Chapter 796 Charge
The Saharan wolves, who had wandered for a day and a night, were extremely hungry, but looking around, apart from the sub-zero bushes and weeds, there was only endless yellow earth. Apart from nibbling the grass like fat lambs, the only thing they could do was dig the earth to find beetles to eat.
The Sahara is as hot as a teppanyaki grill during the day. Even the beetles are buried deep underground and cannot be seen. When you dig the soil, you will only get choking dust.
Several secondary wolves stopped and lifted their hind legs to scratch their skin. They bit their fur with their fangs, trying to drive away the damn fleas. Their sidelong glances occasionally drifted towards the leading big wolf, as if they were expressing dissatisfaction, but they kept it to themselves because of the authority.
The alpha wolf is the strongest and most intimidating of the pack. Its physique alone is a size larger than that of all the other wolves, and it enjoys all the service of the female wolves.
The hair that was tickled off flew in the air. They wished they could shed their fur and live freely, but when they thought of the biting cold at night, the slightly loosened hair follicles took root again.
Hot during the day, cold at night.
This is the Sahara.
Just as a few secondary wolves fell behind the team and were secretly expressing their dissatisfaction, a low wolf howl awakened the entire wolf pack.
The wolves in groups of three or two immediately perked up, quickly came to the leader, and looked intently into the distance.
There were three camels, two large and one small.
There was not a single tree for miles around, and the huge camel standing on the ground cast a shadow, making it particularly conspicuous.
Come to life.
Amid billowing smoke and dust, the wolves charged at the small camel family, their green eyes flashing with hunger.
This wolf is a little small.
[Indeed, it seems much smaller than the one God encountered before]
[What kind of wolf is this? A desert wolf? ]
The drone can automatically magnify the scene, making the two opposing sides seem to be right in front of you, and the audience can see it more clearly.
The wolf pack surrounding the three camels was large in number, but their quality was inferior, and their physique seemed to be more than one size smaller than that of the Arctic wolves.
Bifang himself was too far away, and there were not enough reference objects nearby. The only thing the audience could compare it to was the besieged camel, so they were not sure whether the wolf was too small or the camel was too big.
Although the wolves were smaller, Bifang counted them carefully under the scorching sun and found that there were actually seventeen wolves!
Once there are more than five animals in the same space, a certain degree of visual effect will be created.
Imagine encountering five dogs at once in your home. Even though the number is small, when they really pounce on you, you will feel that “that’s too many.”
The increase in the number of animals is not just an increase in numbers, which is why Bifang has never liked social carnivores. It is always a tricky thing to encounter them.
The large number of wild wolves made the charge look massive, letting people know that this smaller group of wolves should not be underestimated.
For this reason, Bifang did not approach rashly. After getting closer, he hid two hundred meters away, lying on the ground and watching the situation develop. When he saw the barrage of comments, he took the initiative to comment on the battle.
"That's a desert wolf, also called an African wolf. Your feeling is correct. They are indeed smaller in size, much smaller."
"I mentioned Bergmann's rule before, which means that for warm-blooded animals, individuals of the same species or closely related species living in cold environments have relatively larger body sizes."
"Bergman believes that this is because as the size of the animal increases, the relative surface area of the animal decreases, resulting in a smaller rate of heat dissipation from the body surface, which allows it to better conserve heat to adapt to the cold environment of high latitudes."
"This rule is not a theorem and has major flaws, but as far as mammals are concerned, more than 90 percent of species meet this rule. So we can easily infer that the closer to the equator, the smaller the body size. Desert wolves are a typical example. They weigh less than half as much as Arctic wolves."
"Although the desert wolf is called a wolf, it is not a wolf in the strict sense, but an independent species of the genus Canis in the family Canidae."
Bifang lay on the yellow earth and briefly explained the origin of the gray wolf, which also gave the audience a better understanding.
Gray wolves are group predators that are found almost everywhere in the world, but they have disappeared only in Africa. The reasons behind this are very complicated.
"In general, wolf is the name of the gray wolf of the genus Canis in the family Canidae. The migration route of the gray wolf's ancestors, including the gray wolf, has always been between Eurasia and North America, and has never entered Africa. The reason may be related to migration memory and environmental differences, which has led to the absence of gray wolves in Africa."
"Nevertheless, some of the early canids migrated into Africa, because there were still canids in Africa, and the African wolf was one of them."
Why is it called wolf?
[Maybe it’s a language habit]
"It is indeed a language habit. For example, African hyenas, although called hyenas, are actually not canines. The Hyaenidae family under the suborder Feliformes is neither a cat nor a dog. It is an independent species."
"This is all a problem of translation and naming. In the past, translation and naming were not rigorous enough. Hyenas look like dogs at first glance, so people gave them names containing the character 'dog'. There are many similar historical problems, such as cheetahs are not leopards, and puma are not lions. However, these names have been widely used as official names, so we just leave them as they are and do not make any changes."
Precisely because they are not wolves, the habits of African wolves have some subtle differences from those of wolves, such as their flexible organizational form.
The social organization of African wolves is very flexible. The size of the group varies according to the available food. If there is enough food, they can form a large group. If there is no food, the number will disperse and become small groups again.
On the coarse sandy ground, African wolves charged at the camels, over and over again, raising clouds of dust.
Strangely, they were in no hurry to launch an attack. Instead, they relied on the flexibility brought by their smaller bodies to pass by the camels again and again, as if they just wanted to cause panic in the other party.
And judging from the camel's helpless behavior, this trick was quite effective. At least several times the camel tried to break out, but was forced .
"This is a common wolf pack tactic, 'blitzkrieg'."
Bifang was a little excited, such a scene was rare.
"Look how smart they are. They keep charging and trying to cut up the camel family. As long as one of the cubs is cut out, it's dead!"
The sizes of African wolves distributed in different regions vary greatly with geographical changes. Those in West Africa and North Africa are much larger than those in East Africa.
The country of gentlemen is in West Africa, so these African wolves are not that small, and there are also some camels as a backdrop, which makes the attack look more ferocious.
The smallest camel was the weakest link in the group. At its young age, it had never seen such a scene before. It couldn't help but run away several times, but was protected by the two big camels on the left and right. However, the big camels were also in a bad situation.
They won't last much longer.
