Five Facts You Don't Know About Squirrels!

If you are like most people then you are used to seeing squirrels run around the park and chase each other up and down trees. Heck, you might even be like me and take the time to feed the cute little guys some peanuts every now and then.

But despite these animals seeming so familiar there is a lot of fascinating information about squirrels that most people don’t know! Let’s take a look at a few cool facts about these animals.

There are over 280 different species of squirrels.

When you think of a squirrel you probably are thinking of a cute medium sized grey squirrel (or red if you are from the UK). It turns out that the name Squirrel refers to a whole class of animals. The squirrel family includes species as tiny as the chipmunk and as large as marmots and groundhogs. Heck, even a Prairie Dog is a squirrel!

There are ground squirrels, flying squirrels, giant squirrels and, get this…..giant flying squirrels!

Ground Squirrels Fight Poisonous Snakes

When I first saw the videos of squirrels fighting snakes it blew my mind! It turns out that many species of ground squirrels are essentially ninjas that will gladly do battle with poisonous snakes in an effort to protect their young. While the squirrels do not always win the battle they quite often do and sometimes end up killing the snake!

The battle between ground squirrels and snakes has been going on for so long that some species of squirrels have evolved to have several incredible snake defenses including an immunity to snake venom!

Prairie Dogs Are Serial Killers

And speaking of fights, when it comes to aggression prairie dogs are ruthless! A recent study has discovered that a certain species of prairie dog actively hunts and kills ground squirrels. The amazing part of the discovery is that the prairie dogs do not eat ground squirrels but instead just leave them to rot.

It turns out that these prairie dogs are herbivores and compete with ground squirrels for resources. The vegetarian prairie dogs are simply hunting down their competition and killing them. This is the only documented case of herbivores killing other animals and not eating them.

The Arctic Ground Squirrel Is A Zombie

The Arctic Ground is one of the many species of squirrels that hibernates to get through the winter. While the whole process of hibernation is “cool” the Arctic ground squirrel is famous as it holds the record for the lowest body temperature ever recorded. The core body temperature of an Arctic ground squirrel can drop as low as two degrees below freezing during hibernation!

But wait, there’s more! In order to sustain such extreme conditions the squirrel shuts down everything it doesn’t absolutely need for survival including many parts of its brain! Many neural connections in the squirrel’s brain simply die off during hibernation. When the squirrel wakes from hibernation in warmer months it is able to regrow the parts of its brain that died during hibernation.

The ability of Arctic ground squirrels to regenerate their brains is of extreme interest for researchers studying degenerative brain disease in humans.

Flying Squirrels Glow

Let’s end this list of squirrel insights with the recent study that discovered that the flying squirrels of North America glow pink under fluorescent light!

Flying squirrels are nocturnal animals that glide from tree to tree. It is unclear why they glow under fluorescent light but presumably it helps them identify each other as they glide about. Perhaps the ink glow helps them to tell if they animal flying above them is a harmless friend or a dangerous predatory owl.

I hope you enjoyed this list of five fun facts about squirrels. If you want to catch up with more cool animal news then check out my other ramblings at Squirrels at the Feeder!