Without a question, chinchillas are beautiful and cute furry animals with large ears, a long tail and distinctive eyes. Do you know where they actually come from, what their name means and that we almost succeeded in nearly exterminating them before the domestication took place?
Chinchillas originally come from the south-American Andes, where they were one of the most widespread animals of these high mountains only less than 200 years ago. Their territory spread along the west coast over Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. Here, in their natural environment, they live at 1500 – 3000 meters above the sea level in large colonies consisting of 15 – 100 individuals, hiding in rock crevices or digging dens. Their name (Chinchilla) is a combination of the words Chin and Chile, which in translation means fur from Chile.
For their characteristically dense and fine fur – this is caused by the individual hair follicles growing a tuft of 40 to 50 hairs – the chinchillas were valued already in the Inka times. Then, however, Europeans got to America and in the 17th century, they started to export the chinchilla’s fur to Europe. Up to 30,000 chinchilla skins were exported from Peru and Chile annually. This hunt took them to the brink of extinction. Following attempts of chinchilla breeding in captivity fell through since the mountain and cold-loving animals used to dryness did not survive sails over the equator where humidity and hot weather reigned. At the beginning of the 20th century, chinchilla was even declared extinct.
But American engineer Matthias F. Chapman believed, that in remote regions of the Andes, some chinchillas could have survived, and after long five years, he managed to find one of the last surviving colonies with the help of a local Indian. Chapman caught 12 chinchillas (only 3 of them were female). He equipped himself with cool boxes for the transport of the animals, so apart from one animal, all of them survived the crossing of the equator, and in 1923, he saw the birth of the first young animals at his farm in California. Today, their blood is present in virtually all the bred chinchillas, while the remnants of the wild chinchillas were granted the deserved protection shortly after: in 1929, the first law for chinchilla protection was issued and the National reservation for chinchillas was established in Chile.
Today, chinchillas are frequently bred all around the world in large private farms. However, only several small colonies survive in the wild, therefore, people try to return them into their original territories. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been very successful.
If your cat is going to pee or defecate outside its toilette, it is only seldom just an issue of training or hygiene. Cats are clever animals and they have no trouble to understand, where to go to toilette. Therefore, if they don’t abide the rules of...
We hear about the war in Syria almost every day. But have you ever thought about how does a war affect local animals and that the self-sacrifice must not always be made by an animal for humans, but it can also be the other way around? The person that...
Acupuncture wants to harmonise the body and the mind. Some of you may have tried it, it was a great help to me personally with issues with my back and breathing. Precisely owing to my positive personal experience, the possibility to indulge dogs and...
In the life of any dog, a situation might come up, when it is necessary to put on a muzzle. And if the dog is not used to wearing it, it might mean a stressful situation. I will advise you on how to avoid stress and how to get your dog used to wearing...
Same as in people, also our pets should go to regular check-ups to a doctor. We might neglect this quite often, but it is still something else in animals. A dog or a cat won’t come up to you to tell you, that they’re not feeling well. That’s why an...
The name distemper might be familiar to you, but do you know more precise characteristics of this treacherous viral disease? Let’s take it one by one from the historic roots up to the present day
Do you know, what dreams our pets have? Besides myself, also a number of scientists were interested in this question and they came up with various hypotheses. Would you guess what our four-legged friends dream about?
Maybe even you have a small four-legged stressed-out dog at home. In such case, read carefully, maybe you will find something here, what you haven’t tried yet, while trying to get your pet rid of stress.
You have probably encountered the opinion, that much more important than what you’re saying to your dog is how you’re saying it (the tone). But it shows, that dogs are able to understand the human language much better, than we generally credit them for.
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 13.3px 'Times New Roman'; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
All of us surely likes to take pictures of our pets. However, the photographs don’t always turn out according to our...
It could seem that the smaller the animal, the less care it would require. However, don’t let yourself be fooled. Even if you have a small mouse at home, a rabbit or maybe a guinea pig, you should adapt the care for them to the season and to situations...