Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: Rain Stuff Lauren Vogel Bomb Here. Do you ever come
Speaker 1: home on a hot day and just lie down on
Speaker 1: your cool kitchen floor? Does it sometimes happen that someone
Speaker 1: else then walks into the room and expresses concern for
Speaker 1: your health? Well, welcome to the life of a squirrel.
Speaker 1: In the summer, the squirrels get hot just like the
Speaker 1: rest of us mammals, and when this happens, they lie
Speaker 1: flat on their bellies with their front legs stretched out
Speaker 1: before them and their back legs kicked out behind. This
Speaker 1: position has been dubbed a splut by pet enthusiasts on
Speaker 1: the Internet, and perhaps originally to describe the same behavior
Speaker 1: spluting in dogs and cats. The Collins English Dictionary contains
Speaker 1: a brief definition for splute, suggesting that it's perhaps altered
Speaker 1: from splat. Scientists call it heat dumping. Although all mammals
Speaker 1: have sweat glands, it's actually pretty rare for mammals to
Speaker 1: use them to cool down the way that we humans do.
Speaker 1: Most mammals only have sweat glands on the soles of
Speaker 1: their feet and palms of their hands. This is intended
Speaker 1: to help provide grip during emergency climbing or leaping. But
Speaker 1: because many mammals have much thicker coats of fur or
Speaker 1: hair than we humans do, cooling by producing all over
Speaker 1: sweat that can then evaporate wouldn't work as well as
Speaker 1: it does for us. This is why many animals like cats, dogs, birds,
Speaker 1: and lizards pant, and why some splute. But while it
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense on a hot day to
Speaker 1: expose the maximum amount of your body surface area to
Speaker 1: a cool surface, when wildlife does it, people tend to
Speaker 1: freak out a little. The New York City Department of
Speaker 1: Parks and Recreation received enough concerned calls about splitting squirrels
Speaker 1: in the summer of two that they felt cold to
Speaker 1: tweet a photo of a squirrel belly down on the
Speaker 1: ground and all four paws outstretched like Superman, with this message,
Speaker 1: if you see a squirrel lying down like this, don't worry.
Speaker 1: It's just fine. On hot days, squirrels keep cool by splouting,
Speaker 1: stretching out on cool surfaces to reduce body heat. It
Speaker 1: is sometimes referred to as heat dumping. Splouting can be
Speaker 1: observed in many warm blooded animals when the temperature soars.
Speaker 1: The only real necessity is that the surface upon which
Speaker 1: the animal is spluting be cooler than the surrounding air.
Speaker 1: You can observe everything from grizzly bears spouting on rocky beaches,
Speaker 1: to rabbits, chipmunks, and even young birds stretching out to
Speaker 1: cool off. The reason for the face down position is
Speaker 1: that most mammals and birds have less fur and feathers
Speaker 1: on their underside than on their back, which allows for
Speaker 1: the cool surface to make more contact with their skin.
Speaker 1: Adult birds tend to stay in an alert up right position,
Speaker 1: but they will fluff out their feathers and extend their
Speaker 1: wings while crouching over a cool surface to increase air flow.
Speaker 1: It's a bit more efficient than simply moving into the shade,
Speaker 1: and definitely a lot more pleasant than what some storks
Speaker 1: and vultures do to cool off, which is poop on
Speaker 1: their own legs. Being mostly liquid, the poop acts much
Speaker 1: like our sweat and helps them cool down as a evaporates.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article it spluting It's
Speaker 1: what all the cool squirrels are doing this summer on
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, written by Jesslin Shields. Brain
Speaker 1: Stuff is production of iHeart Radio in partnership with how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, and it's produced by Tyler Clang.
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