Fun facts about squirrels the whole family will like
National squirrel appreciation day, January 21st, is an important celebration day for all the squirrel lovers across the country. Squirrels are adorable and extremely fun tiny animals that live in every park, forest, and even in some backyards. These cute mammals completely deserve their day and are worthy of all the attention they get from humans. They are fast, intelligent, playful, skillful and much more. Here are some fun facts that will make you love squirrels even more.
Squirrels can find food buried beneath a foot of snow
Food is extremely important for all living beings, especially so for squirrels during winter. Fortunately, they are very capable of finding food beneath the snow that you can’t imagine how unless you see it. They are able to smell food under a foot of snow which helps them locate the buried treasure of some other animal or another squirrel.
Squirrel front teeth never stop growing
The squirrels need to gnaw all the time in order to keep their teeth at the right length. Similar to other rodents, a squirrel’s front teeth never stop growing, so they have to “trim” them constantly.
They lose up to 25% of their buried food
Squirrels are thieves, and they love stealing each other’s food. Their buried food stash also often suffers attacks from other intruders like hungry birds.
Baby squirrels only pee and poop in their mother’s mouth
This one doesn’t sound too attractive right? Baby squirrels relief themselves only in mama squirrel’s mouth so she can get rid of it outside of the nest. The logic here is to protect the babies and remove all the smells that may attract predators and eat the babies.
Some squirrels make mushroom “jerky”
Some squirrels collect mushrooms, then tear them in strips and hang them to dry on tree branches. They are surprisingly capable animals and know what they’re doing.
Squirrels may pretend to bury a nut to throw off potential thieves
How intelligent is this! Squirrels have developed an amazing skill of pretending that they’re doing something when they’re actually not. They dig a hole and pretend to bury the nut inside when actually they just cover an empty hole and carry on with the nut. This brilliant acting performance helps them to distract any potential food thieves.
They are extremely flexible
These adorable animals can rotate their ankles 180 degrees and can see peripherally in perfect vision. They are fast, skillful and you can never catch them.
They are good parents
Squirrels are very good parents. They do not only take care of their own kids, but they save any other squirrel baby that’s left alone for any reason. How can you not love them?
Now you know more squirrel facts than you probably did before, and this will inspire you to like them even more. They have been introduced to humans in almost every park we know, so there are times when they come close to people and seem interested in communicating. Or simply want to get some food. However, they are wild animals and we shouldn’t get too close to them, no matter how adorable they look. If you have squirrels in your backyard and you want to help them during the winter, make a small house for them and leave them food. Never bring them inside and force them to become buddies with your dog. It’s simply not the way it works. Love them and protect them from a safe distance and everything will be just fine.
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