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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Time to go into the vault. This time a creature

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Speaker 1: of deadly renowned dwells within. Uh. We we're revisiting our

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Speaker 1: exploration of the skug. That's that's that's right. This is

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Speaker 1: part one of our look at squirrels. This was These

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Speaker 1: were delightful episodes, very popular episodes. We still on our

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Speaker 1: our Facebook group stuff to Blow your Mind discussion module.

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Speaker 1: We still hear from people like like on a weekly,

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Speaker 1: almost daily basis, anytime there's anything squirrel related. Um, you

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Speaker 1: know that that's what people post. And it's still delightful

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Speaker 1: and I still enjoy squirrels. I'm I'm still writing the

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Speaker 1: squirrel high from having you know, helped research and record

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Speaker 1: these episodes totally. Uh. This episode originally aired August and

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Speaker 1: we hope you enjoy it. Welcome to to Blow your

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Speaker 1: Mind from how Stuffworks dot com. Hey, you welcome to

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb

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Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. And Robert, I got a question

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Speaker 1: for you. Give me with it. What wild animal do

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Speaker 1: you most associate with American founding icon Benjamin Franklin's Gonna

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Speaker 1: Be the Turkey, had that whole song about it, right

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Speaker 1: in seventeen seventy six. Oh yeah, were you in seventeen

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Speaker 1: seventy six? Did you play Ben Franklin? I played Thomas Jefferson. Okay,

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Speaker 1: community theater performance of it. Yes, that's that's who I was.

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Speaker 1: But you got to be the boring guy without a

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Speaker 1: sense of humor, yes, but with with bright red hair.

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Speaker 1: That was the main appeal. And U. Ben Franklin was

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Speaker 1: played by a local attorney named Ray Frele Ray Freely,

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Speaker 1: Ray f He did wonderful job. So I'm glad I

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Speaker 1: had the part I had. I was more suited for

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Speaker 1: just red haired and kind of boring. Uh. You know

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Speaker 1: Jimmy Jefferson, Timmy Timmy. Yeah, he is kind of a

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Speaker 1: Timmy and that isn't he? He like he? There are

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Speaker 1: scenes where he plays the violin. Right did you play

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Speaker 1: the violin? Oh gosh, I don't remember. I remember scenes

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Speaker 1: where I had pretending to write in what paper? Okay, Uh, sorry,

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Speaker 1: we got sidetracked here, But there is a song in

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Speaker 1: there where Benjamin Franklin he suggests that the u S

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Speaker 1: National birds should not be the should not be the eagle,

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Speaker 1: and should not be the dove, but should be the

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Speaker 1: turkey because it is a most majestic bird. And I've

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Speaker 1: found no evidence that Franklin actually suggested that the national

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Speaker 1: birds should be the turkey. But Franklin was all about

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Speaker 1: some turkeys. Especially it was all about killing turkeys, and

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Speaker 1: especially it was all about killing turkeys with his favorite

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Speaker 1: technological toys, the Layden jar. Uh. We we've talked before

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Speaker 1: in our episodes about the early days of electricity about

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Speaker 1: that that barbecue Franklin hosted where he wanted to kill

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Speaker 1: turkeys with with electrical shocks and then roast them with

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Speaker 1: an electrical jack and then uh and and I guess

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Speaker 1: I don't know, char their skin with electrical fire from

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Speaker 1: a bottle. It was a rousing affair, I'm sure because

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Speaker 1: Franklin actually ended up electrocuting or not electrocuting, but he

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Speaker 1: shocked himself very badly. See why isn't this our Thanksgiving

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Speaker 1: tradition should be a big turkey electrocution every year? Wait,

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Speaker 1: a lot of people use electric stoves. I guess that's

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Speaker 1: kind of closed, but it's not quite as a shocking right,

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Speaker 1: you should be getting the jumper cables and going out

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Speaker 1: to the yard with a gobbler. Yeah, no, pardon for you,

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Speaker 1: all right. So if the if the turkey wasn't his

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Speaker 1: favorite animal, what pray tell? Was it? Well? Who knows

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Speaker 1: if it was actually his favorite animal. But the animal

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Speaker 1: I now most associate with Ben Franklin is the squirrel,

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Speaker 1: because Robert, did you know that Benjamin Franklin carried a

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Speaker 1: squirrel across the ocean to Europe? No? I did not

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Speaker 1: know about this. He had a pet squirrel named Mungo.

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Speaker 1: And yes, this is all true. Benjamin Franklin had a

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Speaker 1: pet squirrel named Mungo that he kept in a cage.

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Speaker 1: They got killed by a dog named Ranger there. And

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Speaker 1: he wrote a letter to Georgiana Shipley in seventeen seventy

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Speaker 1: two where where he said, I lament with you most

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Speaker 1: sincerely the unfortunate end of poor Mungo. Few squirrels were

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Speaker 1: better accomplished, for he had had a good education, had

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Speaker 1: traveled far and seen much of the world. In other words,

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Speaker 1: I I put it, put him in a cage and

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Speaker 1: carried him. I don't know an oceanic journey. There's some

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Speaker 1: ironies in this story that we can tease out in

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Speaker 1: the second. In fact, Benjamin Franklin wrote a poem of

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Speaker 1: lament is like an elegy for poor Mango. I wonder

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Speaker 1: if we should do a reading of this poem for Mango.

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Speaker 1: What do you think? Why don't really have a good

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Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin voice? Neither do I, But I can give

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Speaker 1: it a shot. Alas poor Mungo, happy wort, Thou hatst

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Speaker 1: thou known thy own felicity. Remote from the fierce, bald

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Speaker 1: eagle tyrant of thy native woods, Thou hadst not to

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Speaker 1: fear from his piercing talents, nor from the murdering gun

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Speaker 1: of the thoughtless sportsman. Safe in his wired castle. Grim

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Speaker 1: all can never could annoy the grim. Balkan, of course,

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Speaker 1: is the which is familiar the cat from Macbeth. I

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Speaker 1: think it is also just a word for a cat.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, so continues daily worth. Thou fed with choicest

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Speaker 1: viands by the fair hand of an indulgent mistress, but

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Speaker 1: discontented Thou wouldst have more freedom too soon, alas didst

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Speaker 1: thou obtain it, and wandering fell by the merciless fangs

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Speaker 1: of wanton cruel ranger learned hints ye who blindly wish

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Speaker 1: for more liberty, whether subjects, sons, squirrels, or daughters, that

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Speaker 1: apparent restraint maybe real protection, yielding peace plenty and security.

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Speaker 1: You see how much more decent and proper this broken style,

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Speaker 1: interrupted as it were, with size, is for the occasion

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Speaker 1: than if one were to say, by way of epitaph,

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Speaker 1: here scug lie snug as a bug in a rug.

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Speaker 1: Scug is an antiquated word for squirrel. I bet you

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Speaker 1: didn't know that one either. I didn't. By you know,

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Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of people by by the

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Speaker 1: time we're done with the special two part exploration of

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Speaker 1: the squirrel, I think some people are going to adopt

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Speaker 1: skug as an appropriate a bit of terminology for these

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Speaker 1: strange furry creatures that for many obviously fill our backyards

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Speaker 1: in our lives. Robert, I am so excited to talk

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Speaker 1: about squirrels for two whole episodes because I would never

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Speaker 1: have imagined there were two episodes worth of startling squirrel knowledge,

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Speaker 1: and oh boy, is there? Yeah, there is. But before

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Speaker 1: anybody and it thinks I'll skip the squirrels, No, no no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: stick with the squirrels, because some of this information is shocking.

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Speaker 1: It will change the way you see the squirrel. The

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Speaker 1: squirrels are not what they seem. You're right about that,

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Speaker 1: they are not. Yeah, this is not just gonna be

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Speaker 1: like two episodes of squirrel minutia. This is gonna be

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Speaker 1: episodes that redefine what these animals are and what they

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Speaker 1: are up to in your immediate and ironment. They may

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Speaker 1: shake your faith in the goodness of the world around you, right,

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Speaker 1: you know. Well, one thing that that I've I've noticed

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Speaker 1: about the squirrel is it, of course, for many of us,

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Speaker 1: the squirrels everywhere, Like like, how often do you see squirrels, Joe, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you see them more than any non human animal who

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Speaker 1: is not your pet, probably, I mean, depending on where

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Speaker 1: you live. But at least we we do. Yeah, Like

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Speaker 1: with us, they're constantly scaring around our yard and on

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Speaker 1: our fence. We have a number of bird feeders that

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Speaker 1: we that that my family we like to we're having

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Speaker 1: breakfast or dinner together, we like to watch the birds

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Speaker 1: out there, and of course the squirrels come. You can't

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Speaker 1: keep squirrels away from a bird feeder in the same

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Speaker 1: way you can't keep squirrels out of out of a

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Speaker 1: garden you can try, but they are tenacious. They have

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Speaker 1: an insatiable mammalian quality, a mammalian vitality that the birds

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Speaker 1: just do not have. Even though we we love birds

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Speaker 1: and we've explored you know, when when you put a

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Speaker 1: bird feeder out, you wonder why the squirrels always seem

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Speaker 1: to take it over, And it does seem to have

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Speaker 1: something to do with their mammalian craftiness. And that's despite

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Speaker 1: the fact that birds are often craftier than we expect. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean it is. I I root for the birds,

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Speaker 1: though when the birds drive the squirrels away, but then

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Speaker 1: the squirrels are just going to get in there and

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Speaker 1: also have their their meal as well. Um. Another thing

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Speaker 1: that I always noticed about the squirrels is that, yeah,

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Speaker 1: for for many of us, we we barely noticed that

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Speaker 1: notice them anymore, and we're certainly not really we don't

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Speaker 1: get hung up over their cuteness. Though they do have

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Speaker 1: like large kind of cute eyes, yes, and they have

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Speaker 1: big fluffy tails. They're not a chipmunk. A chipmunk is

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Speaker 1: I think, objectively cute, whereas the squirrel is a little

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Speaker 1: larger and a little more grotesque and a little more

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Speaker 1: like a tree rat. There's a reason the rescue rangers

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Speaker 1: are not squirrels, and they just be less cute that way.

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Speaker 1: But but one thing I noticed is that when you

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Speaker 1: have people who are not accustomed to squirrel suddenly encountering them,

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Speaker 1: tourists from Afar, they'll they're just totally won over by

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Speaker 1: these scurring creatures and they're pointing at them, and then

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Speaker 1: of course they they may give in to the temptation

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Speaker 1: to feed them. Which means if you go to a

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Speaker 1: place like the Grand Canyon, where you know you have

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Speaker 1: you have tourist from around the world coming to to

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Speaker 1: see this natural um landscape that's just truly inspiring uh

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Speaker 1: scene to behold. People are also gonna encounter the squirrels.

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Speaker 1: They're gonna end up beating the squirrels, even though everyone

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Speaker 1: tells them not to. And then you have situations like

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Speaker 1: the one my wife and I encountered on a hike

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Speaker 1: into the Grand Canyon where we set down for a second,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna share some some snack mix, and then the

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Speaker 1: squirrel comes and the squirrel starts climbing on us on

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Speaker 1: our bodies to get to the snack mix. Because it's

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Speaker 1: become so accustomed to eating food given to it by humans. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It was just absolutely terrifying, especially when you watch like

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Speaker 1: the fleet jump off of its nose. It's only a

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Speaker 1: matter of time until they can pull a switchblade on you, exactly.

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Speaker 1: They're like, they're they are tenacious and you should and

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Speaker 1: you feed them at your apparel, especially if they're there.

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Speaker 1: There are lots of drop offs that you could plummet from.

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Speaker 1: And that's not even getting into disease issues. I apologize

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Speaker 1: it was ranting a little bit. Oh no, no, please

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Speaker 1: rant on. I've been ranting about them a bit as

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Speaker 1: my family watches the bird feeder as well, to the

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Speaker 1: point that my my son told me recently. He's he's

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Speaker 1: six years old, and he he said, actually, Dad, uh,

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Speaker 1: the squirrel is the king of the rats, which, um, well,

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Speaker 1: I disagree with. I think the rats are truly the

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Speaker 1: king of the rats. They've earned that that reputation, and

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Speaker 1: they've earned that crown. Yet at the same time, yes,

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Speaker 1: squirrels are incredibly good rats in many respects. Well, there

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Speaker 1: are many respects throughout especially mythology, but in human history,

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Speaker 1: where there is some correlation between level of authority and

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Speaker 1: physical altitude and so If the squirrels are in the

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Speaker 1: trees above the rats, that would seem to signal that

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Speaker 1: they are the lords of the rat world, and the

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Speaker 1: rats on the ground below must do their biddings right.

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Speaker 1: They have the height advantage. The squirrels are the wizards

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Speaker 1: up in their ivory towers, and the rats are the

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Speaker 1: peasants that, you know, thank you Lord, kind of guys

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Speaker 1: who go out and do what they're told. But yet

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Speaker 1: there is an honesty in the rat. We look at

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Speaker 1: the rat, and sometimes we judge the rat too harshly,

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Speaker 1: It's true, But when you look at a rat and

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Speaker 1: you know what the rat does. The squirrel, however, as

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Speaker 1: we will explore in these episodes, the squirrel is not

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Speaker 1: what it seems. The squirrel has managed to to pull

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Speaker 1: one over on us. So by now you may be going, Okay,

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Speaker 1: what is the secret squirrel knowledge? I've been I want

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Speaker 1: the squirrel noses let me into this religion. So I

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Speaker 1: guess we should pave the way to divulge that knowledge.

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Speaker 1: So let's enter the kingdom of the skugs. So what

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Speaker 1: are what is a good skug? What what is a skug?

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Speaker 1: At its most basic nature? Squirrels are a family of rodents. Specifically,

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Speaker 1: they comprise the taxonomic family Scura day and that includes

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Speaker 1: ground squirrels, tree squirrels, marmots, chipmunks, flying squirrels, and a

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Speaker 1: few other varieties. This also includes the so called oriental

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Speaker 1: giant squirrels, the black giant squirrel, the Indian giant squirrel,

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Speaker 1: the grizzled giant squirrel that's real grizzled yea, and the

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Speaker 1: likely extinct cream colored giant squirrel. Many additional varieties roamed

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Speaker 1: in prehistoric times. Uh and plus this family also includes

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Speaker 1: groundhogs and prairie dogs. But when most people refer to squirrels,

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Speaker 1: they're probably gonna be talking about common varieties, most often

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Speaker 1: of the tree squirrel and the ground squirrel. And so

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Speaker 1: these are the varieties we're gonna be talking about most

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Speaker 1: in this episode. And so squirrels are found all over

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Speaker 1: the world. Their native to every continent except Antarctica in Australia.

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Speaker 1: But of course humans tend to take their rodents with

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Speaker 1: them where they go. So humans introduced squirrels to Australia

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Speaker 1: and now they're everywhere on Earth accept Antarctica. So I

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Speaker 1: think maybe we've been burying the lead. We should not Bury,

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Speaker 1: the lead part one of this two part exploration. One

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Speaker 1: of the main things you're gonna learn is that you

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Speaker 1: have probably been too trusting of squirrels if you were

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Speaker 1: like I was. I used to look out at the

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Speaker 1: squirrels of my yard and think about them like Benjamin

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Speaker 1: Franklin's Poor Mungo. This this victim, this poor little victim

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Speaker 1: creature that could be eaten by a dog and was

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Speaker 1: a harmless, sweet little herbivore gathering nuts and hiding them

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Speaker 1: and just going about a peaceful life without ever bothering

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Speaker 1: anybody else. But the fact that blew my mind is

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Speaker 1: that squirrels are not, in fact strictly herbivores. Some not

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Speaker 1: very strictly at all. That's right. And uh, and I

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Speaker 1: have to say, right before we we actually researched this episode,

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Speaker 1: I had this revelate revelation as well through the bird

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Speaker 1: feeders that we put out. Because one of the things

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Speaker 1: we put out, in addition to you know, a few

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Speaker 1: different types of bird seed aimed as particular birds, we

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Speaker 1: also put out meal worms, and these dried, dried out

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Speaker 1: worms like you would feed chickens, and birds generally love

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Speaker 1: them as well. But then we started noticing that the

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Speaker 1: squirrels would just eat the ever loving hell out of

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Speaker 1: those meal worms. We fill up this little cup, and

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Speaker 1: you know, squirrel would come and you know, surreptitiously eat one,

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Speaker 1: and you know, grab one, get to a place where

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Speaker 1: it could be on the lookout for hawks or whatnot,

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Speaker 1: and then go down and get another one, and then

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Speaker 1: eventually give up on any pretense of looking out for

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Speaker 1: hawks and just just go face down into a this

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Speaker 1: cup of meal worms and just eat absolutely all of them.

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Speaker 1: And we were a little stounded because we were, like,

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Speaker 1: I had we had no idea that that that squirrels

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Speaker 1: eat me, But clearly these squirrels really love meal worms.

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Speaker 1: Well you know, I might not have predicted that, but

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Speaker 1: at least meal worms. I look at that, Okay, I'm like,

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Speaker 1: it's a worm. I guess maybe a lot of things

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Speaker 1: might eat a worm, right, right, I don't know. It's

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Speaker 1: it's like that's like the cracked corn of the animal kingdom, right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's there, you eat it. It makes sense, all right.

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Speaker 1: So maybe they're not strictly herbivores, you know, they're they're

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Speaker 1: they're omnivores that will that will eat a worm here

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Speaker 1: and there, but subsequent reading has has revealed that that

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Speaker 1: it goes far beyond meal worms. Uh, they'll eat insects, reptiles, birds,

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Speaker 1: and mammalian flesh if they get a chance. Gray squirrels

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Speaker 1: and eastern chipmunks are noted nest raiders. Gray squirrels will

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Speaker 1: even eat each other. It seems squirrels are also capable

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Speaker 1: of killing adult birds. Uh, even the cute chipmunk. Again,

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Speaker 1: the objectively cute chipmunk is a natural born killer, as

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Speaker 1: studies have found meat and upwards of chipmunk survey meat

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Speaker 1: in them, not just in their bodies like the valley. Now,

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Speaker 1: that sounds so crazy. That makes me think, wait a minute,

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Speaker 1: are we just dealing with like uh, like urban legend

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Speaker 1: kind of observations here. Like I've read stories that I

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Speaker 1: don't believe about squirrel attacks, like the idea that squirrels

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Speaker 1: will will take down deer and kill them. That's right.

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Speaker 1: According to a two thousand fourteen Popular Science article, the

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Speaker 1: tufted ground squirrel of Borneo is said to wait on

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Speaker 1: a low branch for passing deer and then jump out

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Speaker 1: onto them and bite the jugular vein, and once the

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Speaker 1: deer is bled to death from this bite, the squirrel

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Speaker 1: disembowels the deer and eats the contents of the stomach

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Speaker 1: as well as the heart and the liver. And I

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Speaker 1: do want to just drive home. This is not this

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Speaker 1: is far from any kind of a verified observation. This

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Speaker 1: is very much seems to be in the realm of

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Speaker 1: love of urban legends. This account was told by local

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Speaker 1: hunters who find the remains of the squirrel slaughtered deer

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Speaker 1: and then supposed squirrel, supposed alleged squirrel slaughtered deer. And

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Speaker 1: then they also attest to the hearts and livers having

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Speaker 1: been eaten from domestic chickens. Again, uh, fingers pointed at

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Speaker 1: the squirrels. This almost reminds me of like the Coppa legend,

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Speaker 1: right reaching up through your anus to pull your liver out. Yeah, there,

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Speaker 1: there seems to be a lot of making sense. Are

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Speaker 1: trying to make sense of stranger remains, but by making

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Speaker 1: several leaps uh in uh in your logic here, as

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Speaker 1: opposed to saying, well, it was probably some sort of

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Speaker 1: scavenger that came into that. No, it was probably a

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Speaker 1: ferocious and strategically vicious squirrel. Now, on the other hand,

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Speaker 1: supposedly these squirrels could I mean, if you happen to

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Speaker 1: put your finger in their mouths, say, they could do

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Speaker 1: some damage. Yeah. In fact, the author of that article,

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Speaker 1: Douglas Main, points out that those those squirrels do pack

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Speaker 1: quite a fierce bite, and that the giant squirrel Ratufa

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Speaker 1: a finnis is known to stalk and prey on birds. Okay,

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Speaker 1: but the idea of a squirrel attacking and taking down

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Speaker 1: an adult dear, I don't know. I highly skeptical. I

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Speaker 1: don't buy it. It sounds like one of those kind

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Speaker 1: of hunter legends. Yeah, it reminds me a lot of

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Speaker 1: cattle mutilation stories. You know, someone finds again, someone looks

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Speaker 1: at the remains of an animal. There's something kind of

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Speaker 1: weird look going on, and so you jump to uh,

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Speaker 1: totally implausible explanations such as an alien being performed at

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Speaker 1: an autopsy in the middle of a cow field, or

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Speaker 1: squirrels or hunting impacts. But how much could you really

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Speaker 1: learn in the middle of a cow field. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: It's it seems like as guided research. I would think

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Speaker 1: they would want to remove to some kind of sterile

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Speaker 1: environment where they could control all of the autopsy element

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Speaker 1: I don't know. But but but I don't want to

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Speaker 1: lose the track of the The important revelation here, uh,

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Speaker 1: that we'll get back to, and that is that squirrels

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Speaker 1: do seem to hunt some of the time. Well, we

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Speaker 1: will definitely look at more evidence of that in a minute,

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Speaker 1: but before we do that, we should look at one

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Speaker 1: other apparent I don't know, rumor legend, the kind of thing, uh,

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Speaker 1: this idea that sometimes squirrels will attack and take down dogs. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I was reading a two thousand five BBC article that

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Speaker 1: reported that that a local Russian media report had indicated

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Speaker 1: that a pack of squirrels bit a stray dog to

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Speaker 1: death in the city of Lazo. So again local Russian media.

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Speaker 1: But here's here's a gym from the story. Quote A

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Speaker 1: pine code shortage may have led the squirrels to seek

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Speaker 1: other food sources, although scientists are skeptical. So in. In fact,

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Speaker 1: a scientist in the region, one Michael Toof, said that

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Speaker 1: while attacking a bird's nest for protein was reasonable behavior,

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Speaker 1: for to expect of a squirrel chewing a dog to

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Speaker 1: death was quote absurd. Uh. In a quote that reads

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Speaker 1: like something from a horror movie poster, he said, quote

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Speaker 1: if it really happened, that things must be pretty bad

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Speaker 1: in our forest. I can hear that in the Don

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Speaker 1: la Fontaine voice. Yes, things must be pretty bad in

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Speaker 1: our forest. Wait, that's not Don la Fontaine. Who's that one?

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't really know them by name.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I'm sorry to say in a world where

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Speaker 1: squirrels chew dogs to death, Russian media is the only

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Speaker 1: one brave enough to report. But the thing about these

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Speaker 1: stories is that, yes, I'm I'm not convinced that squirrels

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Speaker 1: are killing dear. I'm not convinced that they are taking

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Speaker 1: down stray dogs. I I also am skeptical of that.

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Speaker 1: I'd wonder though, I mean, maybe if the dog is, like,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, sick and already almost dead, that might

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Speaker 1: be a different kind of thing. I find it hard

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Speaker 1: to believe that a pack of squirrels would actually attack

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Speaker 1: a dog that could move exactly. Yeah. But if you

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Speaker 1: but the thing is, you start looking around at different papers,

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Speaker 1: particularly Journal of Mammalogy papers, mostly from the twentieth century,

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Speaker 1: You'll find a number of different papers that look at

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Speaker 1: carnivorous ground squirrels and carnivorous activity among squirrels. Uh with

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Speaker 1: titles such as Carnivorous behavior in the Mexican ground squirrel

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Speaker 1: or Carnivorous ground squirrels on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, or

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Speaker 1: food habits of the Antelope ground squirrel in Southern Nevada.

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Speaker 1: Also the Franklin ground squirrel and its relationship to nesting ducks.

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Speaker 1: The relationship is not a friendly one. It's complicated. That

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Speaker 1: paper Carnivorous ground Squirrels on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska has

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Speaker 1: some choice descriptions, and it here commentating on some some

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Speaker 1: previous research by other investigators. Quote. During his excavations at

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Speaker 1: the old village site of Kakuliak gated a few miles

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Speaker 1: at east to the present village of Savunga, he observed

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Speaker 1: some adult ground squirrels eating the old partially dried and

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Speaker 1: partially frozen lumps of whale and walrus meat, which we

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Speaker 1: excavated at an approximate depth of eight feet under the surface.

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Speaker 1: What eating whale and walrus meat? So they didn't bring

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Speaker 1: down these whales, They didn't bring down these walruses, but

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Speaker 1: they were more than happy to feast on their like

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Speaker 1: rubbery dried flesh. Also from that paper, there was a

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Speaker 1: part where they were mentioning the work of this previous

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Speaker 1: researcher who reported having seen a ground squirrel quote eat

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Speaker 1: a freshly killed mouse which had been shot by the

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Speaker 1: teacher's son from Savunga. So you go shooting mice in Alaska.

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Speaker 1: Who knows what's going to happen. All right, let's go

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Speaker 1: ahead and take a break here, and when we come back,

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Speaker 1: we're going to get into my favorite carnivorous squirrel paper

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Speaker 1: that I ran across in our research. Thank alright, we're back.

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Speaker 1: So before we get into squirrels as predators, I just

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Speaker 1: wanted to mention another paper I looked at about squirrels

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Speaker 1: eating meat, and this was from the Journal of Parasitology

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Speaker 1: from nineteen fifty six by Raws and other authors called

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Speaker 1: the occurrence of larvae of trick and Ella spiralis in

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Speaker 1: Alaska mammals. So this is a paper looking at the

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Speaker 1: prevalence of this parasite of trick and Ella spiralis in

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Speaker 1: the mammals of Alaska. And trick and Ella spiralis is

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Speaker 1: the nematode worm responsible for trickn nosis, which you may

403
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Speaker 1: have heard is the you know, the reason that you

404
00:22:29,119 --> 00:22:32,600
Speaker 1: should not eat pork tartar, though not to demonize a

405
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Speaker 1: lot of pork is much safer these days than it

406
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Speaker 1: used to be. So some of those fears are based

407
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Speaker 1: on older, older ways of doing things and food. But

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Speaker 1: you're not getting tricken noses eating peanuts. That's true even

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Speaker 1: if you're a squirrel. In fact, so when the researchers

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Speaker 1: found one ground squirrel and four red squirrels infected with

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Speaker 1: trick and ella, which you can only get from eating

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Speaker 1: infected meat, what's going on here? It's clear what's going on.

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Speaker 1: So the ound squirrel that with the ground squirrel, they say,

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Speaker 1: although primarily herbivorous Sit tell Us undulatus, and that's the

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Speaker 1: ground squirrel they were looking at, also consumes mammalian flesh

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Speaker 1: when available. We have observed this behavior in northeastern Alaska

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Speaker 1: and in the Talkeitna Mountains, where remains of voles were

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Speaker 1: found in stomachs and cheek pouches of these squirrels. Such

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Speaker 1: animals feeding upon carcasses of dogs or Arctic foxes would

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Speaker 1: of course be exposed to infection because the dogs and

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Speaker 1: the foxes can get they can get the worm, their

422
00:23:31,560 --> 00:23:34,280
Speaker 1: meat gets infected, and then the squirrels go and eat

423
00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:37,760
Speaker 1: the dead dogs and foxes. That's pretty messed up. The

424
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:40,040
Speaker 1: other one, though, is the red squirrel. How did the

425
00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:43,800
Speaker 1: red squirrels get them? Quote? We have observed red squirrels

426
00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:47,399
Speaker 1: feeding upon the flesh of the Snowshoe hair, carrion, and

427
00:23:47,520 --> 00:23:51,320
Speaker 1: mammalian bones are often found among the food items stored

428
00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:54,520
Speaker 1: by these animals for winter use. They no doubt eat

429
00:23:54,560 --> 00:23:57,520
Speaker 1: any warm blooded animal they are able to capture and kill.

430
00:23:58,240 --> 00:24:00,440
Speaker 1: I don't know why they keep the bones though. Why

431
00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:02,639
Speaker 1: do they keep the bones? Are they gonna make soup?

432
00:24:02,840 --> 00:24:06,680
Speaker 1: What's gonna happen? They're gonna eat those bones, Joe and

433
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:10,480
Speaker 1: I know this because because because it's mentioned in in

434
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:14,720
Speaker 1: this excellent paper that I came across from. It was

435
00:24:14,760 --> 00:24:19,240
Speaker 1: in an addition of the Great Basin Naturalist titled Squirrels

436
00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:23,880
Speaker 1: as Predators by J. R. Callahan. So this is predators now.

437
00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:28,240
Speaker 1: But previously we've been talking definitely about eating carrion. Right,

438
00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:31,320
Speaker 1: they'll find a dead animal, they'll find dead insects, whatever,

439
00:24:31,359 --> 00:24:33,920
Speaker 1: they'll definitely eat that. But he's certainly to eat to say,

440
00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 1: a worm or a snail, a creature the size of

441
00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:39,399
Speaker 1: a squirrel was hardly predation. I mean, if I if

442
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:42,399
Speaker 1: I ate a snail, I wouldn't call myself a predator, right,

443
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:45,640
Speaker 1: but this is but here you're talking about seeking live prey,

444
00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:50,160
Speaker 1: killing it, and eating it. That's right. So I'm gonna

445
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:52,040
Speaker 1: go through some of the major points of this paper,

446
00:24:52,280 --> 00:24:54,360
Speaker 1: but it's out there. It's it's obtainable if anyone else

447
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 1: wants to to read it in full. So we pointed

448
00:24:56,840 --> 00:25:02,120
Speaker 1: out that squirrels are opportunistic predators that are not morphologically

449
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:05,400
Speaker 1: specialized for the role. You can see that they don't

450
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:07,439
Speaker 1: have like wolf teeth. Yeah, and I think that's one

451
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:09,560
Speaker 1: of the reasons it's so shocking. Yeah, they don't look

452
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:12,600
Speaker 1: like predators. They don't. They don't look like a little

453
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 1: tree dogs or or some sort of a tree cat.

454
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:20,160
Speaker 1: You know. Uh it is it surprises us to think

455
00:25:20,200 --> 00:25:23,360
Speaker 1: of them chewing on meat. Well, it's interesting how much

456
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:28,479
Speaker 1: this emphasizes sometimes the flexibility of the animal existence as

457
00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:31,400
Speaker 1: opposed to other types of existence, where an animal might

458
00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:34,719
Speaker 1: not be evolved to specialize as a predator, but given

459
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:39,400
Speaker 1: pressures on its survival and existence, it can adapt. So

460
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:41,760
Speaker 1: at the time of this publication, he says that not

461
00:25:41,800 --> 00:25:45,639
Speaker 1: everyone accepted the idea. Frequent squirrel predation though it was

462
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:49,720
Speaker 1: already universally accepted that they do eat meat, but they

463
00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:53,399
Speaker 1: were they were just not observed praying all that much. Uh.

464
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:55,800
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of these reports come down to

465
00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:59,040
Speaker 1: trying to figure out, you know, were they just scavenging meat,

466
00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 1: where they just eating something that was already dead, or

467
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 1: did they or was it an opportunistic attack, or were

468
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:06,120
Speaker 1: they in fact stalking something? How did you get those

469
00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 1: foles in your cheek pouches? Exactly? So, he he lists

470
00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:13,400
Speaker 1: the different prey associated with a whole list of squirrel species,

471
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:16,879
Speaker 1: and the prey include the following, uh if but not

472
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:22,880
Speaker 1: limited to, birds, frogs, rats, lizards, rabbits, gophers, moles, snakes,

473
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:29,680
Speaker 1: fish bowls, ducks, wild turkeys bringing it all back home. Yeah, turtles, crabs,

474
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:36,639
Speaker 1: and salaman This is too good. Yeah, squirrels getting wild turkeys, rabbits, salamanders,

475
00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:38,760
Speaker 1: this is a whole buffet. Yeah. And he said that

476
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:41,440
Speaker 1: it wasn't entirely sure if tree squirrels were attacking live

477
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 1: prey for meat per se, or for calcium and or

478
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:48,040
Speaker 1: phosphorus from the bones, but there were there there were

479
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:51,959
Speaker 1: also reports of him eating bone and antler or ignoring

480
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:54,960
Speaker 1: meat in favor of joints. Joints, so like they're trying

481
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:58,880
Speaker 1: to get like cartilage and ligaments and stuff. Interesting, Yeah,

482
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:00,560
Speaker 1: he said. He points out to getting back to the

483
00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 1: morphology versus a behavior, says that one of the behaviors

484
00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:08,040
Speaker 1: entree squirrel seems to be insinuation predation, which is largely

485
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:12,160
Speaker 1: utilized by invertebrates. Yeah, and so insinuation predation would refer

486
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 1: to a predator lulling a prey animal into a false

487
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 1: sense of security by appearing harmless and getting itself into

488
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:23,119
Speaker 1: an attack position or in close proximity without indicating that

489
00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:25,680
Speaker 1: it's any kind of threat. The squirrels are not what

490
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:29,240
Speaker 1: they say. It's true. There they are little spies in

491
00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:33,680
Speaker 1: filtrating your safe zones just to get into your nest

492
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:36,520
Speaker 1: and steal your your wild turkey chicks or something. Now

493
00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:38,479
Speaker 1: we'll get to the specifics of this in a second,

494
00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:41,880
Speaker 1: but we're just talking about them eating bone and antler

495
00:27:42,320 --> 00:27:45,399
Speaker 1: or ligaments. Other times they have been observed to focus

496
00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:49,080
Speaker 1: on quote, brains of viscera and the flesh of the head.

497
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 1: What the squirrels eating brains? Yes, this can't be real.

498
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:58,639
Speaker 1: It is real. It is very real. Brains. So we

499
00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 1: seem to see far are more squirrel meat eating and

500
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: predation in colder climates, and it's and it's far more

501
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 1: rare among tropical species. And uh. Callahan lists some possible

502
00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:13,280
Speaker 1: reasons for this. So calcium and other nutrients can be

503
00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 1: obtained from certain tropical tree barks. And then uh, and

504
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 1: in these cases too, we see these same squirrels turning

505
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 1: to predation when they are cage when they now have

506
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:26,600
Speaker 1: access to those tree barks. Oh, I see carnivores and

507
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:31,640
Speaker 1: the tropics may also suffer more from stomach nematodes while

508
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 1: colder climates demand more fat. And then there's also this,

509
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:40,600
Speaker 1: this sort of opportunistic predation might be a learned behavior

510
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 1: that spreads through local populations of squirrels. Oh no, that's

511
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 1: interesting now. For example, in our recent episodes about urban evolution,

512
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: we talked about how apparently learned behaviors can spread throughout

513
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 1: populations of birds that live in an urban environment, say

514
00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 1: like the example of um birds that learned how to

515
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 1: open milk bottle tops that were being left on people's doorsteps, right, Um,

516
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:09,760
Speaker 1: And then the spread throughout the populations. And so you

517
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 1: have to assume if birds can learn in that kind

518
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 1: of way. Squirrels probably can too, except in this case

519
00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:19,479
Speaker 1: instead of opening milk bottle tops would be what opening

520
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:22,960
Speaker 1: a vole skull to get the brains. Indeed, now there

521
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 1: are key reasons though to eat live meat, because ultimately

522
00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:30,080
Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about, praying to obtain live meat

523
00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:33,200
Speaker 1: rather than depending on just scavenged and uh, you know,

524
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:36,240
Speaker 1: meat and the flesh of the dead. So, for one thing,

525
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:40,120
Speaker 1: reproductive females may need the protein and or certain minerals

526
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:43,720
Speaker 1: more than the rest, and there are reports of lactating

527
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:48,720
Speaker 1: female specifically engaging in this sort of predation behavior. They

528
00:29:48,800 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 1: might not be able to get the necessary calcium, phosphorus, sodium,

529
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:56,480
Speaker 1: and nitrogen from seeds alone. Another hypothesis, which is weirdly

530
00:29:56,520 --> 00:30:00,360
Speaker 1: reflected in that story of the Russian dog eating score earls,

531
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:03,160
Speaker 1: is that they may turn to meet to make up

532
00:30:03,200 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 1: for seasonal depletion, such as during summer, or indeed some

533
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:09,240
Speaker 1: other reason for a lack of seeds. Okay, well, that

534
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 1: would sort of fit the story, but we're not saying

535
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 1: that makes it likely that they actually did take down

536
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 1: an adult. I don't know, yeah, but that is a

537
00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 1: that's a grain of truth there um. But going back

538
00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 1: to that Russian um naturalist, he said, yeah, things would

539
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:24,479
Speaker 1: have to be pretty bad in the forest for this

540
00:30:24,560 --> 00:30:29,560
Speaker 1: to happen in a world. So, so we've been talking

541
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 1: about how squirrels definitely will eat things that are dead anyway,

542
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 1: Sometimes they'll eat carrion. Why why go to predation? Why

543
00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:40,640
Speaker 1: must you go beyond just eating the dead that you find.

544
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:43,200
Speaker 1: Why do you have to do all these risks and

545
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:45,840
Speaker 1: spend all this energy trying to kill something that's alive.

546
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:48,120
Speaker 1: That It's a great question one I had in One

547
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:51,080
Speaker 1: and one Callahan addressed because he points out that, yes,

548
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 1: carrion certainly packs the nutrients uh, and it's it's also

549
00:30:55,480 --> 00:30:58,200
Speaker 1: not capable of fight or flight. You don't have to

550
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 1: worry about it fighting back, but cheaper date, right, But

551
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:06,600
Speaker 1: it also suffers from nutrient content depletion. On top of that,

552
00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 1: other better predators and seasoned scavengers may beat you to

553
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:14,320
Speaker 1: the best parts of the you know, say that the

554
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 1: dead you know rat plus those specialized scavengers, well they're

555
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 1: probably better at dealing with the added bacteria and uh

556
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:25,360
Speaker 1: and you know what else sucks about carry on? It

557
00:31:25,480 --> 00:31:29,040
Speaker 1: might not be there when you need it. So in

558
00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 1: our you know, sort of our you know, our urban

559
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 1: forest environments, uh, you know, or even our rural environments. Uh,

560
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:40,880
Speaker 1: squirrels can sometimes be seen feasting on roadkill, which Callahan

561
00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 1: points out is an artificial situation. It is very much

562
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 1: a product of human technology. Do we have these dangerous

563
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 1: roads uh? For animals? Animals get squished on them, and

564
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 1: then squirrels are able to find meat there. And of

565
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:56,840
Speaker 1: course a lot of the meat is squirrel meat because

566
00:31:56,840 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 1: they run out in front of our vehicles all the time.

567
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:02,840
Speaker 1: So do they do they cannibalized carrion squirrel carryon? Yes?

568
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:05,520
Speaker 1: But okay, I'm just thinking about the body of a squirrel.

569
00:32:05,560 --> 00:32:07,720
Speaker 1: I mean, as we were talking about earlier, as a

570
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:11,800
Speaker 1: squirrel is not has not been shaped by evolution as

571
00:32:11,800 --> 00:32:15,320
Speaker 1: an effective predator, right that its body just is not

572
00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 1: a powerful killing machine. So how how does it get

573
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:22,640
Speaker 1: this done? Well, you know, some of these these prey

574
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:26,120
Speaker 1: animals that it goes after essentially quasi prey, like frogs

575
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:28,320
Speaker 1: for example, those are and those are easy to explain, Like,

576
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 1: there's a frog, it's not getting away from this larger squirrel.

577
00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 1: The squirrel can eat it. But then they're the animals

578
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 1: that are going to put up a fight or run

579
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:38,360
Speaker 1: from the squirrel potentially, and that's where we see the birds,

580
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:41,640
Speaker 1: the rodents, and the rabbits particular, like these are all

581
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:44,760
Speaker 1: going to be more challenging prey. So many researchers believe

582
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 1: that true predation by squirrels must be just a rare occurrence,

583
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:51,240
Speaker 1: only done in the case of emergency, but growing evidence,

584
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:54,440
Speaker 1: Scallahan said, supported the idea that predation is a normal

585
00:32:54,560 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 1: part of their behavior, though they are still opportunistic not

586
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:02,240
Speaker 1: fundamental predators. So he's going, so you've got the idea

587
00:33:02,280 --> 00:33:05,520
Speaker 1: that it's very rare, like it only happens on these bizarre,

588
00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:08,080
Speaker 1: freak occasions, and then you've got the idea that they're

589
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:11,360
Speaker 1: evolved as fundamental predators and that's just part of their

590
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:14,440
Speaker 1: normal life. And he's going somewhere in between, right, yeah,

591
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:17,640
Speaker 1: he said, like, yeah, I mean he's saying that, for instance,

592
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:19,800
Speaker 1: you know, rating a nest when you can get a chance,

593
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 1: that's one thing. If you kill a competitor and then

594
00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 1: you're like, well I might as well eat part of them,

595
00:33:24,720 --> 00:33:27,560
Speaker 1: get a little energy boost, That's that's another thing. But

596
00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:30,400
Speaker 1: but here we're talking about something far more sinister. And

597
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 1: I do have to warn everybody out there. If you

598
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:37,400
Speaker 1: want to retain your previous false sense of security around squirrels,

599
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:40,600
Speaker 1: uh and there's sort of cartoon innocence, then you should

600
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 1: probably stop listening right now because you cannot unhear the

601
00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:48,640
Speaker 1: hypothesis that I am about to share with you, laid

602
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 1: Amy Robert alright, so he points Callahan points out that

603
00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:53,080
Speaker 1: it's a waste of energy to avoid a creature that

604
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 1: doesn't threaten you. It's not surprising to see birds behave

605
00:33:56,160 --> 00:34:00,640
Speaker 1: defensively towards squirrels. Their hunger is likely seasonal. They're known

606
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:04,760
Speaker 1: retinest rators. But in other contexts, birds and other potential

607
00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:08,279
Speaker 1: prey just ignore squirrels. And we see this all the time,

608
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:11,319
Speaker 1: you know, especially if you watch your bird feeder. But

609
00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:14,319
Speaker 1: Callahan presents an interesting view on this and on the

610
00:34:14,440 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 1: stalking behavior occasionally observed in tree squirrels. This is not

611
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:23,879
Speaker 1: uh nest robbing behavior, but is linked to infrequent attempts

612
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:28,280
Speaker 1: at larger prey attempts, mind you, and often aborted attempts

613
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:33,120
Speaker 1: mere caricatures of stalking the Callahan finds rather conspicuous. He

614
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:36,920
Speaker 1: argues that it's possible that the effect of obvious. Repeated

615
00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:41,560
Speaker 1: stalking is to habituate potential prey. In other words, it

616
00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:46,319
Speaker 1: is conditioning prey animals to disregard their attacks. WHOA, so

617
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:48,520
Speaker 1: this would not be something we're saying that the squirrels

618
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:53,200
Speaker 1: are doing consciously, but they've somehow instinctually learned to like

619
00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:57,319
Speaker 1: to to sort of feign attacks all the time to

620
00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:00,360
Speaker 1: get it to our potential prey animals. Larger prey animals

621
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:02,879
Speaker 1: are like, oh, whatever, it's just squirrels being squirrels. Oh yeah,

622
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:05,040
Speaker 1: I mean they're not. They're not doing in a conscious

623
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:07,680
Speaker 1: sense the same way that we would do our humans

624
00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:11,359
Speaker 1: would stalk something, but but they're doing it in the

625
00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:16,360
Speaker 1: via their evolved behavior anyway. Callahan writes, if most squirrels

626
00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:20,320
Speaker 1: acting like predators do not follow through, then prey should

627
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:24,000
Speaker 1: learn not to respond. This behavior is analogous to the

628
00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:29,000
Speaker 1: hoarding of nuts in that the squirrel is hoarding prey confidence. Later,

629
00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:32,360
Speaker 1: when normal food items are in short supply, the squirrel

630
00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:36,799
Speaker 1: can exploit this conditioning In the longer term. Selection for

631
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:40,799
Speaker 1: such behavior potentially represents an entry point to a new

632
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:46,000
Speaker 1: feeding niche, particularly in marginal habitats where tree squirrels may

633
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:49,600
Speaker 1: be more likely to resort to predation. In other words,

634
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 1: beware the squirrels. I am never going to be able

635
00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:55,840
Speaker 1: to see squirrels the same after this episode. Now, on

636
00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:57,879
Speaker 1: the other hand, we don't like to demonize any type

637
00:35:57,920 --> 00:35:59,719
Speaker 1: of animal here, and of course predation as part of

638
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:02,160
Speaker 1: an Sure, we don't want to demonize predation. But this

639
00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:07,560
Speaker 1: is shocking. I was not prepared for this. Squirrels, squirrels

640
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:11,080
Speaker 1: eating dead things, killing things and eating them that I

641
00:36:11,080 --> 00:36:14,560
Speaker 1: don't know, my mind was not ready. Yeah, I I

642
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:17,319
Speaker 1: have to to say much the same. Again, we do

643
00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 1: we do say, we do warn everyone, do not mistreat squirrels,

644
00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 1: do not do not hurt the squirrels. Let the squirrels be.

645
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 1: They will let you be. Squirrels are not going to

646
00:36:26,280 --> 00:36:31,359
Speaker 1: actually hunt you. Um, they're not going to attack your dog, right, Yeah,

647
00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:33,400
Speaker 1: it's it's gonna be fine. Yeah, you're not really in

648
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 1: danger from the squirrels. But I do have to say

649
00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:38,000
Speaker 1: it made me rethink the meal worm thing, Like I

650
00:36:38,040 --> 00:36:40,960
Speaker 1: feel I feel extra good about those squirrels eating the

651
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:45,040
Speaker 1: meal worms because I'm thinking I'm probably saving some bird eggs.

652
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm not. Maybe that's just just I'm just convincing

653
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:50,919
Speaker 1: myself this because I hate the idea of squirrels eating

654
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 1: eating bird eggs. But if they need meat, then let

655
00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 1: me give them meat in the form of meal worms.

656
00:36:56,120 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 1: That's all I'm saying. Well, you could I don't want

657
00:36:58,080 --> 00:36:59,879
Speaker 1: to make you feel bad. You could also be art

658
00:36:59,880 --> 00:37:03,759
Speaker 1: officially inflating local squirrel populations such that if you ever

659
00:37:03,920 --> 00:37:06,640
Speaker 1: stop feeding them, there will be a massacre in the oaks.

660
00:37:06,800 --> 00:37:10,920
Speaker 1: That's right, the trees will rain blood from above. Well,

661
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:13,520
Speaker 1: let's hope it doesn't come to that. Speaking of that, though,

662
00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:15,800
Speaker 1: has there ever been a squirrel horror movie? I've never

663
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:17,799
Speaker 1: I've never heard of one. Well, you know, I looked

664
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:21,080
Speaker 1: around on this question, and there is a two thousand

665
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:24,480
Speaker 1: fourteen horror movie called Squirrels. But it sounds like it

666
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 1: looks like it might be a little bit in the

667
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:29,040
Speaker 1: shark Nado territory, where it's a little bit too self

668
00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:32,520
Speaker 1: aware to be my kind of horror film. But the

669
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:36,239
Speaker 1: better horror movie mascot for this episode would probably be

670
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:41,319
Speaker 1: uh Tromy the radioactive squirrel from Class of Newcomb High

671
00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:45,160
Speaker 1: to Subhumanoid Meltdown. Uh. He's also in the third film.

672
00:37:45,239 --> 00:37:47,160
Speaker 1: You know, I never made it to the Class of

673
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:50,600
Speaker 1: Newcomb High. Sequels. How do they hold up? I have

674
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:53,279
Speaker 1: not seen the sequels either, but I I had to

675
00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 1: look up a clip of this, uh, this radioactive giant

676
00:37:56,640 --> 00:38:00,360
Speaker 1: squirrel rampaging and knocking over cooling tower. Is that it

677
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:03,120
Speaker 1: is worth checking out. But you'll definitely want to see

678
00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:05,640
Speaker 1: class of Newcomb High one first, you know, for you

679
00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:10,160
Speaker 1: know it's concurity and check continuity of the of the saga. Alright,

680
00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:12,160
Speaker 1: on that note, we're gonna take one more break and

681
00:38:12,160 --> 00:38:17,359
Speaker 1: then we'll be right back. Thank Alright, we're back. So

682
00:38:17,520 --> 00:38:21,880
Speaker 1: we've been talking about opportunistic carry and eating and predation

683
00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:25,560
Speaker 1: in squirrels, but I wanted to mention another less dramatical,

684
00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:28,640
Speaker 1: less violent way, but still kind of weird and shocking way,

685
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:33,359
Speaker 1: that squirrels are opportunistic feeders. So let's let's turn our

686
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:36,200
Speaker 1: eye to the red squirrel. We mentioned red squirrels earlier.

687
00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:38,759
Speaker 1: In some cases where red squirrels might be eating some

688
00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 1: dead animals, might be eating dead dogs or dead foxes

689
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:46,400
Speaker 1: or something like that. But the red squirrel tammy Ascius Hudsonicus.

690
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:49,720
Speaker 1: Like other squirrels, they often tried to survive through winter

691
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:52,919
Speaker 1: by building up stores of food items that are called

692
00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:56,480
Speaker 1: mast and mast is just all the edible fruits of

693
00:38:56,480 --> 00:38:59,840
Speaker 1: the trees of the forest. It's acorns, pine cones, nuts,

694
00:38:59,840 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 1: and so forth. And in the summer and fall, squirrels

695
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:06,319
Speaker 1: collect mast and store it in these caches to eat

696
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:09,880
Speaker 1: throughout the winter. And trying to survive by storing food

697
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:12,799
Speaker 1: for the winter is sometimes a dangerous strategy. You can

698
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:15,760
Speaker 1: have an unexpectedly warm winter that can cause your food

699
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:19,920
Speaker 1: stores to spoil, or cases can sometimes be discovered by

700
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:24,120
Speaker 1: other animals. They're vulnerable to theft and opportunistic scavenging, and

701
00:39:24,160 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 1: maybe most importantly, not every warm season offers the same

702
00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:30,040
Speaker 1: kind of harvest. Trees in the forest actually tend to

703
00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:35,040
Speaker 1: produce greater and lesser quantities of massed on multi year cycles.

704
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:37,919
Speaker 1: So if you're a red squirrel and it's an off

705
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:40,759
Speaker 1: year where the harvests provided by the forest were very

706
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:44,440
Speaker 1: low or something else happened, what can you do? What

707
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:48,000
Speaker 1: happens if your supplies run low while it's still winter

708
00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:50,520
Speaker 1: and you need some calories. Oh, I guess you can

709
00:39:50,520 --> 00:39:52,800
Speaker 1: hope the tourists come by and feed you snack bars.

710
00:39:52,880 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 1: But that's probably not a good uh, not something you

711
00:39:55,520 --> 00:39:57,880
Speaker 1: can bank on, right, You can't bank on tourists. You

712
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:00,200
Speaker 1: can't bank on vole brains. You might not be to

713
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:02,919
Speaker 1: come come across any of those. So what the red

714
00:40:02,920 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 1: squirrel does, it's it's so. The red squirrel is common

715
00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 1: throughout the United States and Canada, and it has this

716
00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:11,480
Speaker 1: cool survival technique. In a book called winter World, The

717
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 1: Ingenuity of Animal Survival UH, the University of Vermont biologist

718
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:20,480
Speaker 1: and nature writer Burned Heinrich has written about this strategy

719
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:23,400
Speaker 1: and what they do is they make tree candy. The

720
00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:27,319
Speaker 1: red squirrel will find a sugar maple tree and it

721
00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:30,000
Speaker 1: will make incisions in the bark of the tree with

722
00:40:30,080 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 1: its front teeth, and this allows sap to drain out

723
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:35,279
Speaker 1: from the inside of the tree. And then after the

724
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:38,760
Speaker 1: sap runs out, its water content evaporates and it dries

725
00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 1: in the sun. And this leaves a sweet sugary residue

726
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:44,839
Speaker 1: on the outside of the tree that the squirrel can

727
00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:48,759
Speaker 1: return and lick like a maple syrup lollipop to get

728
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 1: some sugar in its system. There are lots of videos

729
00:40:51,719 --> 00:40:53,799
Speaker 1: of this happening. Some of the videos seem to show

730
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:56,719
Speaker 1: squirrels looking trees other than maples. I'm not sure, but

731
00:40:57,200 --> 00:41:00,239
Speaker 1: uh that yeah, they're licking trees and it's pretty sick.

732
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:02,799
Speaker 1: It looks weird. Well, I don't know. This sounds like

733
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:07,480
Speaker 1: a refreshing dose of just cute behavior after the the

734
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:11,080
Speaker 1: brain eating and then the stalking that we just got through,

735
00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 1: So I'm all for them eating maple candy of their

736
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:18,040
Speaker 1: own construction. I wish I could have seen this without

737
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:20,240
Speaker 1: having read about it first, so I could just wonder,

738
00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:23,200
Speaker 1: what's going on? Did you see them biting holes in

739
00:41:23,280 --> 00:41:26,120
Speaker 1: trees and then coming back and just licking tree trunks

740
00:41:26,160 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 1: to death? But I guess maybe we should get back

741
00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:31,640
Speaker 1: into more violent territories. Okay, So you mentioned earlier you

742
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:35,920
Speaker 1: gave this list of animals from that paper that squirrels

743
00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:38,840
Speaker 1: will sometimes prey on or get into battle with, And

744
00:41:38,920 --> 00:41:41,720
Speaker 1: one of the animals you mentioned was the snake the serpent.

745
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:45,280
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about one particular squirrel snake

746
00:41:45,320 --> 00:41:49,840
Speaker 1: relationship that is not so rare or infrequent or alleged,

747
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:54,239
Speaker 1: but instead is a well known evolutionary war spanning millions

748
00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:57,760
Speaker 1: of years that has given birth to some amazing squirrel

749
00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:02,719
Speaker 1: martial arts and battle tactics. So the squirreling question is

750
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:06,680
Speaker 1: the common California ground squirrel ODO sperma Phyllis b ch a.

751
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:09,640
Speaker 1: And it's found throughout the western region of North America,

752
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:13,720
Speaker 1: including California, Oregon, Washington, and the Baja Peninsula of Mexico.

753
00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:19,040
Speaker 1: And this utterly mundane squirrel faces a plenty of natural predators,

754
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:24,480
Speaker 1: including rattlesnakes like the northern Pacific rattlesnakes Croatalys viridus oreganus.

755
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:28,920
Speaker 1: By some accounts, the squirrels make up about seventy percent

756
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 1: of the western rattlesnakes diets. And for years now, scientists,

757
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:36,280
Speaker 1: especially at the University of California Davis, have been discovering

758
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:40,360
Speaker 1: more and more of these ingenious, highly adapted anti predation

759
00:42:40,480 --> 00:42:43,520
Speaker 1: techniques that the squirrels used to their advantage in the

760
00:42:43,560 --> 00:42:46,880
Speaker 1: Great War against the serpents of the West. All right, well,

761
00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:49,880
Speaker 1: what are these techniques? Well, some are pretty straightforward. For example,

762
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:53,520
Speaker 1: research has found that adult ground squirrels inhabiting areas with

763
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:57,880
Speaker 1: greater rattlesnake populations have evolved a greater natural resistance to

764
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:01,080
Speaker 1: rattlesnake venom. And you can see this is an evolved

765
00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:04,040
Speaker 1: trade because meanwhile, squirrels in areas with few or no

766
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:08,279
Speaker 1: rattlesnakes have lost this resistance tends to go away, but

767
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 1: sometimes California ground squirrels tend to go on offense against rattlesnakes,

768
00:43:13,680 --> 00:43:17,839
Speaker 1: displaying aggressive behavior and harassing the snakes to keep them

769
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:20,759
Speaker 1: away from their young. Sometimes they'll go by petal and

770
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:23,120
Speaker 1: they whip their tails back and forth in the air,

771
00:43:23,160 --> 00:43:26,359
Speaker 1: and this display that's known as flagging, and they'll kick

772
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:29,279
Speaker 1: sand at the snake and so forth. And sometimes this

773
00:43:29,320 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 1: aggressive display can discourage or scare off a predatory rattler.

774
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:36,440
Speaker 1: And sometimes the squirrels even attack the snake and bite it.

775
00:43:36,440 --> 00:43:38,399
Speaker 1: There are videos of this you can look up as well.

776
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:41,400
Speaker 1: Or it's just like a standoff between a squirrel and

777
00:43:41,760 --> 00:43:45,040
Speaker 1: a snake, and the squirrel is the attacker keeps biting

778
00:43:45,080 --> 00:43:47,279
Speaker 1: the snake on the spine. Oh wow, so not even

779
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:51,160
Speaker 1: not just going after you know, another omnivore, herbivore, but

780
00:43:51,239 --> 00:43:56,080
Speaker 1: going after a predatory reptile. Here. Yeah, and you might think,

781
00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:58,400
Speaker 1: wait a minute, how could a squirrel win in a

782
00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:02,040
Speaker 1: standoff with a snake. Wouldn't that be suicide? It depends

783
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:05,920
Speaker 1: on the circumstances of the confrontation. Sometimes yes, but remember

784
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:08,640
Speaker 1: that the adult ground squirrels in the snake heavy regions

785
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:12,000
Speaker 1: tend to have this resistance to snake venom. And also

786
00:44:12,120 --> 00:44:15,520
Speaker 1: the adult squirrels are generally not prime prey for the snakes.

787
00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:18,960
Speaker 1: Juvenile squirrels are are the much more vulnerable ones. They're

788
00:44:18,960 --> 00:44:21,760
Speaker 1: the ones the snakes want, and snakes are less likely

789
00:44:21,840 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 1: to try to prey on adults because they can put

790
00:44:24,040 --> 00:44:26,520
Speaker 1: up more of a fight. More than that, some snakes

791
00:44:26,560 --> 00:44:29,880
Speaker 1: are simply much more dangerous than others. For example, in

792
00:44:29,920 --> 00:44:34,120
Speaker 1: a paper by Sways, good Row and Owings called anti

793
00:44:34,120 --> 00:44:38,680
Speaker 1: Predator Responses of California ground Squirrels to Rattlesnakes and rattling sounds,

794
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 1: the roles of sex, reproductive parody, and offspring age and

795
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:46,279
Speaker 1: Assessment and decision Making Rules from two thousand three. Uh. Specifically,

796
00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:50,759
Speaker 1: they found that quote larger, warmer snakes are more dangerous

797
00:44:50,760 --> 00:44:54,600
Speaker 1: than smaller, colder snakes. Uh. So that might be kind

798
00:44:54,600 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 1: of useful, But then again, how do you know what

799
00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:58,520
Speaker 1: kind of snake you're dealing with. You can't look at

800
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:00,879
Speaker 1: a snake and say, well, that's snake is warmer than

801
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:04,879
Speaker 1: the other one. Apparently, what the squirrels do is they

802
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:08,319
Speaker 1: listen to the rattle. So if you rear up on

803
00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:11,160
Speaker 1: two legs, and you dance around aggressively and flag your

804
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:14,160
Speaker 1: tail and generally harass a rattle snake. It'll probably be

805
00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:16,920
Speaker 1: rattling at you. Right, And if you listen to the

806
00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:20,080
Speaker 1: sonic characteristics of the rattle, you can actually tell the

807
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:23,760
Speaker 1: difference between the rattle sound produced by big, warm, killer

808
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:27,399
Speaker 1: snakes and the rattle sound produced by small, cold, less

809
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:29,960
Speaker 1: threatening snakes. Oh, it's it's It gives you a clue,

810
00:45:30,040 --> 00:45:33,120
Speaker 1: or gives a squirrel a clue as to how how

811
00:45:33,239 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 1: fast this snake would be if it starts uh coming

812
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:40,400
Speaker 1: after them. Yeah, And so they investigated this by they

813
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:42,920
Speaker 1: had a little study where they would playback rattle sounds

814
00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:46,520
Speaker 1: from different types of snakes, and sure enough, squirrels treated

815
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:50,160
Speaker 1: rattle sounds from bigger, warmer snakes as a greater threat,

816
00:45:50,200 --> 00:45:53,480
Speaker 1: and we're less likely to approach the playback speaker. It

817
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:55,799
Speaker 1: almost feels like something out of sun Zoo, right, you know,

818
00:45:56,000 --> 00:45:58,640
Speaker 1: kind of like provoke and observe, get your enemy to

819
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:01,400
Speaker 1: reveal their strength through the sound of their rattle, and

820
00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:04,279
Speaker 1: you judge how to engage, and they can tell from

821
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:07,719
Speaker 1: that sound how strong their enemy is. It also, this

822
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:11,800
Speaker 1: also is is very reminiscent of that stalking behavior we

823
00:46:11,920 --> 00:46:15,480
Speaker 1: previously discussed, you know, just sort of be there, be

824
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:19,319
Speaker 1: a little obnoxious in your presence, and then use that

825
00:46:19,400 --> 00:46:22,120
Speaker 1: intel to your advantage. Yeah, but some of their other

826
00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 1: tactics the same, squirrel It just gets brilliant. So I

827
00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:28,600
Speaker 1: want to talk about rattlesnake baths. Oh yeah, I think

828
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 1: I read about this in Good magazine. This is a

829
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:35,080
Speaker 1: This is for for for for your skin tone. Right right,

830
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:37,960
Speaker 1: you melt fifty rattlesnakes and get into the bathtub with

831
00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:41,200
Speaker 1: your special pumice stone. No, no, no, no no, this this

832
00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:44,799
Speaker 1: is for squirrels, not for humans. So rattlesnakes generally have

833
00:46:44,880 --> 00:46:47,520
Speaker 1: poor vision, and one of the key senses they rely

834
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:50,480
Speaker 1: on for hunting is scent. So snakes can smell with

835
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:52,920
Speaker 1: their nostrils, but they have a much more keen sense

836
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:55,680
Speaker 1: of smell not through their nostrils, but through a region

837
00:46:55,719 --> 00:46:58,680
Speaker 1: in the roof of their mouth called the Jacobson's organs.

838
00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:01,400
Speaker 1: This is where the flicking to h and connects with

839
00:47:01,600 --> 00:47:03,880
Speaker 1: the roof of their mouth exactly right. So when you

840
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 1: see a snake flicking out its forked tongue, that snake

841
00:47:07,280 --> 00:47:10,160
Speaker 1: is sniffing the air. The flicks of the tongue collect

842
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:13,680
Speaker 1: information which are volatile scent carrying compounds in the air,

843
00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:17,000
Speaker 1: and they bring those compounds back into the mouth to

844
00:47:17,160 --> 00:47:20,160
Speaker 1: mix with oral fluids and then get taken through ducts

845
00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:22,279
Speaker 1: in the roof of the mouth to the Jacobson's organ.

846
00:47:22,840 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 1: Side note, there's apparently some amount of controversy about whether

847
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:29,319
Speaker 1: humans have a functioning Jacobson's organ, Like, it looks like

848
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:33,080
Speaker 1: we've got some kind of tiny analogous structure, probably nonfunctional,

849
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:36,840
Speaker 1: and that might be worth a deeper look someday. Um.

850
00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:40,279
Speaker 1: But anyway, Snakes use this smelling apparatus to locate prey

851
00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 1: by smell. So if you're a squirrel that this snake

852
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:45,879
Speaker 1: would like to eat, what do you do? You can run,

853
00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:49,839
Speaker 1: you can hide, but you can't stop emitting volatile compounds.

854
00:47:49,880 --> 00:47:52,400
Speaker 1: You're always going to be putting up these molecules that

855
00:47:52,520 --> 00:47:56,040
Speaker 1: this relentless predator can tract through the air. So the

856
00:47:56,080 --> 00:48:00,400
Speaker 1: California ground squirrel has this wonderful adapted behavior. It takes

857
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:04,280
Speaker 1: a snake bath. Snakes periodically have to shed their skin

858
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:06,560
Speaker 1: in order to allow their bodies to grow and remove

859
00:48:06,600 --> 00:48:10,160
Speaker 1: external parasites. And when one of these squirrels comes across

860
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:14,040
Speaker 1: a snakeskin discarded in the on the ground, it begins

861
00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:16,600
Speaker 1: to set to work. So first it takes bites out

862
00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:19,680
Speaker 1: of the skin and choose it up into a snakeskin

863
00:48:19,800 --> 00:48:23,279
Speaker 1: mushball in its mouth, and then it spits the mushball

864
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:27,120
Speaker 1: out on itself and smears the snakeskin poultice around in

865
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:29,759
Speaker 1: its fur. And then it keeps doing this until it

866
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:33,160
Speaker 1: smells more of snake than of squirrel. And these animals

867
00:48:33,160 --> 00:48:36,120
Speaker 1: have also been seen smearing snakeskin mush under their young

868
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:39,640
Speaker 1: to protect them as well. If a snakeskin is not available,

869
00:48:39,680 --> 00:48:42,320
Speaker 1: sometimes they will pick up the snake scent by rubbing

870
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:45,960
Speaker 1: themselves in the soil from places where rattlesnakes have been resting,

871
00:48:46,560 --> 00:48:49,360
Speaker 1: and apparently the North American rock squirrel has been observed

872
00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:52,800
Speaker 1: doing the same thing. Clever girl. One last crazy anti

873
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:56,640
Speaker 1: snake adaptation. In addition to their sense of smell, rattlesnakes

874
00:48:56,800 --> 00:48:59,920
Speaker 1: use heat sensing organs right called pit organs in their faces.

875
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:03,520
Speaker 1: Is to hunt down by detecting body warmth. So the

876
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:06,279
Speaker 1: snake lives in a world of smell and heat. And

877
00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:08,719
Speaker 1: if the squirrels have a smell based defense, do they

878
00:49:08,760 --> 00:49:12,000
Speaker 1: also have a heat based defense. You bet you that

879
00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:15,440
Speaker 1: this is true. Researchers, including Airin s Runda's, discovered in

880
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:19,440
Speaker 1: the two thousands that California ground squirrels threatened by rattlesnakes

881
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:22,600
Speaker 1: turn their tails into this weird kind of beacon of

882
00:49:22,680 --> 00:49:27,000
Speaker 1: heat energy. It's a whipping heat element. So Rundas claimed

883
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 1: at an animal behavior conference in Mexico in two thousand

884
00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:32,440
Speaker 1: four that the squirrels apparently do this by getting the

885
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:35,800
Speaker 1: fur on their tails to stand straight up, which allows

886
00:49:35,920 --> 00:49:38,400
Speaker 1: more of the underlying skin to be exposed to the

887
00:49:38,480 --> 00:49:42,040
Speaker 1: air and dilates the blood vessels under the skin, causing

888
00:49:42,040 --> 00:49:44,520
Speaker 1: the skin to broadcast more heat in the form of

889
00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:49,680
Speaker 1: infrared radiation. And further research on these initial observations involved

890
00:49:49,800 --> 00:49:53,160
Speaker 1: creating a robot squirrel. Did you ever think science would

891
00:49:53,160 --> 00:49:55,759
Speaker 1: take us here, Robert robot squirrel? No, I have to

892
00:49:55,840 --> 00:49:58,040
Speaker 1: have to say, it seems like they're you would expect

893
00:49:58,160 --> 00:50:01,040
Speaker 1: robot mice, you would expect robot snake. And I've seen

894
00:50:01,120 --> 00:50:04,680
Speaker 1: both of these, but I've never contemplated the robot squirrel. Well,

895
00:50:04,719 --> 00:50:07,400
Speaker 1: I like the swimming robots. You know that there are

896
00:50:07,400 --> 00:50:09,960
Speaker 1: a lot of good robot animals out there, But I've

897
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:13,320
Speaker 1: never heard of robot squirrel before this, but sometimes you

898
00:50:13,400 --> 00:50:16,200
Speaker 1: gotta tweak different independent variables. Sometimes you need to make

899
00:50:16,239 --> 00:50:19,040
Speaker 1: a robot squirrel. So that's what they did. Uh. And

900
00:50:19,160 --> 00:50:21,640
Speaker 1: I want to mention one study from Proceedings of the

901
00:50:21,719 --> 00:50:24,279
Speaker 1: National Academy of Sciences in two thousand seven. This is

902
00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:28,640
Speaker 1: rund Us owings Yoshi Chin and Giannini called ground squirrels

903
00:50:28,719 --> 00:50:32,200
Speaker 1: use infrared signal to deter rattle snake predation. So in

904
00:50:32,320 --> 00:50:35,880
Speaker 1: animal trials, Rundus and co authors found that quote, California

905
00:50:35,920 --> 00:50:39,600
Speaker 1: ground squirrels add an infrared component to their snake directed

906
00:50:39,600 --> 00:50:44,080
Speaker 1: tail flagging signals when confronting infrared sensitive rattle snakes, but

907
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:49,040
Speaker 1: tail but tail flag without augmenting infrared emission when confronting

908
00:50:49,120 --> 00:50:53,080
Speaker 1: infrared insensitive gopher snakes. So this means they can tell

909
00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:57,640
Speaker 1: the difference between different kinds of potential predators. Uh, the

910
00:50:57,719 --> 00:51:00,880
Speaker 1: kind that that since heat got a hot tail and

911
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:03,720
Speaker 1: the kind that do not sense heat got a cold tail.

912
00:51:04,719 --> 00:51:07,240
Speaker 1: And here's where the robot squirrel comes in. They built

913
00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:09,799
Speaker 1: a robot squirrel that could whip its tail with or

914
00:51:09,840 --> 00:51:12,640
Speaker 1: without tail heating at the same time. And what they

915
00:51:12,680 --> 00:51:15,840
Speaker 1: found was quote, when the infrared component was added to

916
00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:20,000
Speaker 1: the tail flagging display of the Robotics Squirrels. Rattlesnakes exhibited

917
00:51:20,040 --> 00:51:24,600
Speaker 1: a greater shift from predatory to defensive behavior than during

918
00:51:24,680 --> 00:51:28,719
Speaker 1: controlled trials in which tail flagging included no infrared component.

919
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:31,440
Speaker 1: So when you go at a heat sensitive snake with

920
00:51:31,480 --> 00:51:34,240
Speaker 1: a hot tail wagging around in the air for some reason,

921
00:51:34,520 --> 00:51:37,680
Speaker 1: the snake is more likely to back down. And so

922
00:51:37,719 --> 00:51:40,520
Speaker 1: to answer that question, research with rattlers in with this

923
00:51:40,640 --> 00:51:43,000
Speaker 1: robot which is of course known as the robo squirrel

924
00:51:43,320 --> 00:51:46,440
Speaker 1: that's been ongoing more recently, but there there is video

925
00:51:46,680 --> 00:51:49,080
Speaker 1: of the robot squirrel online. We've referred you to several

926
00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:52,239
Speaker 1: video type searches. You can look up robo squirrel and

927
00:51:52,640 --> 00:51:55,480
Speaker 1: it's worth seeing. It's it's pretty good. It's like on

928
00:51:55,520 --> 00:51:58,600
Speaker 1: a rack, so it'll like rack forward towards the snake

929
00:51:59,160 --> 00:52:01,719
Speaker 1: and then its tail will whip back and forth. And

930
00:52:01,760 --> 00:52:03,680
Speaker 1: if they hate it up, the rattler just kind of

931
00:52:03,680 --> 00:52:06,160
Speaker 1: sits there. But if they don't, when the squirrel tries

932
00:52:06,200 --> 00:52:09,759
Speaker 1: to retreat, the snake will lunge at it. Yes, do

933
00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:11,759
Speaker 1: check out that video if you get a chance. I

934
00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:14,200
Speaker 1: gotta say I am in general quite impressed with the

935
00:52:14,239 --> 00:52:17,759
Speaker 1: California ground squirrel. It's a machine, yes, it the non

936
00:52:17,880 --> 00:52:21,800
Speaker 1: robot version as a machine, it is um and generally

937
00:52:22,280 --> 00:52:24,680
Speaker 1: here at the end of this episode, I I am

938
00:52:24,760 --> 00:52:29,960
Speaker 1: just really impressed by the abilities and the viciousness that

939
00:52:30,080 --> 00:52:33,560
Speaker 1: we find in the Kingdom of the scugs, the these

940
00:52:33,600 --> 00:52:37,040
Speaker 1: these the squirrels, these tree rats that we we've just

941
00:52:37,080 --> 00:52:39,960
Speaker 1: so often taken uh for granted. You know, one thing

942
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:42,520
Speaker 1: I wanted to return to, if you don't mind, is

943
00:52:42,680 --> 00:52:45,920
Speaker 1: I've been shocked by the behavior of squirrels that we

944
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:48,080
Speaker 1: learned about in this episode. But I'm also shocked by

945
00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:53,319
Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin because his his elegy for for Mungo the

946
00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:58,359
Speaker 1: scug uh is a very anti freedom and prosecurity. Did

947
00:52:58,360 --> 00:53:00,759
Speaker 1: you notice that vein in it? I didn't really pick

948
00:53:00,840 --> 00:53:02,439
Speaker 1: up on that, now, I guess I was just more

949
00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:05,920
Speaker 1: focused on the cage squirrel without really thinking about the

950
00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:10,480
Speaker 1: political implications. Well, he says again, learn hints ye who

951
00:53:10,560 --> 00:53:15,400
Speaker 1: blindly wish more liberty, whether subjects, sons, squirrels, or daughters,

952
00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:19,880
Speaker 1: that apparent restraint maybe real protection, yielding peace plenty and security.

953
00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:23,399
Speaker 1: That seems to really go against that Benjamin Franklin quote

954
00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:26,000
Speaker 1: where he says those who would give up essential liberty

955
00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:30,040
Speaker 1: to purchase a little temporary safety. Deserve neither liberty nor safety.

956
00:53:30,080 --> 00:53:31,600
Speaker 1: That's one of the you know, one of those great

957
00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:35,680
Speaker 1: American pro freedom quotes. But I looked that up to

958
00:53:35,719 --> 00:53:38,359
Speaker 1: see what's the deal with did he really mean that?

959
00:53:38,840 --> 00:53:42,440
Speaker 1: Weirdly enough, unfortunately, that's one of those quotes where the

960
00:53:42,480 --> 00:53:46,280
Speaker 1: warped out of context misunderstanding of the quote is actually

961
00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:49,320
Speaker 1: a lot more profound and good than the original meaning.

962
00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:52,439
Speaker 1: The original meaning of that quote hinges a lot more

963
00:53:52,520 --> 00:53:55,960
Speaker 1: on the idea of quote a little temporary safety. He

964
00:53:56,040 --> 00:53:59,120
Speaker 1: was like writing against people who were putting in place

965
00:53:59,160 --> 00:54:03,840
Speaker 1: sort of temporary inadequate security measures. Yeah. Interesting, I like

966
00:54:03,920 --> 00:54:06,920
Speaker 1: the misunderstood version better. Yeah. Yeah, I think it is

967
00:54:06,960 --> 00:54:11,080
Speaker 1: a more pleasant thought for sure. All right, Well, there

968
00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:14,279
Speaker 1: you have it, uh, first part of our two part

969
00:54:14,520 --> 00:54:19,879
Speaker 1: exploration of just general squirrel weirdness and savagery. We hope

970
00:54:19,920 --> 00:54:24,400
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed this introduction reintroduction to the world of the scugs,

971
00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:26,919
Speaker 1: and I hope that you will tune in next time

972
00:54:26,960 --> 00:54:29,319
Speaker 1: as we continue. Let us leave you with one more

973
00:54:29,360 --> 00:54:31,520
Speaker 1: thought at the end, though, do not take this as

974
00:54:31,600 --> 00:54:34,880
Speaker 1: license to mistreat squirrels just because they may carry in.

975
00:54:35,040 --> 00:54:37,600
Speaker 1: Just because they may want to vole brain now and then,

976
00:54:37,920 --> 00:54:40,600
Speaker 1: that doesn't make them the bad guys of the animal kingdom.

977
00:54:40,840 --> 00:54:43,160
Speaker 1: We encourage you instead to look on them with all

978
00:54:43,320 --> 00:54:46,439
Speaker 1: and wonder. Yeah. I think actually the squirrels are more

979
00:54:46,600 --> 00:54:49,319
Speaker 1: entertaining to me now because I know what they're really about.

980
00:54:49,360 --> 00:54:51,799
Speaker 1: I know what they're up to. All right, Well, you

981
00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:54,080
Speaker 1: can check out all the other episodes of Stuff to

982
00:54:54,080 --> 00:54:56,239
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

983
00:54:56,320 --> 00:54:58,520
Speaker 1: That is the mothership. That is where you will find

984
00:54:58,719 --> 00:55:01,279
Speaker 1: uh all those epi sodes. You'll find links out to

985
00:55:01,400 --> 00:55:03,840
Speaker 1: our very social media accounts at the top of the page.

986
00:55:03,880 --> 00:55:07,239
Speaker 1: You'll also find our store button. Yes, you can go

987
00:55:07,360 --> 00:55:12,640
Speaker 1: to our store. You can buy t shirts, stickers, coffee mugs,

988
00:55:12,680 --> 00:55:17,440
Speaker 1: tope bags, you name it, featuring our brand new, swanky logo,

989
00:55:17,600 --> 00:55:20,520
Speaker 1: a few variations of that logo, some without any text

990
00:55:20,520 --> 00:55:21,719
Speaker 1: at all. You can do what I like to do

991
00:55:21,760 --> 00:55:24,960
Speaker 1: and just have some sort of perplexing glyph, uh you know,

992
00:55:25,080 --> 00:55:27,920
Speaker 1: on your your sticker or your your shirt, and just

993
00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:30,040
Speaker 1: let other people ask you about it or figure it

994
00:55:30,040 --> 00:55:31,879
Speaker 1: out on their own. And we're gonna be adding more

995
00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:34,880
Speaker 1: designs as as the days go on. We just recently

996
00:55:34,920 --> 00:55:37,880
Speaker 1: added one that was a reference to a movie Robert

997
00:55:37,880 --> 00:55:40,760
Speaker 1: and I talked about wishing existed in our black Holes

998
00:55:40,800 --> 00:55:44,520
Speaker 1: episode The Sphere Catastrophe. Yes, you're sort of what nineteen

999
00:55:44,520 --> 00:55:48,160
Speaker 1: would you say, sixties fifties? Sixties? Yeah, nineteen sixties horror

1000
00:55:48,200 --> 00:55:51,560
Speaker 1: movie about a black hole, French horror movie. Well, now

1001
00:55:51,600 --> 00:55:54,000
Speaker 1: you can see what that poster might look like on

1002
00:55:54,080 --> 00:55:56,759
Speaker 1: this uh this T shirt or sticker or note bag

1003
00:55:56,880 --> 00:55:59,719
Speaker 1: or bad a throw pillow, you you name it, you

1004
00:55:59,760 --> 00:56:02,560
Speaker 1: can it on anything. There's also a bicameral mind shirt

1005
00:56:02,600 --> 00:56:05,600
Speaker 1: on there that some folks are really digging. March up, yeah,

1006
00:56:05,680 --> 00:56:07,719
Speaker 1: merch up, and it's a great way to support the show.

1007
00:56:08,080 --> 00:56:10,480
Speaker 1: Another way to support the show without spending a dime

1008
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:13,840
Speaker 1: is to simply rate and review us wherever you have

1009
00:56:13,960 --> 00:56:17,359
Speaker 1: the ability to do so. So true, huge thanks as

1010
00:56:17,360 --> 00:56:21,200
Speaker 1: always to our wonderful audio producers Alex Williams and try Harrison.

1011
00:56:21,280 --> 00:56:23,279
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

1012
00:56:23,280 --> 00:56:25,760
Speaker 1: to let us know feedback on this episode or any other,

1013
00:56:26,200 --> 00:56:28,799
Speaker 1: or to suggest a topic for the future, or just

1014
00:56:28,880 --> 00:56:31,160
Speaker 1: to say hi, you can email us at blow the

1015
00:56:31,239 --> 00:56:43,040
Speaker 1: Mind at how stuff works dot com for more on

1016
00:56:43,120 --> 00:56:45,839
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics is it, how stuff works?

1017
00:56:45,840 --> 00:57:03,800
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