What will happen to the tiger's behavior before and after giving birth to a baby?

Being a mother is not easy, and it is even more difficult for a single mother who needs a person to take care of her children. This is true in our human life and wild animals.

We all know that tigers are solitary cats. Compared with lynx, puma and other solitary animals, tigers are less sociable. Even the male tiger and the female tiger only get along briefly during estrus, and then they separate. It can be said that the male tiger does not participate in the whole female tiger breeding, and the male tiger maintains himself during this period? King? Status, not being defeated by other male tigers, is the greatest care for the young tiger, because once the new male tiger takes over the site, the young tiger is likely to be killed.

tiger

We often say? Is it hard to be a mother? It is used to describe the changes and greatness that a woman has made since she became a mother, but you should know that this sentence actually applies to tigers.

Some people may think that tigers are predators standing at the top of the food chain. Is there anything that can threaten its existence?

In fact, the life of a tiger before and after giving birth to a baby is obviously different. A group of scientists in the United States and Russia conducted a follow-up investigation on a tigress named varvara, and found that the tigress's behavior changed greatly before and after giving birth to a baby, which revealed the tigress's behavior for us. Single mother? Life.

Female Siberian tiger Vavala

Although tigers can estrus in any season in theory, in the wild, they often estrus from June 165438+ 10 to April of the following year, because mating during this time is just a warm season after the cubs are born, and there are many ungulate prey in the forest at this time, which can meet the daily food consumption of the tigress and cubs.

Although tigers are solitary animals, during estrus, females will live with males. During this period, they will mate frequently, and only after the female is pregnant will the male leave.

Many people ask me how the tigress who lives alone solves the food problem after pregnancy. In fact, don't worry, because the tiger's pregnancy is very short, about three and a half months, and the early pregnancy is not obvious, and the mother tiger's ability to act will not be affected at all.

Until the first 10- 12 days of production, the stomach will gradually swell. At this time, although the tigress's hunting ability can't be compared with the peak state, she still has a strong hunting ability, and she can also solve the problem of food and clothing by ambushing some weak ungulates.

Only in the last 3-5 days of production, the tigress will temporarily lose a lot of predation ability, but at this stage, the tigress has a more important job, that is, to find a safe place as her own production nest, and there are two requirements in site selection:

One is concealment, which can ensure the safety of cubs after birth; Second, there are many prey around, which can ensure that the baby has enough food after birth. Tigers and their cubs in the forest

Among cats, the most? Spoil? The young lion is a puma, and will spend a lot of time with the young lion. It will not gradually train its survival skills until 18 months later when it is basically very mobile.

Although the tiger is not as good as the puma in this respect, it also spends a lot of time with its cubs, especially in the first few days of its life. The mother tiger spends about 70% of her time with them every day, and only when she grows up does she gradually reduce this proportion.

It takes about 2.5-3 years for a tiger to mature sexually, but by 18 months, it has mastered the hunting skills, and then it will live and study with the tigress for 4-5 months before the tiger is officially released? Are you alone? Therefore, in the first two years, tigers relied heavily on the tigress, especially in the first 18 months of birth. Tigers don't have any viability, and they rely entirely on the care and protection of tigress. If the tigress slackens a little, the tiger is likely to die.

The changes and sacrifices made by the tigress as a tigress to take care of her cubs? Single mother? Especially without any help, it is actually very difficult, even with? King of beasts? The same is true of the tiger.

Having a baby means that she has to take on more responsibilities. For a tigress, she can't continue her old age? Let nature take its course Life, so the first change a tiger makes after giving birth to a baby is to have a fixed nest.

Tigers are different from some burrowing and nesting animals. They won't have a nest until they have cubs. Any bush, rock or even any place in the forest may become a shelter for tigers. But during the breeding period, tigers will have a fixed place as a nest. Although the tiger's nesting ability is poor, it can't even be regarded as a nest in appearance, but it always has a fixed foothold.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that the tigress is very vigilant during the breeding period. As long as she feels dangerous, she will take her cubs with her.

Has the tiger become bigger? Mom? The second change and sacrifice after that was to give up protecting one's territory. Of course, it doesn't mean that it doesn't want territory, but its scope of activities will be greatly reduced.

The tiger is an animal with a strong sense of territory. Although the territory of the male tiger and the female tiger will overlap, a male tiger's territory often contains 2-5 females, but the territory between females does not overlap. Take the South China Tiger as an example. In the case of many prey, its living space needs at least 70 square kilometers of forest, and they will regularly mark the territory and boundaries with smells.

After tracking the action track of tigress Vavala, scientists found that the range of activities changed greatly before and after giving birth to the baby. Baby? Before that, the average range of activities in Vavala was about 500 square kilometers. Baby? After that, this range was reduced to 180 square kilometers.

After the introduction of snow, it doesn't seem to have much effect on the results. Whether in the snow-covered season or in the snow-free season, the range of activities in the two months after giving birth to a baby is less than half that in the two months before giving birth to a baby.

Changes of tiger's range of motion before and after delivery

In addition, the mother tiger's range of activities is basically centered on the nest, radiating to the surrounding area, indicating that after giving birth, the mother tiger's life focus is on the cub, so as to ensure that she will not be too far away from the cub and spend less time on the hunting road, so that she can spend more time with the cub.

Because the longer the tigress leaves, the farther the distance, the greater the predation threat of tiger cubs from wolves, leopards, bears, lynxes and so on.

From this point of view, it is a very wise decision for tigress to consider the richness of prey around her when choosing a nest. In areas with more prey, tigers can naturally get enough food without searching for a larger area.

Tigers prey on ungulates.

what's up Baby? After that, the third change that Mother Tiger made was to become stronger. In short, her hunting success rate has improved, killing more prey than usual, and the prey tends to be bigger.

In the first 6-8 weeks after birth, their digestive system is not fully developed, so the main food source is the mother tiger's milk, so in order to ensure that she has enough milk supply, the mother tiger will increase her food intake by about 50%, which means she needs to catch more prey. In order to reduce the hunting time, the larger ungulates are also preferred in the choice of prey.

? Tigress is awesome? Isn't it a joke that people often use? Tigress? It's a metaphor for those fierce women, but it's not a joke to put this sentence on the tiger. In fact, there is still some scientific truth.

Friends living in the countryside may be familiar with it. Dogs tend to be much more fierce than usual when they take care of their cubs. Even people in the same village are highly vigilant. This is easy to understand. After all, dogs at this time are insecure and will pay special attention to all potential threats around them to ensure the safety of their cubs.

The same is true of tigers. During the period of raising young, the tigress is very cautious and shows more aggression to the animals around her.

Say? Meng Mu moved three times? In order to give Mencius a good growth environment, so does the tiger? Three tricks? It means that once the mother tiger thinks this place is unsafe, she will immediately move her cubs to another nest.

The tigress moved her cubs.

In fact, this feature of the tigress has already shown a trace of signs as early as estrus. The male tiger is usually considered irresponsible. Once the female tiger is pregnant, she will leave, but in fact, it is the female tiger who drives it away.

Although the tiger is a solitary animal, during the whole mating period, the tigress and the tigress live together without much discomfort. Moreover, after the tigress is pregnant, her personality will change greatly, from the previous ambiguity to irritability, and she will get angry with the tigress from time to time. Lose your temper? And the male tiger will realize that he can't stay any longer

Although it is a fact that tigress is fierce, there has never been authoritative information that tigress will be more fierce than male tiger. In real life, male tigers are often stronger.

The mother tiger is more fierce after giving birth, and it is also manifested in the hunting behavior. As a forest animal, tigers usually prey on ungulates smaller than themselves. For example, the main food of Siberian tiger is red deer, followed by wild boar, which are basically below 200 kg.

But once it reaches the breeding stage, the tigress will not only increase the hunting frequency, but also capture prey that is often much larger than usual. At the same time, she will move faster and improve her efficiency in all aspects.

For example, Vavala, the research object of scientists in Schott-Alin Biosphere Reserve, obviously reduced the frequency of going out and walking after giving birth, and walked faster and had less rest time during the predation.

The activity track of tigress Vavala.

Generally speaking, tigress as a? Single mother? It is quite competent, especially when it has to balance the relationship between hunting, defending territory and feeding cubs without any help. It sacrifices its previous life, changes its behavior and makes everything more efficient. Maybe this is it? Is it hard to be a mother? Its best embodiment.