Page 55 - Mammal (DK Eyewitness)

PACA’S PACKAGES Paca skull Food for the future
The paca is a nocturnal
rodent about the size of a Mammals use many different methods and go to great
small dog, and it lives in
northern South America. lengths to store the energy and nutrients that a meal
Its square-headed look is represents. The methods have evolved in response to
due to its curved, bowl-like availability of food in the habitat.
cheek bones, once thought
to be used for storing food.
In fact, their exact function
is not clear – one theory
is that they are used to
amplify the sound that
the paca makes.

Nasal passage

Front teeth

Eye socket
MEAL IN THE TREE
The red fox buries extra food and
Expanded cheek bones then returns to it later. But not
always successfully - another
creature may find it, or the fox
may forget where it put it.
Pouches are now full
MEAL UP THE TREE above
The leopard is successful in only a
small proportion of hunts. It cannot
eat a large catch like an impala in
one go, so it may store the leftovers
in a tree, out of reach of hungry
rivals like hyenas.

WINTER WARMTH AND ENERGY right
The dormouse feeds greedily on
autumn fruits and builds up stores of
fat under the skin. This provides
enough energy for a half-year of
hibernation.

SHOPPING BAGS FULL
L
3 ike a human shopper staggering home
from the market with a heavy bag in each hand,
the hamster has packed its cheek pouches to
bulging with nuts. Now it is time to leave the
feeding area, which is exposed and therefore
hazardous for such a small, relatively
defenseless rodent.

FROM BAG TO BURROW
4 When the hamster reaches the safety of its
burrow, it unpacks its pouches. The front paws
are used like hands to push and massage the
food out of the pouch and into the creature’s
underground larder. In the wild, a single Hamster uses front
hamster has been found to collect more than paws to get nuts out
132 lb (60 kg) of nuts and other food of pouches
(equivalent in weight to an adult human).

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