Steppe and forest steppe

Climate steppe continental and dry. Winter is usually short, but very cold. Snow falls a little. All times are blowing strong winds, storms also occur. Spring is coming fast and hot, dry summers. Rains are rare here, and if there are, in the form of short showers that do not have time to moisten the earth. Early spring, when just the snow melted steppe right flashes yellow and red. It's blooming tulips. Behind them irises begin to bloom, Adonis, peonies. And all this bloom disappears within one to two weeks. There are only cereals: feather grass, fescue, Tonkonog. But then they disappear, and by mid-summer steppe burned so that it is difficult to imagine what it was in the spring. Steppe animals differently adapted to open spaces. Many of the burrows, where to hide from enemies, extreme heat or cold. So do groundhogs, squirrels, hamsters, jerboa. Even at times wolf captures subterranean dwelling badger or fox. A burrowing rodents inhabit small predators - ferrets, weasels. So do some ducks, reptiles (lizards, snakes) and insects. With the onset of cold weather insects, reptiles, most rodents, hedgehogs, badgers hibernate. There in the steppe and large animals. This is primarily antelope, deer, fox Korsak. They are all good runners, because in dry seasons can travel vast distances in search of food and water. The more the steppe grass, the more large herbivores. And the bigger predators. In the Eurasian steppes - a wolf in the U.S. - small wolves coyotes. Of birds and a bustard quail live in the steppes settled. But here in the summer arrivals ducks, demoiselle, larks. At high altitude soaring wall predators - eagles and vultures. Open spaces allow them to notice prey at a distance of several kilometers. Even if this production is a little mouse. A unique vision of eagles and vultures can not but cause surprise. Steppes of North America are called prairies. They, along with plants that are found in the steppes of Eurasia, there are those that are absent here, in the eastern hemisphere: bizonova grass, Graama. But an even greater variety of different grasses steppes of South America. It's called the pampas. Hard grass a meter - one and a half in height completely cover the considerable space Pampa. Where soil is more humid, there are bright green creeping plant. And along with them - a scarlet verbena, pink, white. In damp places grow yellow and white lilies. But the most beautiful plant Pampa - Silver Giner, silky panicles which seemed to have absorbed a variety of colors and shades of azure sky. In this sea of ??grass wandering herds of wild cattle, herds of horses. It is important shakes back and forth ostrich Nanda. In lakes and rivers meet the grove of trees and shrubs. There you can see black squirrels, a tiny hummingbird, birds, noisy parrots. In ancient times, the steppe occupied a huge territory in the plains of North America and Eurasia.