Hedgehogs changed their habits - visual Darwinism and natural selection (2 photos)

I don’t know how it is in other places, I need to check, but in my city the habits of hedgehogs have clearly changed. As children, hedgehogs were shy and would curl up into a ball at the slightest approach. They behaved this way both in the gardens and in the forest. This is like the basis of a hedgehog’s behavior - the slightest suspicious noise, and even more so the approach of a dog or a person - you need to curl up into a tight ball and lie until the danger goes away on its own.





When the hedgehogs approached them, they lay there and that’s it, they didn’t try to run away. This was the reason for the huge number of hedgehogs crushed by cars. Biologists have even asked this question more than once - they say hedgehogs will die out! After all, when a hedgehog crossed the road, say, 20 years ago, when a car approached, it would automatically curl up and die.

Now what I personally tracked:

1 - Hedgehogs now categorically refuse to swerve on the road, even if you deliberately stomp your feet, speak loudly and generally frighten them. I personally sat down from the first such meeting - a hedgehog walking across the road and seeing me, gave a drapery with the speed of an average cat. At first I thought that I was mistaken, I ambushed the second hedgehog - the same thing. The hedgehog simply ran away from the road, got to the bushes and there was already quiet in the old fashioned way - curled up in a prickly ball.

2 - Hedgehogs behave in exactly the same way in vegetable gardens, that is, now they don’t just curl up into a ball, they RUN Away, snorting and sniffling angrily. Now, when you try to scare them, hedgehogs often prefer to snort and quickly run into the bushes instead of curling up.

Conclusions:

1 - And before, not all hedgehogs curled up at the sounds of cars and people’s steps. They simply did not receive an advantage in reproduction; on the contrary, they died more often than hedgehogs that endlessly curled up into a ball. It's like people's behavior - some are fearful, some are brave. Hedgehogs, like cats and parrots, are all unique; this is the basis of the biology of any species. The fact that they seem to us to be identical in character is an error based on the small number of previously observed animals. Absolutely all living beings, including ciliates and amoebas, are different in character and behavior.

2 - Cars have grown enormously in number over the past 30 years, literally by an order of magnitude. even small towns were now inundated with hundreds of cars. It turns out that those hedgehogs that previously almost folded up at any danger in their opinion have become extinct or have greatly decreased in number. This stems from a general change in the behavior of hedgehogs in and around the city.

For millions of years, for all spiny creatures, the “curl up and lie down” strategy was absolute. No wolf or fox can devour a hedgehog, much less kill it with its paws. And this clearly says - those hedgehogs were always born that almost didn’t curl up and were devoured. Now, on the contrary, they are in a better position.

3 - Those hedgehogs that, at least on the roads, do not fold under cars, began to receive advantages in reproduction. And now the best survivors are the brave ones who run away from people.

4 - Essentially this is a change in cultural tradition and adaptation to survival. Hedgehogs are, in principle, flexible animals; there is a description of how hedgehogs resettled in New Zealand began to live in groups and spend the night several times in one hole and dramatically changed their eating habits, began to eat more vegetables and plants - so, in principle, nothing is unrealistic for them no, especially since those who folded were mercilessly crushed by cars.