behavior has a proper noun - " overkill behavior ".
"overkilling behavior" is more common in large and medium-sized carnivores and Raptors . Hunting prey is the nature of carnivores, and as the rules of the game in nature is understandable. However, carnivorous animals often hunt too much prey, or play with it cruelly but do not eat it. This phenomenon seems to violate the laws of nature. After all, we have been warned since childhood: who knows that every grain of food on the plate is hard-working. This kind of "extravagance and waste" behavior is really disgusting and uncomfortable.
News has reported several similar incidents, such as leopard broke into the farmer's home and bit ten sheep to death, Beijing bear killed more than 20 narwhals, weasel broke into the chicken coop and bit all the chickens to death, etc.
However, yellow-throated mink said that this is just because of his own hunting nature, not the evil taste that people speculate.
Foraging behavior is affected by fullness, while hunting behavior is not affected by fullness:
is like a cat only when it is hungry, and will take the initiative to look for prey and kill . However, when there is ready-made prey in front of you, the cat may be stimulated by prey because of its senses, which arouses its natural hunting and learning instincts . A study found that When a cat finds a mouse, the nerves in the brain that are in charge of predation will be activated, and then stimulate the cat to sniff, track, and capture a series of hunting actions such as . However, this series of actions is regarded as the cruel pleasure of cats, which is really a big misunderstanding!
There is another reason for overkilling, which is food reserve
. It is an example that everyone can empathize with. Recently, the outbreak of the epidemic has caused everyone to hoard daily necessities in case of emergency.
Animals also understand this truth. Even carnivores are not at the top of the food chain. For example, when lions hunt, they will encounter dangers of being killed by bison, trampled to death by buffalo herds, and kicked to death by zebra , giraffes and other animals. As the king of the jungle, stealing chickens but failing to lose rice. The lion who died tragically under the prey said he was helpless.
So when wildebeest migrates, there are not many opportunities for lions to enjoy the food so easily. If they don’t catch them, they will kill a few more people after eating. They will take them back to stock up on food in case of severe droughts and floods in the future. When food is scarce, they can rely on storing grain to survive.
Hunters also have a good set of food storage, and they will change strategies according to local conditions according to different environments. For example, in cold places, they will bury their food under thick snow. In jungle areas, in order to prevent being stolen by other hunters, such as leopards, they will climb up trees and hang food on high branches to avoid being stolen by other animals. The same is probably the motivation behind the behavior of the yellow-throated mink hanging a snake on a branch mentioned at the beginning. The "crawling" fox will take away the chickens from the chicken coop one by one and hide them, and then look for them when they want to eat.
If the hunter brings his family with his family, there are hungry children and wives at home, they will also hunt more prey and take them back to fill their families with their stomachs.
The degree of overkill behavior of hunters in different environments is different
For example, there are many scavengers in the plains of , such as vulture , hyena , wolverine, jackal , etc. Their food is the corpses of various animals. If the lion stores excess food, it will be enjoyed by these scavengers. itself has been busy risking his life and takes advantage of it. , and the lion is naturally unhappy. Instead of preparing for the future, it is better to live in the present and eat one meal, so the lion's overkill behavior will be less likely to occur.
However, there are fewer scavengers in forests and mountainous areas, and tall trees provide convenience for hunters to hide food. Therefore, leopards, weasels and other animals on the mountain will be more frequent.
In addition to overkill behavior, the yellow-throated mink has other origins. They are agile and good at climbing trees. They have to run more than 20 kilometers to find to every day, which is equivalent to the " Meituan rider" in the animal world. It also means that animals within this 20 km range may become their on-the-trade meals.
Although the yellow-throated mink is only the size of a dog, they win by relying on their IQ. Their tricks are often unexpected, and the other party cannot touch the rules of their attack. , and the yellow-throated mink often commits crimes in groups of two or three, which can often kill large carnivores such as wild boars and pandas that are several times larger than themselves.
Giant panda with open intestines and broken belly
In 2014, staff from Sichuan National Nature Reserve found a giant panda asking for help from humans near the protection station. It was seriously injured and its abdomen was bitten so that even its intestines flowed out. Unfortunately, although people treated it in time, the giant panda died because of its serious injuries. The staff of the reserve initially analyzed that it might be caused by the besiege of several yellow-throated minks.
"Forest Tank" wild boars can't do anything about them.
wild boars are huge, have fierce personality, and move at a speed of 50-70 kilometers per hour. is equivalent to a small car driving on highway , weighing more than 400 kilograms. The sharp fangs often kill the enemy in one move in battle. Even if the hunter shoots at close range, it takes several shots to kill it . However, the small yellow-throated marten can kill the wild boars. They attack from the back of the wild boars and bit them hard. No matter how the wild boars throw them, they will never let go. At this time, its partners will also come up to help. After several tearings, the wild boars' strength is exhausted and they become the on-board meal of the yellow-throated marten.
However, yellow-throated marten usually chooses wild boar puppies to prey. If the body size is too different and there is no chance of winning, the yellow-throated marten will not touch it.
As smart as a monkey, it can't escape the clutches of the yellow-throated mink
Everyone knows that the monkeys in Mount Emei are notorious. They are known for their cleverness and agility, but the yellow-throated mink's eyes are like an high-speed camera . The monkey's movements are like slow playback for them, and it is not easy to solve them!
In India, the locals happened to catch a yellow-throated mink killing incident: at the beginning, a yellow-throated mink circled around a monkey, constantly launching a tentative attack, with a very fast speed, and specializing in the attack. It pulled the monkey's long tail, forcing to keep going to defend the idle without attack.
confronted each other for a few minutes. The monkey seemed to be bewitched, and turned to his hair dizzy and lay on the ground. The yellow-throated mink took the opportunity to bite the monkey's neck and drag it away. The monkey reacted and began to struggle quickly. The yellow-throated mink's companion stepped forward to help, and after tearing it down, the monkey became their meal on the plate. The monkey never thought that was so smart that one day he would die in the hands of an animal that was not as big as a puppy. .
In addition to the "bloodthirsty killer", yellow-throated mink also has a cute name " honey dog "
However, the meaning behind this name is not cute, but it gives many beekeepers a headache.
Every winter, yellow-throated minks cannot find food in the forest, so they will go down the mountain to the beekeeper's farm, rummaging through boxes and cabinets, looking for honey to eat. In order to avoid bees' stings, they also have their own tactics, such as avoiding the nest door, instead attacking from the back window, pushing away the stone pressed on the box cover, opening the box cover, grabbing the beehive with claws, forcing the bees to leave, and then sucking honey. After chewing the honeycomb, they spit the beeswax residue on the ground and spreading away. It was like a gangster who was chewing gum and doing all kinds of evil, making the local beekeepers complain.
Beekeepers at the apiary farm in Yongtai County, Fujian complained that the yellow-throated mink once pushed 27 boxes of beehives overnight, causing heavy losses, so the local area began to lure and kill the yellow-throated mink.
Through the above various hunting behaviors of yellow-throated minks, it can be seen that the yellow-throated minks' routines can be described as one after another. They seem to have born with a book called " Sun Tzu's Art of War ", and they have grasped the key points of various predators without any command, and used various tricks to kill the enemy. If they are bigger, they are afraid they will not be able to dominate the earth.
Yellow-throated minks, from insect berries, to small muntjacs, wild boars, goats, fishing, trees and birds, they can be said to be big foodies who eat everything. They have strong adaptability to the environment, and their agile reactions and good vision make them have almost no natural enemies. Human guns are helpless. When the small animals in the forest see it, they can only pray silently: May there be fewer yellow-throated minks in the world!
Reference:
Liao Tingting Jiang Yong Chen Guiying Ding Li Wang Jie "The Yellow-throated mink hunting horizontally spotted snake in Gongga Mountain, Sichuan"
Gong Yifei "Bees and beast damage - the method of preventing yellow-throated mink"
Author: Absurd Cat Proofreading: Sichuan
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