Tenrecs on The Hunt for Love | Nature Bites

[Music] this is Tom a lowland streaked tenrec he arrived at Chester four months ago from a private collection along with three other tenrecs Blondie MC and Barkley it's like a bumblebee made friends with a hedgehog and they had babies and then throwing a bit of clanger in there as well and then you get a Tamarack bizarre the tenrex are tiny mammals native to Madagascar where their habitat is being destroyed by deforestation we're the only zoo in the UK that has them there's not many of them about and no one really knows a lot about them [Music] tenrex are coming out of several months of a long semi-sleep state known as a torpa and in the wild would now stop breeding [Music] but mating them has never successfully taken place in a UK Zoo So the plan now is to try and breed them in the hope that we could become one of the first places to crack it that'd be pretty amazing really [Music] the tenrecs have been paired up and the keepers have High Hopes in particular for couple Blondie and Tom Tom is a good looking male Street ten wreck you know he's very colorful his his quills are you know Vivid in coloration so he'd potentially be a good breeding animal Tom is quiet you know horny at the moment oh [Music] he's biting at her neck her head but you know things and stuff while I'm mounting that's flirting in Tamarack World probably arrested if you tried to do it to a person but Tamaracks that's what they do [Music] Tom is using every tool in his Armory to try and woo Blondie basically stridulation is where you rub two parts of your body together to make a noise so things like crickets do it just happens that tamarack's have a specialist organ on their back of densely packed quills that they can rub together and make those little clicking noises nothing else mammal wise really stridulates like that very clever [Music] what are you doing now [Music] sometimes it can just be you know booger off your side of my bed but other times it's if that's potentially like him going oh you know I want a bit and she's going no actually I don't [Music] despite all the Keeper's efforts there has been no sign of mating behavior she's not in the mood he wants to mate and she's hungry romance is dead in Tamaracks [Music] most henrics only live for up to 30 months so Tom and Blondie may not have much time left to reproduce these little creatures have only got a short window of opportunity so we want to provide everything that we can to allow them hopefully become really good parents a big little special thing for the section and the zoo as well with so little known about the species Keepers must try everything they can to encourage the tenrex to breed so I've got some deep substrate here bark chip they can burrow into this is their bedroom a piece of bark [Music] and the tenrec couples are being provided with a steamy atmosphere there's some thoughts that you know in the wild they might breed at a certain time of the year they're prepped in the rainy season and then there's this sort of spraying to encourage a bit more humidity that might be like oh it's rainy season like you know let's have babies oh they're going for God's sake this is cold I don't like the rain I'm gonna leave them to it if it doesn't work I'm back to the drawing bug [Music] the new tenrik love nest has failed to Kindle a spark between Tom and Blondie the keepers are still trying to work out how they can help this unusual species to reproduce and stop their numbers falling come on regulation they've decided to try a Wife Swap I think it's almost like they're in with a female and they get used to her you know see you every day I'm pretty bored if you know and then you move them in with a different film I thought oh God you're hot and then they go for it and I think I've got high hopes for these initial signs that Tom will have more luck with new partner Barkley aren't promising and keepers are now perplexed by a strange development with his ex Blondie four 195 bloody hell it's a light in a week [Music] big Blondie was a barrel positively enormous you could have been forgiven for things you'd eaten Tom which obviously she hasn't sorry um you know she's over 200 grams these animals that are normally about 120 to 150 grams so 200 grams damn big for for Logan Street Tamarack one of those things into you you never know unless you know unless you can do a test you never know 100 if it's pregnant or not and obviously was something that we've not worked with before and there is very little written about them you know there's very little to go off it is a bit of guesswork yeah obviously I would love it if she was pregnant because it would be a massive like career highlight to have a baby Ted rack [Music]

Channel: Nature Bites

Views: 5,681

Keywords: nature documentary, cute animals, animals attack, tenrec sound, tenrec pet, tenrec vs hedgehog, zoo, tenrecs as pets, tenrecs pronunciation, tenrecs and hedgehogs, cheetah vs, horn grants cheetah, lion hunt impala fail, lion vs, speed cheetah hunt, wap, wap animals, wild animals, wild animals planet, worlds fastest animals fail

Id: kWjCbpdibpk

Length: 6min 50sec (410 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 31 2023