Post #14618

Fossa: Madagascar lion. But this is not a cat, but something strange There are no cats in Madagascar. And yet, someone is sneaking in the shadows, gracefully arching their back. Someone's eyes sparkle in the darkness, causing the lemurs to hug each other and scream in horror. And although there are no cats in Madagascar, fossas live there. And these are top predators that none of the locals can cope with. The Fossa looks like a small and stocky puma. Her weight is 7-12 kg. She has an elongated and strong body with a long graceful tail and short, but very tenacious legs, under the short hair of which muscles roll. And the look of a wild cat, ready to devour you whole. It’s all the more strange to realize that the Fossa’s closest relatives are mongooses and hyenas, which were previously considered to be relatives of dogs! The external features of the Fossa are truly unique. You can't see a dog or a cat in this carcass. Fossa belongs to a separate family of predatory mammals - Madagascar civets. Fossa is so different from her relatives because while hyenas were adapting to life in the savannas, and mongooses were learning to hunt snakes, she mastered the dense forests of Madagascar. The predator quickly developed a taste for it and multi-level forests with a huge amount of arboreal life became her home. Fosse especially liked the lemurs. The pseudocat's diet consists of about 50% primates, and for them the fossa is a real nightmare. Yes, they are able to run away from it, because primates are more agile and can jump far, they can simply jump from tree to tree and hide. But there is not a single place in the Madagascar forests that the fossa cannot reach. Sooner or later she will reach them. To avoid a sad fate, lemurs have to always be on the alert. After all, fossas do not have a clear daily routine; they go hunting at any time of the day, so they can attack poor primates in the dead of night, at dawn, and at noon. Needless to say that not a single creature on the planet can always be on guard? Therefore, it is not surprising that the mere smell of fossa drives lemurs into hysterics. However, despite all their special abilities and power over the lower primates, the Fossa are unable to defend their forests from the higher primate, which is cutting them down hectare by hectare. Although it is not hunted directly, the number of predators is declining along with the forest area. And this is very bad, because apex predators, even such small ones, never have high numbers. Even if the process of their disappearance can be reversed - and for now it is quite reversible - it will take centuries, if not millennia, to restore genetic diversity. Author: Yaroslav Ilyin 🏀 Hit the hoop and get an NFT gift — https://t.me/BasketbolX_bot