Have you ever paused to truly observe a squirrel? These common creatures possess a wealth of fascinating traits and behaviors that often go unnoticed. Read on as we reveal 10 truly interesting facts that might just change how you see them.
1. There Are More Than 280 Squirrel Species
Flying squirrels, chipmunks, marmots, prairie dogs are all just some of the many squirrel species that exist. Some are huge and fluffy, some are rare albino animals, and some are small and cute.
Of all the squirrels that are still living today, scientists have identified 5 different subfamilies. These include:
- Callosciurinae: 60 species from Southeast Asia, including palm squirrels, sculptor squirrels, striped ground squirrels, black-eared pygmy squirrels, etc.
- Ratufinae: 4 giant species from South and Southeast Asia, including cream-colored giant squirrels, black giant squirrels, Indian giant squirrels, and grizzled giant squirrels.
- Sciurinae: 83 species from all over the world, including all of the flying squirrels and tree squirrels, as well as dwarf squirrels and red squirrels, etc.
- Sciurillinae: 1 species from South America, known as the neotropical pygmy squirrel.
- Xerinae: Basically, the rest of the squirrels, classified into 3 different tribes:
Marmotini: marmots, prairie dogs, chipmunks, etc.
Xerini: African and Eurasian ground squirrels.
Protoxerini: African tree squirrels.
2. Squirrels Have Ever-Growing Front Teeth
Squirrels are rodents, along with rats, mice, guinea pigs, beavers, hamsters, and so forth. But what exactly are rodents? They’re actually characterized by a pair of incisors in each of their upper and lower jaws that don’t stop growing. This brings us to squirrels and their interesting front teeth. Their incisors are always growing because they need seriously gnawing skills to be able to eat. To keep their teeth from getting shorter and duller as they eat their way through life, their teeth keep growing. The same goes for other members of the rodent family.
3. The Word Squirrel Means Shadow Tail
The name squirrel is derived from the ancient Greek word, skiouros, which means shadow-tailed. The word then went through Latin and became sciurus. The only logical thing was to then pass it through Anglo-French and make it esquirel, right? Apparently, that name didn’t sit right with people and modern English speakers decided on squirrel. Nevertheless, the name means shadow-tailed, and it obviously refers to their distinctive big, bushy tails.
4. Squirrels Are Rather Smart and Deceptive
Squirrels are smart. They really are considered to be pretty intelligent animals.
They can solve many problems, like getting their food out of the reach of thieves. Not only do they hide their nuts (a process called caching), but they’re smart enough to bury them in more than one location. Sometimes, they’ll even put on a little act and pretend that they’re hiding food in a decoy spot. Fortunately for them, their memories are relatively good, so they usually remember where they hid the goods.
5. Squirrels Seriously Stuff Their Cheeks
Remember; we listen, and we don’t judge. If your food got stolen on a daily basis, you’d also stuff your cheeks when you get some. Luckily, squirrels have expandable pouches on the insides of their cheeks, and they can stretch up to several times the size of their heads. They can fit about 10 hazelnuts in there at a time, while chipmunk cheeks can hold 31 corn kernels, 70 sunflower seeds, or 12 acorns. They’re all omnivores, so they also eat bird eggs, insects, and other small animals.
6. Squirrels Plant Trees Without Realizing
While squirrels may be such a big pest that people are buying squirrel-proof bird feeders, they’re also indispensable in nature. Not all of them are smart or lucky enough to recover all of their cached food and these nuts sprout into brand new trees. That’s so, so good for forest regeneration and the environment overall.
7. Squirrel Species Can Differ Greatly in Size
All 285 squirrel species can’t look exactly the same or be the same size. It turns out that the differences are more vast than I imagined because the largest squirrel is more than 6 times bigger than the smallest squirrel. The Indian or Malabar giant squirrel easily reaches 3 feet, while the African pygmy squirrel doesn’t surpass 6 inches. In terms of weight, we’re looking at 5.5 lbs. vs. 0.6 oz.
8. Squirrels Can Sniff Out Ripe Nuts
There’s another grand trick that they use to find their missing nuts; their strong sense of smell. They can also use a sniff test to identify ripe nuts from a bunch and to find another squirrel’s cache.
9. Squirrels Are Pretty Fast
These nocturnal animals may not be the biggest or most intimidating, but they’re fast. If you’ve got anything going for you, why not let it be speed? Squirrels can reach speeds of up to 20 mph. This may not sound that impressive to you, but it blew my mind when I considered their size. They actually run in zigzag patterns to make the predator chasing them work even harder. If that doesn’t work out, they can climb trees at speeds of up to 12 mph.
10. Squirrels Can Fall from High Places
A squirrel is one of those lucky animals that can’t die falling. They can survive falls from impressive heights because they’re basically geared to fall slowly and softly. Here’s what helps them:
- They’re small and lightweight.
- Their fur is really fluffy, so they’re essentially padded.
- They can stretch out their little bodies when they fall, so they can reach a low terminal velocity (fastest speed while falling).
