Fighting elephants led to famine, and 65.438+0.5 billion African sparrows flooded, which the local people could not finish eating. Why?

Photographers have photographed a group of red-billed Quelia finches beating elephants. On the land of Africa, elephants want to go to the water source to drink water. Therefore, Quellia birds took the pond for themselves and refused to share it with elephants. So they formed a flock of birds, beat the elephants in turn and drove them out of the pond.

On the savanna of sub-Saharan Africa, there is the largest number of birds in the world: the red-billed Quelia finch. They are very small, about 12 cm long and weigh about 20 grams. Mainly feed on plant seeds, especially like crops, after all, crops grow intensively and have high yield.

A red-billed Quellia finch can eat 18 grams of grain every day on average, which seems harmless to farmers, but you should know that red-billed Quellia finches like to live in groups, with an average population of millions or even tens of millions. When they fly over your head, it takes up to 5 hours.

Because of the large population, they consume a lot of food. Take the population of 2 million birds as an example, they consume 50 tons of food every day, while the population of red-billed Quelia finch ranges from 654.38+0.5 billion to 654.38+0 billion. You can imagine how much food they will consume every day.

Men versus quilla finch.

The red-billed Quelia finch is also known as the "grasshopper with feathers". Just like locusts, once they cross the border, local crops will be destroyed. This is because the population of red-billed Quellia finches is very large, and the red-billed Quellia finches that fall behind will fly to the front to feed, so the red-billed Quellia finches in front will become the rear, so they will fly to the front.

In this way, a flock of red-billed Quelia finches can consume 50 tons of local food every day. In order to keep food, local farmers have to form a team to keep expelling them, but they can fly and will come back soon.

Some foodies may ask, since there are so many red-billed Quelia finches, why don't locals eat them? In fact, African aborigines are not stupid. They also regard the red-billed Quellia finch as the origin of protein. N 'Djamena alone captures more than 5 million red-billed Quelia finches every year, but compared with the scale of 654.38+0 billion, the number of these birds killed by humans is not enough to threaten its population.

But the red-billed Quellia finch has a weakness, that is, the breeding season will be fixed in one place. They nest in trees during the breeding season and rest in their nests at night. At this time, the locals will detonate here with homemade bombs and ignite these trees. It is understood that every bomb attack will cause tens of thousands of red-billed Quelia finches to die, so local farmers can relax their vigilance a little.

Homemade bombs can't completely solve the problem of red-billed Quellia finch, because Africa is vast and sparsely populated, and there are many no-man's land. The red-billed Quellia finches living in no man's land will not be affected, and they will fly to farmland again when the environment is suitable.

In addition, the red-billed finch has fast reproductive efficiency and long life cycle. On average, each red-billed Quelia finch can survive for 2-3 years in the wild, but if the environment is suitable, it can survive for about 18 years.

If their population decreases, they will also expand their bird population by merging with other bird populations, such as weaver birds. The larger the bird population, the better the effect of resisting natural enemies and the lower the mortality rate. It is precisely because of this that human hunting is not a threat to them at all.

Why do red-billed Quellia finches flood easily?

We know that many animals are on the verge of extinction under the action of human beings, but why are red-billed Quellia birds easy to flood?

This is actually related to their habits.

Red-billed Quelia finches like to live in groups, and the larger the population, the easier it is to resist natural enemies. In addition, the grain grown by farmers provides them with a lot of energy. Although they have a large population, they can find energy in different places by moving around.

In addition, the red-billed Quellia finches breed very fast, and under suitable conditions, they can breed many generations every year. Therefore, even if their numbers decrease, they will come back as long as the environment is right.

More importantly, the place where the red-billed Quelia finch lives is sparsely populated, and the number of people hunting it is limited, so it is difficult to control the population. If it was in Eurasia, it might have been wiped out long ago.

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For the red-billed Quellia finches, their evolution is very successful, and they are the largest number of wild birds in the world. But for local farmers, the red-billed Quelia finch is a nightmare. People want to destroy them, but they can't completely destroy them.

It is precisely because the red-billed Quelia finch is easy to flood that many countries are very wary of this bird and prohibit people from bringing it into China as a pet.