Chinchillas

There are different types: small long-tailed or coastal chinchilla ( lat. Chinchilla lanigera ), short-tailed or large chinchilla ( lat. Chinchilla brevicaudata ).

The birthplace of chinchillas is South America . Short-tailed chinchillas live in the Andes of southern Bolivia, northwestern Argentina and northern Chile. Long-tail chinchilla is currently found only in a limited area of ​​the Andes in northern Chile.

Chinchillas inhabit dry rocky areas at an altitude of 400 to 5000 meters above sea level, preferring the northern slopes. As shelters, crevices of rocks and voids under the stones are used, in case of their absence, animals dig a hole. Chinchillas are perfectly adapted to life in the mountains. Chinchillas are monogamous . According to some reports, life expectancy can reach 20 years. Chinchillas lead a colonial lifestyle; various herbaceous plants , mainly cereals , legumes , as well as mosses, lichens, cacti, shrubs, tree bark, and animal food - insects serve them as food.

Chinchillas live in colonies and are active at night. Their skeleton is compressed in a vertical plane, allowing animals to crawl through narrow vertical cracks. A well-developed cerebellum allows the animals to move perfectly along the rocks. Big black eyes, a long whiskers- vibrissa , large oval ears - not an accident: this is an adaptation to the twilight lifestyle.

The exploitation of animals as a source of valuable fur on the market of Europe and North America was launched in the 19th century; there is still a great need for skins to this day. One fur coat requires about 100 skins; chinchilla products are recognized as the rarest and most expensive. In 1928, a chinchilla coat cost half a million gold marks. In 1992, a chinchilla fur coat cost $ 22,000.

Long-tailed chinchilla is kept as a pet and bred on fur on numerous farms and private rabbitries . The fur of a small or long-tailed chinchilla is grayish-bluish, very soft, thick and durable. The fur of large or short-tailed chinchillas is of somewhat worse quality.

Now the rodent is protected in places of ancestral habitat in South America, however, their range and numbers have been greatly reduced.

The biology of chinchillas in natural habitats has been little studied, basic data on behavior, reproduction, physiology are obtained in artificial conditions. Most of the data relate to long-tailed chinchillas due to their mass breeding in captivity.

The head of the chinchilla is rounded, the neck is short. The length of the body is 22–38 cm, the tail has a length of 10-17 cm and is covered with stiff outer hairs. The head is large, eyes are large, ears are rounded 5-6 cm, vibrissae are 8-10 cm. The hind limbs are four-fingered, twice as long as the front five-fingered, and allow you to make high jumps. Fingers on forelegs are grasping. 20 teeth, including 16 molars, growing throughout life. Chinchilla auricles have special membranes with which the animals cover their ears when taking sand baths; Due to this, sand does not get inside. Chinchillas are characterized by sexual dimorphism : females are larger than males and can weigh up to 800 grams; the weight of males usually does not exceed 700 grams. Chinchillas are adapted to nightlife: large black eyes with vertical pupils, long (8-10 cm) vibrissa , large rounded ears (5-6 cm). The forelimbs are five-fingered: four grasping fingers and one little used.

A well-developed cerebellum provides good coordination of movements necessary for safe movement on the rocks.

Chinchillas are herbivores . The basis of their diet consists of various herbaceous plants, mainly cereals, also seeds, mosses, lichens, shrubs, tree bark, small insects. In captivity, they eat only dried foods (such as dried apples, carrots, hay, nettle and dandelion roots), granulate as the main food.

Chinchillas make very interesting sounds: when they don’t like something, they make a sound like quacking or tweeting. If they get very angry, they begin to make sounds similar to growling or blowing their nose, and sometimes they snap their teeth very quickly. If they hit hard or get scared, they can beep very loudly. But chinchillas are not defenseless - if they are threatened, they can attack: they stand high on their hind legs, begin to “growl”, start a stream of urine, and then clutch their teeth.

Fur

The consequence of living in a cold mountain climate is thick and warm fur. Chinchilla fur is one of the densest among animals - more than 25,000 hairs per square centimeter of skin. Such a high density is ensured by the unusual structure of the fur: 60–80 fine hairs grow from each hair follicle. Chinchillas have no hard outer hair, downy hairs are only 12-16 microns thick, covering hairs are 24-28 microns long and 4-8 mm longer than downy ones. The chinchillas fur is so dense that parasites common to other fur animals cannot live in it. Chinchillas lack sweat and sebaceous glands, when they get into the water, the fur immediately gets wet, and the animal cannot stay on the surface. To get rid of moisture, remove lost hair and clean the fur, chinchillas regularly bathe in volcanic ash and fine dust, as well as in fine sand.

All the colors of modern, captive chinchillas can be divided into mutational species and interspecific * hybrids. At the same time, mutational ones, in turn, are divided into two groups: recessive : non-agouti, coal, albinotic, white recessive, hazy, beige Polish, beige Sulivana, beige Wellman, sapphire, violet, mottled, and dominant : black velvet, beige Tover , white wilson, ebony.

Teeth

Dental system

Chinchilla has 20 teeth. Chinchillas have a relatively small and narrow oral cavity, but with well-developed gums. Adult animals have 20 teeth in both jaws (upper and lower), of which 4 incisors and 16 molars. The molars are deeply planted in the jaw bones. The cross section of such a tooth has the shape of a square. Newborn chinchillas have 8 molars and 4 incisors. The incisors, strongly protruding, chisel-like, relatively narrow and constantly growing, are located opposite each other, two on the lower and upper jaw. The front surface of the incisors is covered with a thick layer of reddish or yellowish enamel, while the back is covered with dentin. The back side, devoid of enamel, erases more quickly and gives the tip of the incisors a sharp chisel shape.

Crowns of incisors come on each other - upper to lower. The length of the crowns of these teeth is from 0.6 to 1.2 cm. The incisors serve mainly to hold food and bite off its parts.

Molar teeth ( molars and premolars ):

• 4 premolars - small molars (one on each side of the upper and lower jaw).
• 12 molars - large molars (three on each side of the upper and lower jaw).

The molars located in the back of the jaws, together with the premolars, are combined into a group of buccal teeth. Its elements in the chinchilla have a wide, ribbed chewing surface for crushing and grinding food.

The molars are formed by transverse plates without cement (crowns of 2 parallel plates). The cross section of the molar is square. The molars are deeply planted in the jaw bones. The total length of these teeth is 1.2 cm (the root length is 0.9 cm and the crown height is 0.3 cm). The upper and lower molars are located opposite each other, touching the entire surface. Between incisors and premolars there is a wide toothless gap - diastema; fangs are missing. This arrangement of teeth allows rodents to gnaw relatively hard materials and spit out particles of the latter through the diastema, without even having to put them in their mouths. Adult chinchilla has orange teeth, but young chinchillas are born with white teeth, the color of which changes with age. Newborn chinchillas have 8 molars and 4 incisors; incisors grow all their lives.

Teeth Formula

Since the teeth are homologous in different types of mammals, that is, they are identical in evolutionary origin (with rare exceptions, for example, river dolphins have more than a hundred teeth), each of them occupies a strictly defined position relative to the others and can be indicated by a serial number. As a result, the dental set characteristic of the species can be easily written in the form of a formula. Since mammals are bilaterally symmetrical animals, such a formula is made only for one side of the upper and lower jaws, remembering that to calculate the total number of teeth it is necessary to multiply the corresponding numbers by two. The expanded formula (I - incisors, C - fangs, P - premolars and M - molars, upper and lower jaws - numerator and denominator of the fraction) for the chinchilla teeth set, consisting of four incisors, 4 premolars and 12 molars, as mentioned earlier, formula as follows:

• The sum of the numbers in the formula is 10, we multiply by 2, we get 20 - the total number of teeth.

Type of Dental System

Most animals have two tooth shifts - the first, temporary, called milk, and permanent, characteristic of adult animals. Once in their life, incisors and premolars are completely replaced, and molars grow without dairy predecessors. But some mammals (edentulous, cetaceans) develop only one change of teeth throughout their life and are called monophiodontic. Chinchillas also belong to monophioodont.

Chinchillas are mostly monogamous. With a greater degree of certainty, the fact of the pregnancy of a female can be determined by a change in her weight; the female's growth is 100-110 g every 15 days to the previous weighing. Beginning with a 60-day gestation period, the female's nipples swell and the abdomen grows. Pregnant females are fed quality fortified and varied feed.

With the approach of childbirth, the female does not move much, does not touch the feed. Most often, the female gives birth in the morning from 5 to 8 hours. Delivery lasts from a few minutes to several hours and occurs without assistance. In difficult births, the female is given 3-4 times a day with sugar in the form of syrup of 2-3 ml or sand of 1.5-2 g. Cubs are born covered in fluff, with their teeth erupted and their eyes open, and on the first day they are able to move quite freely. One-day chinchillas are weighed, sex is determined (in the female, the anal and genital opening is almost nearby, and in males at a much greater distance). Newborn chinchillas have a live weight of 30-70 grams. Older females can bring more cubs than younger ones (up to 5-6 instead of 1-2). The female can be covered by the male one day after giving birth. During the year, the female can cover herself and bring the cubs 3 times, but the third coating is not desirable, as the female’s body is very depleted. As a rule, the female milk appears on the day of birth, but there are delays in the appearance of milk (up to 3 days). Therefore, if the cubs are hunched over with their tail down, they need to inspect the female. If she does not have milk, chinchillates are planted on the milk nurse or they are fed artificially with a special mixture for feeding kittens. The first week the cubs are watered every 2.5-3 hours.

The lactation period lasts 45-60 days, at this age the chinchillas are approximately precipitated, and can be precipitated at the age of 30 days, especially if the young after feeding are fed with a mixture to feed the kittens. The young growth is quite fast, the monthly cubs are almost three times their daily weight and weigh 114 g, in 60 days - 201 g, in 90 days - 270 g, in 120 days - 320 g, in 270-440 g and adults - 500 d. As a rule, planted young animals are kept in ordinary cages several heads, females and males separately. Polygamous breeding of chinchillas is also quite common, when 2 to 4 females per male, the number of females can reach 4 to 8 with age.

In 1553, an animal (mixing, apparently, with mountain whiskers ) is mentioned in the literature - in the book " Chronicle of Peru " ^{[ specify ]} Pedro Ciesa de Leon ^[1] . The name Chinchillas comes from the name of the Peruvian province of Chincha ( Peru ).

The founder of captive chinchilla breeding was the American engineer Matthias F. Chapman . In 1919, he began searching for wild chinchillas, which by that time were extremely rare. He and 23 hired hunters for 3 years were able to catch 11 chinchillas, of which only three were females. In 1923, Chapman managed to get permission from the Chilean government to export chinchillas. He managed to adapt the chinchillas to the flat climate and transport them to San Pedro ( California ). These animals became the founders of a new type of artificially bred fur animals. In the late 1920s , the number of chinchillas increased annually by 35%, and in the early 1930s - by 65%. In the 1950s , chinchilla farms existed in most developed countries. Since the beginning of the 90s , there has been a trend not only in keeping chinchillas as pets, but also in breeding.

Life Cycle

Chinchilla reaches sexual maturity at 7 months (some later) and is able to bring 2-3 litters per year, each of which has 1 to 5 puppies, an average of 2-3 puppies. The duration of pregnancy is 111 (110-115) days. They live up to 20 years, while successfully reproducing up to 12-15 years. With an increase in offspring from 2-3 to 5 puppies at a time. The chinchilla has three pairs of working nipples, which is enough to grow 3 puppies (dissolve 1 pair). Chinchillates are born with erupted teeth, sighted and covered with primary hair. From 5-7 days they begin to eat food. Young growth is separated from the mother at the age of 50 days, when they have a live weight of 200-250 g. The chinchilla ends up growing by 24 months, when they reach a live weight of 450-600 g. The strongest and most prolific rodents with high-quality hair are left on the tribe. . When scoring (at 6-7 months), the chinchilla is evaluated by physique, body weight, constitution, quality of the hairline and its color.

From 14 weeks of age in puppies (approximately), you can determine the quality of the hairline and predict it at 6-7 months. When selected in 6-7 months, young animals with a live weight of at least 400 g, motile, healthy, with normal development and thick gray hair with a bluish tint, are left for the tribe. After reaching chinchilla puberty, the hunt in females is repeated throughout the year with a certain periodicity, on average after 30-35 days (with fluctuations from 30 to 50 days) and lasts 2-7 days. The animals show the greatest sexual activity from November to May, with a maximum in January - February. The onset of hunting in a female can be determined by her behavior and condition of the external genitalia. The female becomes more active in the hunt, the male begins to look after her, snorting loudly. The female refuses to feed and scatters it. The external genital organs of the female swell and turn pink, an open genital gap becomes noticeable.

Literature in Russian

• Chinchillas // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Bulletin of youth science of the Altai State Agrarian University: in 2 books. / A.V. Shishkin . - Sat scientific tr Prince 1. - Barnaul : “RIO Altai GAU”, 2016. - 345 p. - 100 copies. - ISBN 978-5-94485-290-8 .
• Kiris I. B. "Chinchilla" / Sat. tr ARRIAH . - Vol. 19. - Kirov : “Tsentrosoyuz”, 1962. - S. 259—268.
• Кирис И. Б. Опыт содержания шиншиллы в вольере // Сб. трудов ВНИИОЗ. Киров. 1971. Вып. 23. — С. 49 — 91.
• Кирис И. Б. Размножение шиншиллы. // Материалы к науч. конф., посвященной 50-летию ВНИИОЗ // Тезисы докладов. Киров. Вопросы экологии. 1972. Ч.2. — С. 86 — 89.
• Кирис И. Б. Материалы по эмбриональному развитию длиннохвостой шиншиллы // Сб. н-т инф. ВНИИОЗ. Киров.1973. Vol. 40/41. — С. 97-102.

Литература на разных языках

• Burton, J. 1987. The Collins Guide to the Rare Mammals of the World. The Stephen Greene Press, Lexington, MA.
• Grzimek, B. 1975. Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia. Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York.
• Jimenez, J. 1995. The Extirpation and Current Status of Wild Chinchillas, Chinchilla lanigera and C. brevicaudata. Biological Conservation 77:1-6.
• Nowak, R. 1991. Walker's Mammals of the World, 5th Ed., Vol II. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.

• ADW: Chinchilla lanigera (англ.) (недоступная ссылка) . Дата обращения 28 марта 2006. Архивировано 8 апреля 2006 года. (Проверено 16 июня 2009)