CLICK ON THIS LINK TO WATCH A VIDEO OF A COYOTE "MOUSING"
https://www.earthtouchnews.com/natural-world/animal-behaviour/mousing-coyote-shows-off-a-classic-canid-hunting-routine
'Mousing' coyote shows off a classic canid hunting routine
'Mousing' coyote shows off a classic canid hunting routine
BY ETHAN SHAW DECEMBER 01 201
A recent video posted to the United States Fish & Wildlife Service Facebook page serves as a great example of a super-classic canid hunting method.
The short clip, taken by J. Giles, shows a coyote "mousing" along a roadway in the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Texas Gulf Coast, but you could see something virtually identical watching jackal snuffing out rats in African scrub or an Arctic fox after lemmings on snow-crusted tundra
thoroughfares provide good hunting corridors for
coyotes, foxes and other carnivores: the paved or
cleared bed masks the hunter's footfalls from
keen-eared rodents, which tend to be attracted to the
thick fringing groundcover.
In the clip, you can see the coyote cocking its head
this way and that with perked ears, trying to zero in on
its quarry's little rustlings. Research on captive red foxes
has shown the nearly pinpoint accuracy with which
they can locate such sounds.
this way and that with perked ears, trying to zero in on
its quarry's little rustlings. Research on captive red foxes
has shown the nearly pinpoint accuracy with which
they can locate such sounds.
canids trying to catch burrowing rodents: you'll see foxes,
jackals and even wolves do it. (Adult grey wolves
sometimes "mouse" in a sort of offhand way, probably
because a mouse or vole is a mere morsel for a
carnivore of their size and not worth expending a lot of
time and energy on. Wolf pups, though, often pounce
on rodents around their rendezvous sites.) The
dive-bombing approach helps catch quick-scampering
prey by surprise, and also gives the mousing canid the
opportunity to redirect its landing in midair to cut off a
rodent's dash.
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