Mouse baby description. The theme of the project is "Baby Mouse Nest" - Technology Lesson

Recently, the best young years have surfaced in my memory - these are student years, where such an incident occurred. I don’t know how it is now, but in those days we were sent for potatoes - a wonderful time!
Having collected all the potatoes that grew in the collective farms, everyone began to study. Here again, good luck! As always happens with us, "unexpectedly" the first frosts struck, and sugar beets remained in the ground.
For them - trouble, for us - a happy time. We worked hard in Stakhanov's way, and for our hard work we were rewarded with a well-deserved day off.
Where will you go in the countryside? Only in the forest. And we stomped in single file on a clear October day along the path into the forest. In October, a real frost is rare, but small frosts are common. The earth freezes, flowing and stagnant waters freeze, losing the remnants of summer heat. Slowly we made our way to a small lake, in some places overgrown with reeds and more like a swamp.
Probably in the summer, a stormy life was in full swing here: crickets chirped, various birds chirped and frogs croaked. And now it seemed that nothing alive was left: everyone flew away, crawled away, galloped away and lay down on the bottom. And then there was a quiet voice, or rather a whisper: "Let's all come here."
A minute later we looked at the nest, where there were four mice, the size of a bean, blind, but already dressed in thick velvety fur.
And only many years later I came across an article from which I learned that the owner of a beautiful house and the mother of tiny babies was a baby mouse.
It is at this time that more often and easier than in summer, you can meet her nest, similar to a wicker grass ball, with living inhabitants.
Special mention must be made of the nest.
At first glance, it looks like a bird, but done differently. It seems to be hanging on the leaves, but it is impossible to remove it, because. woven not on a plant, but from a plant.
The little mouse is not a burrow, not a burrowing mouse, and it hardly knows how to dig. In summer, she scurries between land and water grasses, on which, shortly before the appearance of offspring, she weaves her round house, the size of a large apple.
round house

round house
With sharp teeth, she cuts the ends of green leaves of reed, cattail or corn (if in the field) into ribbons and weaves a frame out of them - a living continuation of the plant itself. Then he pulls dry or withered leaves into it and dissolves them into narrow ribbons, from which the bottom, walls and roof are made. And for interior decoration weaves thread-fibers from them.
So it turns out a dense ball, built so skillfully that even after a long rain inside the house it is warm and dry.
She can make such a nest even under a cabbage head. In the big world of rodents, there are many masters in building dwellings, but the baby mouse from the entire legion is, firstly, the smallest, and secondly, it is among the top ten most skillful builders.
Not only can its wicker house not be thrown off, not shaken off by any wind, no elements will bring trouble to its inhabitants.
The grass fibers are not glued to anything, the cracks are not smeared, but the roof does not leak. The engineering solution of this design could not be simpler - this is a dome.
There are no drafts in the mouse dwelling, it is not hot in it in the July heat, and the cold cannot get there, despite the fact that there is no door.
And the thing is that the nest serves only two weeks.
The mice grow and develop so quickly that after one and a half, two months the cubs become adults.
Barely opening their eyes, they can already deftly climb the leaves and stems of herbs. We can say that everyone perfectly possesses such abilities, but the baby has everything brought to perfection: an animal, like a bird, can stand on a swinging straw on its hind legs.
And the mobile and tenacious tail is no worse than that of a monkey. In a blind mouse, which still does not know how to crawl with current, the tip of the tail is already crocheted around a straw or a blade of grass.
The little mouse is an excellent swimmer. This is evidenced by her nests found on the islands of swamps and lakes, distant from the coast.
Outwardly, our heroine looks like a teenager house mouse, but even smaller, graceful and tender. Small round ears and a neat muzzle with a pink nose give this mouse a cute and childish expression. The fur is short, thick, velvety and almost waterproof. The back and sides are brown, and the belly is always pure white.
The tail is darker than the back and does not appear bare. The incisors are thin, sharp and easily gnaw through a thick cabbage stalk, which you can’t immediately cut even with a thick knife.
In captivity, babies learn instantly: they build nests, play, eat everything they don’t offer, which they haven’t tried in nature.
You can read more about domestic rodents.
Here's how it turns out in life.
Then we did not stand near the nest for long and decided to get out so that the little mother could return to her tiny babies.

Mice are different. There are small ones, and there are up to half a meter, for example, the southern thin-tailed rat.

Today I’ll tell you not just about a little mouse, but about a baby mouse, which is rightfully considered not only the smallest rodent in the world, but also one of the smallest mammals on Earth.

Less are except that shrews.

The baby mouse fits comfortably in the palm of a child, because the body length of adult male baby mice does not exceed 70 mm, and the tail is 65 mm.

Such a "giant" weighs only 7-10 grams. Females are smaller than males.

Mice feed on ears of wheat, which do not break under their light weight. And to balance, stretching between two spikelets, the mouse is helped by a super-tail, which is able to wrap itself around stems and thin branches.

Thanks to its wonderful tail, the baby mouse can move very quickly through thin spikelets, using its tail for balance.

In addition to the unique tail, the mice have very tenacious hind legs that allow it to be in any position (even upside down).

Unlike other mice, which are mostly nocturnal, the baby is more active during the day.

The color of the coat is variable and comes in two colors: the upper body and tail are yellow-brown-red, the belly and legs are completely white, however, there are also darker or lighter, redder or browner, grayish or yellowish ones; the abdomen is not much different from the back.

Young mice have a slightly different physique than older ones, and a completely different body color, namely, a much more gray color on the back. The northern and western subspecies are darker and redder.

The baby mouse has always been of interest to zoologists.

Pallas discovered it in Siberia, described it exactly and drew it quite well, but after him almost every naturalist who came across it passed it off as a new species, and everyone considered himself right.

It was only thanks to continuous observations that the irrefutable truth became clear that our baby is really distributed from Siberia through all of Russia, Hungary, Poland and Germany to France, England and Italy itself, and only in exceptional cases is not found in some areas.

She lives on all the plains where agriculture flourishes, but is not always found in the fields, but mainly in swamps, reeds and reeds.

In Siberia and in the steppes at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains, it is very common; in Russia, England, Holstein, it is not uncommon. But in other European countries, it can sometimes come across in abundance.

The baby mouse lives throughout the temperate zone of Eurasia, preferring the meadows of the south of the forest zone and the forest-steppe, and even gets through the mountains to the south of Eurasia, to northern India and even to Vietnam.

In summer, the baby mouse can be found in the grain fields, in winter in huge numbers under stacks, as well as in barns, where they fall along with grain.

If the mouse hibernates in an open field, then, although it spends part of the cold time in hibernation, it never falls into a complete stupor and therefore prepares supplies in its burrows in summer so that it can eat them during cold weather.

The baby mouse eats the same as all other mice: bread and seeds of all kinds of herbs and trees, as well as all kinds of small insects.

Despite its insignificant size, the baby mouse runs unusually fast and climbs with the greatest perfection and dexterity.

Hanging on the thinnest branches of bushes and on the stalks of grasses, which are so thin that they bend to the ground with it, she runs up them, runs almost as fast through the trees, and with special dexterity clings to her pretty little tail.

Baby mice are also equally good at swimming and diving. So she can live everywhere.

But it shows its greatest perfection in yet another respect. She is an artist who can compete with the most gifted birds, because she builds a nest that surpasses the beauty of nests of all other mammals.

The nest turns out to be so pretty and, most importantly, comfortable that even many birds that traditionally arrange their houses in nests can envy.

Depending on the nature of the area, the nest can be built on 20-30 sedge leaves, the tops of which are split and intertwined so that they surround the building from all sides.

And it can hang at a height of 0.5-1 meters from the ground freely on the branches of a bush or on a reed stalk, so that it looks like it is hanging in the air.

In appearance, the nest resembles a blunt egg, for example, a very round goose egg (even in size it is about the same - a diameter of 60 to 130 mm).

Its outer shell always consists of completely split reed or sedge leaves, the stems of which form the basis of the whole building.

The mouse takes each leaf with its paws, and then with its teeth in its mouth and passes it several times between the ends, sharp as a needle, until it divides each individual leaf into six, eight or ten parts, as if several separate fibers, then all this is unusually carefully twisted and intertwined with each other.

From the inside, the nest is lined with sheets of reeds, the down of some marsh plants, fluffy catkins of willows and flower tassels of all kinds.

There is a small hole on the side, and if you touch the inside of the nest through it, then it turns out to be both above and below uniformly smooth, extremely soft and tender to the touch.

Its individual components are so tightly connected and intertwined with each other that the nest really acquires great strength.

If we compare the less adapted tools of mice with the skillful beak of building birds, then one will have to look at their construction not without surprise, and the work of a baby mouse should be placed above the buildings of many birds.

Each nest is built mainly from the leaves of the plant on which it is located, so the outside of the nest has the same color as the bush itself on which it hangs.

The baby mouse uses each of its works of art only during childbirth, which lasts only a short time, so the cubs always leave the nest before the leaves surrounding it have time to wither and, as a result, take on a color different from the nest.

Old mothers always build their nests with more skill than young ones. Cubs already in the first year build rather intricate nests for themselves and rest in them.

In their magnificent cradle they remain until they become sighted. The old female warmly covers them every time, or, better, closes the entrance to the nest when she has to leave it to bring food for herself.

In the meantime, she has already remarried with a male of her breed and is already pregnant again, while she still needs to feed her cubs with milk.

Then, as soon as they are so old that they can somehow feed themselves, the old female leaves them to themselves, having been their guide and adviser for a few days at most.

If anyone is lucky enough to be around just at the time when the old female brings out her young for the first time, then he will have the opportunity to enjoy one of the most attractive family pictures in the life of mammals.

In winter, mice move into holes, and in the fields they prefer haystacks or stacks.

During the period from April to September, the female brings 2-3 litters, 5-9 (sometimes up to 13) cubs in each. A separate above-ground nest is built for each brood.

Pregnancy lasts at least 17-18 days, if it is combined with lactation - up to 21 days. Mice are born naked, blind and deaf, weighing 0.7-1 g, but they grow and develop very quickly.

They begin to see clearly on the 8-10th day, leave the nest by the 15-16th day, and reach sexual maturity by the 35-45th day.

The young of the first litter breed already in the year of birth.

The life expectancy of baby mice in nature is very small, a maximum of 16-18 months, while most individuals live only 6 months.

In captivity, they live up to 3 years.

The mice can be observed if you take the whole nest to your home and place it in a cage with a fine wire mesh.

Baby mice are easy to keep if you give them hemp, oats, pears, sweet apples, meat and house flies, and with their pleasant disposition they reward the labors of a person who cares for them a thousand times.

Young mice become tame very soon, but shy as they grow older, if they are not handled very often and diligently.

When the time comes when they are free to hide in their shelters, they become very restless and try in every possible way to escape, just like migratory birds do when the time of departure approaches.

In March, they also show a particular desire to leave the cage. In general, they soon get used to the new conditions of life, cheerfully set about building their skillful nests, take leaves and stretch them through their mouths with their paws to split them, put them in order and intertwine them together - in a word, they try to get settled as best as possible.

The basis of the nutrition of baby mice is seeds, in summer also insects, vegetative parts of plants. For the winter they make small stocks of food. The baby is very voracious, eats about 5 g of food per day, which is only slightly less than its weight.

Baby mice are poorly social, meeting in pairs only during the breeding season or in large groups (up to 5,000 individuals) in winter, when rodents accumulate in haystacks and granaries. With the onset of heat, adults become aggressive towards each other; males in captivity fight fiercely.

It feeds mainly on seeds of cereals, legumes, broad-leaved tree species, and fruits. In summer, it willingly eats insects and their larvae. Doesn't appear to stock. Mice that settle near fields and granaries eat grains of cereals, oats, millet, corn, sunflowers, and other cultivated plants.

scientific classification

Kingdom: Animals

Type: Chordates

Class: Mammals

Order: Rodents

Family: Mouse

Genus: Baby mice (Micromys Dehne, 1841)

Species: Baby mouse (lat. Micromys minutus)

Peculiarities:

They do not hibernate.

Enemies in nature are birds of prey and animals.

In some areas, the baby mouse causes some damage to crops.

The baby mouse is sensitive to overheating and avoids direct sunlight.

Populations appear to be subject to 3-year fluctuations.

The baby mouse is a natural carrier of pathogens of tick-borne encephalitis, lymphocytic choriomeningitis, tularemia and leptospirosis.

Basic data:

Length: body - 5-7 cm, tail - 5-7 cm.

Weight: an adult weighs 5-10 g.

Reproduction:

Puberty: from 45 days.

Mating period: from April.

Pregnancy: 21 days.

Number of cubs: 3-8 per litter; there can be up to 6 litters per year.

Lifestyle:

Habits: keep alone; in summer they are active mainly at night, in winter - during the day.

Food: Cane and cereal seeds, as well as insects.

Life span: maximum in nature up to 18 months, on average 6 months, in captivity up to 5 years.

Related species:

The baby mouse is the only representative of its kind. The same family (mouse) includes house and forest mice.

The wood mouse is one of the most common European rodents. However, the peak of mouse activity occurs at night, so a person rarely meets it in nature. During the day, the mouse sleeps in a mink, from where it emerges under the cover of night and goes in search of food.

Reproduction:

Baby mice breed very quickly. For a year they are able to create up to six litters. In each litter of baby mice, there are from 3 to 8 cubs. The offspring are large in August and September. The babies stay in the nest for 11 days. The mother during these 11 days regularly goes out in search of food, but always returns to feed and clean her cubs. She eats their feces to keep the smell from attracting unwanted guests. Two days after birth, the cubs crawl around the nest.

After another four days, they begin to take care of their own hygiene. At the age of 8 days, they already see well. At the age of 9 days they have teeth, and the children begin to take solid food. When the cubs are 10 days old, the mother stops feeding them milk.

Babies are transitioning to solid foods. At this age, they first leave the nest.

After 16 days, young people become completely independent. The mother is already preparing for the birth of a new offspring. Having reached the age of 45 days, the cubs become sexually mature and start breeding. In nature, only a small part of mice - babies live up to a year. Usually, after 6-9 months, the entire population changes.

Location:

The baby mouse is found in the forest-meadow zone - in damp places densely overgrown with reeds, in swamps and swampy meadows, on the banks of streams and rivers. It can be found in the bush near roads and freeways. In winter, the mouse hides under piles of dry reeds, in hay, and in very severe winters, it climbs into the barn and at home. Males occupy areas up to 400 m2, while females occupy a smaller territory.

Food:

The menu of the mouse-baby is very diverse. It eats plant seeds, various fruits, berries and insects such as moths, caterpillars, grasshoppers or beetles.

The choice of food depends on the season. In early spring, the baby mouse willingly eats young buds of trees and shrubs or fresh sprouts.

It is believed that the main part of its food is grass seeds and cereals, however, the damage that the mouse causes to the crop is to a certain extent compensated by the destruction of various pests, for example, the background.

The honeydew that these insects secrete is a favorite delicacy of the baby mouse. Mice also eat flower nectar.

To get to the grains hidden in the ears, the animals climb up the stalks of grasses or grains. In this case, the baby mouse uses its long tail, which wraps around the stems and thus maintains balance on the plant, which sways. These mice are often kept at home. They are miniature and can live in small terrariums.

In a water meadow overgrown with tall grass, not far from a pond or river, where tall reeds grow, the stems of which are no more than 7 mm thick, on the edge, where blackberries ripen in dense thickets, or in a roadside ditch overgrown with dense bushes - in all these places it is not difficult to see a cute little baby mouse. Less commonly, you can find a baby mouse nest suspended from grass stalks at a height of 30-60 cm from the ground.

Interesting Facts...

The baby mouse is the only mouse-like rodent in Europe that builds a nest above the ground, and the only animal in Central Europe with a prehensile tail.

In some areas of the North German lowlands, a much darker subspecies of the baby mouse is found.

If the mice eat only seeds and grains, the daily feed intake should be 30% of their weight.

The color of the fur of adult baby mice is bright red, while in young mice it is duller, brown. The belly is white.

In nature, pregnant females drive away males, but not in captivity.

An amazing little animal lives in the east - a baby mouse. The name of this species is fully consistent with its size.

THE SMALLEST MOUSE

The baby mouse is the smallest rodent in the world, and together with the pygmy shrew and the tiny shrew, it is the smallest mammal on the planet. The body length of this mouse is only 11-13 cm, and almost half of it falls on a long tail. The mass of an adult male is not more than 16 g, a newborn mouse - a little less than 1 g. A flat muzzle with short ears, along with bright reddish fur on the back and sides of the body, distinguishes the baby mouse from other small rodents.

Along the river valleys, this species penetrates far to the north - to the Polar Urals and Yakutia, and in the Central Caucasus lives in alpine and subalpine meadows at an altitude of up to 2200 m. The baby mouse lives primarily in wet meadows near rivers, along the edges of forests, and sometimes settles in fields, rice checks and hayfields. It is extremely difficult to see her and watch her. And the point is not only in small sizes, but also in the amazing ability of this animal to hide and hide its presence. More often, a baby mouse is seen by chance, having frightened her not far from the nest, or in winter, when the animals gather in groups.

LITTLE MONKEY

Most of the time, the baby mouse spends in thickets of tall grasses, where it climbs superbly along the stems, and sometimes even along the branches of shrubs. With such a small weight and a long prehensile tail, this is not difficult. The tail is very mobile, easily clinging to stems and small branches, and the baby mouse moves like a tiny monkey. The similarity is enhanced by the fact that the animals can jump short distances from stem to stem.

NEST ON STILTS

The nest does not have a special entrance, and the female, each time climbing into it, makes the passage again. Leaving the nest, she necessarily closes the hole. In this way, she improves camouflage and reduces the risk that any predator will find her offspring. At the same time, on the territory of a mouse pair, there may be one more or several more simply arranged residential balls-houses, which parents use for rest and shelter.

Mice develop very quickly and reach sexual maturity by about 40 days of age, and if conditions are favorable, they themselves acquire offspring in the same year.

FUNNY ANIMAL

The baby mouse is active all day, every three hours a short sleep and feeding replace each other. The animals are very sensitive to overheating and try to avoid direct sunlight, so they are usually nocturnal in summer, while in winter they are more active during the day. To avoid enemies, the baby mouse moves slowly and carefully, often freezing behind the stem of the plant. If the danger persists, a cautious rodent may even fall sharply down, hiding in the shade on the ground.

The baby mouse feeds on all available seeds and fruits, and in the fall it sometimes makes small stocks of grain that will come in handy in the coldest days. After all, for the winter, the animals do not hibernate. In search of food, they roam under the snow, but not far from the "winter apartment". This is just a well-arranged burrow or ground shelter - among deadwood, under stacks and haystacks. If the winter is very severe, the animals move into human buildings.

In the cold season, males and females live separately, uniting in pairs only for breeding, but in the most favorable places for wintering, for example, in haystacks or granaries, they form clusters of up to 5 thousand individuals.

A SHORT, DANGEROUS LIFE

In nature, the life expectancy of baby mice is very small - up to a maximum of 1.5 years, but usually no more than 6 months. According to European scientists, 95% of all animals in the population die in winter. The main causes of mortality are cold or damp weather, sudden frosts, and predators such as weasels, stoats, foxes, cats, owls, and crows. At the same time, in captivity, animals can live up to 5 years. Peaks in the number of baby mice occur, as a rule, every 3 years, after which there is a gradual decrease with subsequent growth. In nature, populations of this rodent are characterized by an extremely high reproduction rate, but at the same time a very low survival rate. The baby mouse in some European countries is classified as a species that requires protection due to the gradual decline in their numbers. As the main threats to this species, researchers note the ever-increasing intensification of agriculture and, as a result, the destruction of potential habitats, as well as the generally poor knowledge of the ecology of this species.

BABY MOUSE IN THE FOOD CHAIN

The main food of the baby mouse is the seeds of various herbs, primarily cereals and legumes, fruits of trees and grains of cultivated plants. In summer, the animals also willingly eat small insects, such as butterflies, moths and grasshoppers, and their larvae.

NUTRITION OF THE BABY MOUSE

CHINA LUGOVA

In the second half of June, in sparse mixed and birch forests, on forest edges and slopes, in steppe meadows, a herbaceous perennial blooms - meadow rank. On tall, up to 1 m, thin stems, brushes of bright yellow moth flowers light up among many small leaves and tendrils. Soon they will turn into beans. This plant from the legume family is loved by sheep, horses, geese. Meadow nina, like many other legumes, is very nutritious: it contains a lot of ascorbic acid, carotene and vitamin P, microelements. And, despite the bitter taste, the baby mouse gladly includes it in its diet.

OATS

An obligatory dish of a baby mouse is grains of cultivated cereals. For example, oats. The fruits of this plant are distinguished by the optimal percentage of carbohydrates, proteins, fats and vitamins of the B complex. Oats contain the protein necessary for the body to grow and repair tissues. Soluble fiber lowers blood cholesterol levels, protecting the cardiovascular system. Vitamins and minerals are involved in important metabolic processes in the body. It is no coincidence that a person uses oats as a dietary product and includes convalescents in the diet. The mouse, although it does not know about the chemical composition of the cereal, appreciates it, perhaps, more than a person.

ENEMIES OF THE LITTLE MOUSE

WEASEL

This smallest representative of mustelids is a formidable enemy for a baby mouse. Agile and agile, runs fast, crawls through the narrowest cracks and holes. This bloodthirsty animal sometimes lays up to 30 voles and mice in reserve! Little rodents, neither on the surface nor in the mink, have no salvation from this predator. In bird eggs, she makes several holes and sucks out the contents. In search of food, a hardy animal runs up to 2 km per day. Weasel skillfully moves under the snow and swims well. This animal is bold. So, the weasel desperately defends its nest, no matter how great the danger. Sometimes the weasel copes even with the bird of prey that attacked it itself, gnawing its throat in flight.

COMMON FOX

Mice and voles make up about three-quarters of this predator's diet. There is even a special term for fox hunting for small rodents - mouse. The ability of the fox to change food depending on the habitat is amazing. In the southern regions of Europe, she eats reptiles, in the Far East, near rivers, - salmon fish, near the coast - sea emissions (from mollusks to large mammals). In the taiga it attacks large birds and even young ungulates. She deftly grabs the beetles flying past, and after the rain she collects earthworms. Be sure to add fruits, fruits and berries to meat food. But the hare becomes prey only during the period of starvation, the fox chases him very rarely.

Tawny Owl

This is one of the most common owls in temperate latitudes. It prefers to get food in forest clearings, forest edges and in floodplain habitats, especially at twilight and at night. The main food of the owls is small mammals, which the owl detects with the help of exceptionally sensitive hearing. At the same time, in absolute darkness, the error when throwing at prey is no more than one degree.

In nature, in years of high abundance, the baby mouse can harm crops. In addition, it is a natural carrier of pathogens of various diseases: tick-borne encephalitis, tularemia, leptospirosis, etc.

Unlike many other mice, this animal is very convenient and pleasant to keep at home. The secretions of these mice have almost no specific odor. The animals are a little shy, they are well tamed and are not demanding on food, and observing their behavior can bring a lot of joy and vivid impressions to an attentive naturalist.

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF

Class: mammals.
Order: rodents.
Family: mice.
Genus: baby mice.
Kind: baby mouse.
Latin name: Micromysminutus.
Size: body length - 5-7 cm, tail - up to 6 cm.
Weight: no more than 10 g.
Colouration: reddish-brown back, white belly.
The life span of a baby mouse: in nature - up to 1.5 years, but more often up to 6 months, in captivity - up to 5 years.

BABY MICE VIDEO

MOU Secondary school in the village of Novopavlovka

Petrovsk-Zabaykalsky district of Zabaikalsky Krai

Project work on the topic:

Little mouse nest

Work completed

3rd grade student Alyona Zabelina,

Novopavlovka

Subject of my project "Baby Mouse's Nest". I chose this topic because I recently read the book by Vitaliy Bianchi "Mouse Peak" and wanted to learn more about the life of mice in the wild ( target).

No matter how beautiful and cute all the little mice, but the baby mouse is the smallest, cutest, liveliest, most cheerful and dexterous of all. The length of her body along with the tail is 14 centimeters, and she weighs about 7 grams. It is so small that it easily fits on a spikelet.

A baby mouse lives among meadow grasses. Characteristic features of the baby mouse: moving along the stems of plants in search of food (feeds on the seeds of herbaceous plants, most often cereals, green shoots, insects), so as not to fall, wraps around them with a long thin tail. The position of the summer nest is also interesting. In my opinion, this is a very interesting and unusual building.

The baby mouse builds round nests on herbaceous plants with a diameter of 6 to 13 centimeters. Knowing this, I made a papier-mâché nest. Papier-mâché was made from threads that she wound around a balloon. The threads were smeared with glue. After drying, the ball burst.

Most of a mouse's nest is always made from the leaves of the same plant from which it is hung. Therefore, the color of the nest and the plant on which it is placed do not differ from each other. Knowing this, I picked up the threads of the desired color.

In fact, the ball of the nest is woven from fine fibers prepared by the mouse itself.

In order to build a house, the mouse should prepare building material. She passes sedge or reed leaves through her own teeth. The nest is hung on several blades of grass or stalks of cereals at a distance from the ground from 50 centimeters to 1 meter. Considering this. I attached the nest to the stems at a distance of 50 centimeters from the ground.

On the side there is an entrance with a diameter of 2-3 centimeters.

The inner layer of the nest is softly lined with fibers, leaves, soft grass or down. I used the softest part of the plant.

The mouse nest is intended for breeding. Mice are born weighing up to 1 gram and about 23 millimeters long. In two months they grow up to 55 millimeters. I really wanted to calculate their growth in two months.

It turned out to be as much as 32 millimeters !!! = 32 (mm) - for 2 months, and for one 32: 2 = 18 (mm)

In autumn and winter, baby mice move into simple holes, into haystacks and stacks.

In the course of my project, I learned many interesting facts about the life of the smallest mouse on Earth - the baby mouse. I learned how to make a nest by doing math. I also learned how to make papier-mâché crafts using thread and glue. My mother, Irina Viktorovna, gave me great help in making models. It was very interesting for me to work on this project.

Literature

1. . Pathfinder Companion. Animal nests on grass and trees

2. Website "Wikipedia" http://ru. wikipedia. org/wiki/Baby Mouse

Why are some women so afraid of little mice, scientists decided to find out. And they found out that this fear is laid down at the gene level. At a time when men hunted and women raised children in caves, predators unexpectedly attacked defenseless people. And since then, when even a small animal-rodent unexpectedly appears at the feet, the woman subconsciously feels the danger. And what is left to do? Of course, scream loudly.

A tiny mouse can also cause a stir if it ends up in a living room, despite its very tiny size.

Features of the baby mouse

The appearance of this species of mice before differs in smaller sizes: the body length is from 5 to 7 cm, and the tail is usually the same length as the body. An adult individual weighs from 5 to 10 grams.

The tiny mouse, although small, has an advantage over others: a well-developed tail musculature and its amazing tenacity. And it is precisely because of this that she can wrap herself around stems or reeds and climb up effortlessly.

This rodent's muzzle is shortened, but blunt and pointed at the nose. The nose is somewhat compressed from the sides closer to the anterior margin. The cheekbones are thin and weak. The paws are short, and the feet are elongated - from 12 to 16 mm and narrow, ending in sharp claws. The third toe is always slightly longer than the others.

The animal is covered with very thick and soft hair. The upper part of the body is bright with sandy-ocher shades or dark orange, brownish-olive can also be found. In the back of the back, the color is more saturated dark. The belly is white or light gray, and there is a sharp transition of color in the area of dark sides. Depending on the season, the baby mouse has a change in fur colors, however, they are very insignificant. The fur color of adults is brighter, in young ones it is still dull and much darker.

The incisors of these rodents are long and wide, rounded behind and pointed in front. The upper ones differ in that they are narrower and weaker than the lower ones, have a smooth surface.

The auditory openings are large, the tympanic chambers are also large, they have a bulge from the inside.

Habitat

The baby mouse has a very wide habitat. It spreads from the northern territories of Eurasia, the northeastern parts of Siberia, to the south of Italy and France, from the north of Asia and to the eastern borders of Japan. There are very isolated populations living in southern China and southeast Tibet. In mountainous regions, mice do not rise above 2,200 above sea level and in those places where there are many meadows.

The animals feel most at ease among thickets of rare shrubs, hiding in weeds, wastelands, borders and fallow lands. Often the family can be seen near busy roads. They also live well in tall grass meadows. This species of mice also prefers the most humid habitat, therefore, along the banks of rivers, in swamps and marshy meadows, they are also common, especially where areas are densely overgrown with reeds.

When the cold comes, little mice, fleeing from frost, hide in dry reeds, make a small mink for themselves, or settle closer to human dwellings - in hay, sheds, in the attics of houses or under the floor.

Nutrition

The diet of baby mice is quite extensive and mainly depends on the time of year. They prefer cereals, legumes, various berries, seeds, young sprouts and buds of broad-leaved trees, shrubs, reeds. Flower nectar is also a favorite dish of the animal.

They are attracted to agricultural land because the fields grow a large amount of tasty food: cereal grains, oats and other cultivated plants planted by people. To reach the grains that hide in the ears, these agile rodents climb up, helping themselves with a long and strong tail. He wraps himself around the stem, helping his mistress to keep her balance on the plant bending from her weight.

It certainly causes damage to the crop, especially if its numbers are large. But at the same time, it can also destroy a sufficient number of insects that harm the crop. The menu of these animals includes various small insects, most often beetles, grasshoppers, caterpillars and moths. The mouse loves and honey dew secreted by some insects.

The daily feed intake of these mice is 30 percent. from their total weight.

Lifestyle and features of procreation

Baby mice live separately from each other. Males occupy a territory of about 400 m2 for themselves, females require a much smaller area.

A feature of baby mice is the ability to weave a cozy soft spherical house from various plant wastes. Inside, such a dwelling is very solid and comfortable due to the fact that it is lined with chopped grass and fluff. Such a nest, whose diameter is approximately from 60 to 130 mm, can be located on the soil or attached low from the ground on plant stems - at a distance of up to 60 cm.

Such houses are loose, have only one side entrance in the form of a mink, or, in order to penetrate the dwelling, the hostess simply pushes the wall apart. After the cubs appear in the nest, a caring mother clogs all the loopholes for several days due to uninvited guests.

These animals have an amazing ability to procreate. Each brood is from 3 to 8 cubs. Under favorable circumstances, one female can have up to 6 litters per year. A special peak of birth occurs in August and September. The gestation period lasts no more than 21 days. At this time, while offspring are being hatched, females always drive away males from themselves. But an interesting fact: who lives in captivity does not drive away males.

The babies sit in the nest for the first 11 days. Mother mouse is very caring. All these days she is busy feeding the children with milk, and she has 4 nipples, bringing food to the children, cleaning them endlessly and even eating all the bowel movements. It is so necessary that the enemies do not smell the milky smell of children.

The mice that are born grow up quickly. After a few days, they begin to explore their house. On the fourth day, they themselves begin to put their own skin in order. A week later, they already see perfectly. When teeth appear after 9 days, one hundred percent assimilation of solid food begins. Cubs after 10 days from the moment of birth stop taking mother's milk and completely switch to solid food.

At the same time, they come out of their hiding place. When the children are 16 days old, they are completely ready to live on their own. And their mother most often expects a new offspring. At the age of 45 days, the cubs are already fully mature individuals, and they themselves are ready for procreation.

In nature, a baby mouse usually lives no more than 6 months, less often - up to a year or a little more, and after a year the population can completely change.

Due to their miniature size, such a breed is kept at home, placed in a small terrarium, and then the pet's life expectancy reaches 5 years.

However, it should be borne in mind that mice are the causative agents of some very dangerous diseases that are very difficult for the human body to tolerate. First of all, it is erysipelas, leptospirosis, etc. Therefore, it is advisable to buy these animals at a pet store.