wolverine
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Wolverine ( gulo gulo ) |
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| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The wolverine ( Gulo gulo ) is a species of predator from the marten family (Mustelidae) that lives in northern Eurasia and North America . It is also called wolverine , Gierling , greed stomach , greed throat or Järv referred.
origin of the name
The origin of the animal name Wolverine (from Middle High German vilfrāz , "gluttonous", as the name of, bear marten ', sometimes the, hyena '; althochdeutsch already vilifrāz ) is not safe to predict. The established assumption is that it - came to German territory via the Hanseatic fur trade in the 15th century - is a folk etymological re-formation of the old Norwegian fjeldfross , which means something like 'Felsenkater' or 'Bergkater' and the stories about its voracity only came through the reinterpreted animal names emerged. However, this is sometimes disputed.
Another assumption is that the animal owes its name to the ability to drag anything that is halfway edible near its hiding place and to store large supplies there. Wolverines also have names that indicate gluttony, but which are probably based on the reinterpreted German name "Wolverine", in several other languages. The scientific name ( Gulo gulo ) also refers to the voracious, Nordic legendary figure Gulon . In all modern Scandinavian languages, a name analogous to the Swedish järv is used.
The most common English name for wolverine is "wolverine".
features
The wolverine is similar in its physique to the real marten , but it is significantly larger. It reaches a head body length of 65 to 105 centimeters and a tail length of 17 to 26 centimeters. With a weight of up to 32 kilograms, males are significantly heavier than females, which can reach 20 kilograms. The massive head and powerful limbs give a much more compact and powerful impression than other martens. The ears are relatively small and the tail is short and bushy. The long, dense fur is dark brown or blackish in color, characteristic is a yellowish or light brown banding that extends from the shoulders over the sides of the trunk and reunites above the base of the tail.
distribution and habitat
Wolverines are distributed across the taiga and tundra belts of the northern hemisphere. Its current range includes Scandinavia , northern Siberia , Alaska , large parts of Canada and isolated populations in the northwestern United States . In historical times it was also at home further south, for example in Poland and the Baltic States and in several regions of the United States, where its distribution area extended to California and Pennsylvania . He was driven back from these areas by human hunting. Wolverine bones from a cold era (glacial fauna) were found in the Harz unicorn cave . Bones from earlier times have also been found in many places in the Alpine region and surrounding landscapes such as the Western Carpathians , with most of the sites being between 200 and 950 meters above sea level.
Wolverines are most common in the boreal coniferous forests , but they are also widespread in the treeless bogs of the tundra and in mountainous regions.
Way of life
Wolverines are predominantly nocturnal, in the north of their range they maintain an alternating rhythm with three to four hours of sleep and activity during polar days and polar nights . They retire to rest in nests that they build from grass and leaves in caves, crevices or under fallen trees. Sometimes they also move into other animals' burrows or create caves in the snow. They are primarily ground dwellers, but can also climb and swim well. They may not be very fast, but they are persistent runners who can cover 10 to 15 kilometers without a break and cover distances of up to 45 kilometers in one night. They do not hibernate , but sometimes migrate to lower or more southern regions in winter.
Like most martens, wolverines are solitary. They are territorial animals that mark their territory or at least their current residence area with the secretion of their anal glands or with urine. They are generally more intolerant of same-sex conspecifics than to representatives of the opposite sex, a territory of one male can overlap or even completely overlap with those of several females. The districts are relatively large and can cover 2000 square kilometers (approximately the size of the Saarland) in winter.
He is considered to be exceptionally strong and aggressive and has even been seen driving pumas and bears away from the rift.
food
Wolverines show a completely different hunting behavior in summer than in winter. In the warm season it is primarily a scavenger , but also looks for bird eggs, tree shoots and berries. He seldom kills young reindeer and elk calves when he comes across them unguarded.
In winter, wolverines take advantage of their superiority over large mammals because they can approach them almost noiselessly on the snow without sinking in. His main prey at this time are mountain hares , mice , squirrels and ptarmigan , but occasionally also young reindeer, elk and even lynx .
Reproduction
The mating takes place in the months of April to July, due to a dormancy , the actual gestation period does not begin until between November and March. After an effective gestation period of around 30 to 40 days, the female gives birth to two to four young animals. For this purpose it often creates a snow cave in which the young animals spend their first weeks of life. Newborns are snow-white, blind and weigh around 90 to 100 grams. They are suckled for eight to ten weeks and leave the mother in the fall. After a year they reach their full size, after two to three years they become sexually mature. Life expectancy in the wild is eight to ten years; in human care they can live to be 17 years.
Human and wolverine
history
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In the past, horror stories were spread about his voracity: Brehms Tierleben reported (albeit with skepticism) that he gnawed at carrion (according to an old story by Conrad Gessner even on a corpse) and then squeezed through trees close together to remove the intestinal contents as quickly as possible get rid of it and continue to eat. The wolverine jumps on its backs to bite large animals on the neck until they fall. Wolverine is also mentioned in Zedler's Universal Lexicon in 1746 and in 1771 in the Göttingen dissertation by Samuel Gottlieb Vogel .
persecution
The human hunt of wolverines and the associated reduction in their range has two reasons. On the one hand, you see him as a food competitor, reindeer herders fear him because he sometimes kills their cattle. For this reason it was hunted in Scandinavia until very recently. In addition, he sometimes invades houses in search of food, where he gives off the strong smell of his anal gland secretions.
The second reason for hunting was wolverine fur . It used to be considered valuable, but it no longer plays a role in the commercial fur trade. However, it is still valued by arctic peoples for its impermeability to the cold.
Usage and symbolism
The Norwegian municipality of Bardu , like Kittilä , a municipality in the Finnish landscape of Lapland , has a wolverine in its coat of arms.
The Wolverine (English wolverine ) is Mascot of Michigan Wolverines , the sports teams of the University of Michigan . The US state of Michigan is also associated with wolverines in this respect : a brigade consisting mainly of Detroit soldiers in the US Civil War was called the Wolverines , and every now and then Michigan is nicknamed Wolverine State . This is possibly due to the fur trade in Sault Ste. Marie attributed in the 18th century.
The Wolverines was the name of a jazz band that made Bix Beiderbecke famous.
Wolverine is the name of a character in the comic book and film series X-Men . The Wolverines are a resistance group in the film The Red Tide from 1984. Wolverines also play an important role in myths from various Indian tribes.
Persistence and protection
The species is extinct in northern Central Europe , in Norway there is only a small population of 120 to 150 animals that is strictly protected. The Swedish wolverine population was all but extinct, but was placed under protection in 1969 and has been able to recover in recent years. In 2012 there were between 668 and 835 animals, mostly in Lapland and occasionally in Dalarna . In Finland the population nearly doubled between 1991 and 2007 and is currently estimated at 150 to 170 individuals.
Wolverines have been wiped out in eastern and southern Canada , as have much of the heartland of the United States, where only isolated relic populations are found. They are even more common in northern Asia, northern Canada and Alaska ; overall, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN, they are considered not to be endangered (“Least Concern”). In Germany, according to the Federal Nature Conservation Act and the Federal Species Protection Ordinance, trade and importation of European wild populations or their products are prohibited in order not to favor hunting in the remaining natural habitats.
Systematics
The systematic relationships between wolverines and other martens have not been fully clarified. Due to its special physique, it is sometimes placed in its own subfamily, Guloninae. Genetic studies do not support this point of view, but classify it in the Martinae , possibly even the genus of the real marten ( Martes ) without the wolverine is paraphyletic . Accordingly, this could be a close relative of the North American fishing marten .
literature
- Ronald M. Nowak: Walker's Mammals of the World . 6th edition. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1999, ISBN 0-8018-5789-9 (English).
- John J. Flynn, John A. Finarelli, Sarah Zehr, Johnny Hsu, Michael A. Nedbal: Molecular phylogeny of the Carnivora (Mammalia). Assessing the impact of increased sampling on resolving enigmatic relationships. In: Systematic Biology. Volume 54 (2), 2005, doi: 10.1080 / 10635150590923326 , pp. 1-21.
further reading
- Robert M. Inman, Audrey J. Magoun, Jens Persson, Jenny Mattisson: The wolverine's niche: linking reproductive chronology, caching, competition, and climate. In: Journal of Mammalogy. 93 (3), 2012, doi: 10.1644 / 11-MAMM-A-319.1 , pp. 634-644.
Web links
- Gulo gulo in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2009. Posted by: Abramov, A., Belant, J. & Wozencraft, C., 2009. Retrieved on January 24 of 2010.
Individual evidence
- ^ Friedrich Kluge , Alfred Götze : Etymological dictionary of the German language . 20th ed., Ed. by Walther Mitzka , De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1967; Reprint (“21st unchanged edition”) ibid 1975, ISBN 3-11-005709-3 , p. 821.
- ↑ The dictionary of origin, Duden 7 . Dudenverlag Mannheim, 1963, keyword “wolverine”.
- ↑ Fritz Schmidt : The book of the fur animals and fur . FC Mayer Verlag, Munich 1970, p. 288.
- ↑ Christian Franke, Johanna Kroll: Jury Fränkel 's Rauchwaren-Handbuch 1988/89. 10th, revised and supplemented new edition. Rifra-Verlag, Murrhardt, p. 59.
- ↑ www.einhornhoehle.de: Ice Age animals in the unicorn cave. Retrieved January 21, 2015.
- ↑ Gulo gulo (Mustelidae, Mammalia) in the Young Pleistocene of Central Europe In: Contributions to paleontology. Issue 26, University of Vienna. Institute for Paleontology, Publisher: Association for the Promotion of Paleontology, 2001
- ^ Brehms Thierleben , 1st edition. Volume 1. 1864, p. 516.
- ^ SG Vogel: De Polyphago et Lithophago Ilfeldae Nuper Mortuo ac Dissecto Commentatio Historico-Medica. Medical dissertation Göttingen 1771.
- ↑ Iris Ritzmann : Steinfresser. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1358.
- ↑ Svenska Rovdjursföreningen (Swedish)
- ^ Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute: Lynx population doubled between 1994 and 2007 while the wolverine population grew more slowly. ( Memento of the original from April 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. News from October 3, 2008.
- ↑ Appendix 1 of the Federal Species Protection Ordinance, footnote 1.
