Marty’s Wing~Nuts
The Occasionally Profound Ruminations of an Enlightened Squirrel
~* Marty the Squirrel at his Sacred Oak Tree near the
More Information from the Nut Factory
Did You Know?
~Squirrels~ sometimes mass migrate? The earliest known squirrel migration was recorded in 1811 by Charles Joseph Latrobe. In The Rambler in North America he wrote of a great squirrel migration in Ohio: “A countless multitude of squirrels, obeying some great and universal impulse, which none can know but the Spirit that gave them being, left their reckless and gamboling life, and their ancient places of retreat in the north, and were seen pressing forward by tens of thousands in a deep and sober phalanx to the South …” Mass squirrel migrations continue into the present and the exact causes are unknown. ~Squirrels~ belong to the order "Rodentia". With 1650 species, it is the largest group of living mammals. It also comprises forty percent of all present day mammal species. There are over 365 species of squirrels in seven families. They include the tree squirrel, ground squirrel, and flying squirrel. Plus many squirrel-like mammals such as the gopher, ground hog and prairie dog." Just How Do You Teach Squirrels to Sit? By Rebecca Murray, About.com Question: Just How Do You Teach Squirrels to Sit? Answer: Talk about your bizarre jobs. Animal trainer Michael Alexander and his crack team of experts spent 19 weeks training 40 squirrels just for the squirrel room scene in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." (I'm betting he would have been really, really upset had that scene wound up on the cutting room floor!) The 40 trained squirrels had to sit on stools while they opened nut shells and dropped the nuts onto a conveyor belt. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" trivia supplied by Warner Bros Pictures. 
Us tree squirrels, in particular, have long tails to help balance ourselves as we run up and down and from tree to tree. It's like holding a stick sideways when we balance on a beam. We also use our long fluffy tails as an "umbrella" to shade ourselves from hot sunlight, shield us from tha rain, warm ourselves during cold weather and as a flag to communicate with other squirrel critters.
Rodents like us are born to gnaw. Our incisors never stop growing... so we gotta chew constantly to keep ‘em worn down. Some of my buddies chew through phone and electrical lines, ruin gardens, kill trees, damage feeders beyond recognition and often eat large quantities of seed put out for the birds... but they aren’t as sophisticated as us Powers Lake squirrels.
We squirrels are very aggressive critters and numerous squirrel bites are reported each year by human critters, so be aware of the possibility of gittin’ bit~.
Squirrels Use Old Snake Skins to Mask Their Scent from Predators
Squirrel News from UC Davis in
Us squirrel critters are a bit more crafty than most folks think. According to a new study by researchers at UC Davis, California ground squirrels and rock squirrels were observed chewing up rattlesnake skin and smearing it on their fur to mask their scent from predators.
Adult female squirrels and juveniles apply snake scent more often than adult males, who are less vulnerable to predation by snakes. The scent probably helps to mask the squirrel's own scent, especially when the animals are asleep in their burrows at night, or to persuade a snake that another snake is in the burrow.
Additionally, the squirrels are not limited to the use of shed snake skins, said Donald Owings, a professor of psychology at UC Davis. They also pick up snake odor from soil and other surfaces on which snakes have been resting, and use that to apply scent.
Snake-scent application is one of a remarkable package of defenses that squirrels use against rattlesnakes, Owings said. Owings' lab has found that squirrels can: heat up their tails to send a warning signal to rattlesnakes, which can "see" in the infrared; assess how dangerous a particular snake is, based on the sound of its rattle; and display assertive behavior against snakes to deter attacks. In addition these squirrels have evolved resistance to snake venom. "It's a nice example of the opportunism of animals," Owings said. "They're turning the tables on the snake."
The “Never try to teach a squirrel to sing: it wastes your time and it annoys the squirrel.”
Albino Squirrel Preservation Society
was founded in 2001 at the
to celebrate the proliferation of white and albino squirrels on campus. There are eight college chapters of the ASPS
across the
~ Marty's Variation of a Quote by Paul Dickson ~
Marty and that Indian Feller at the "Ranch".
Squirrels Winning At Outwitting Trees' Survival Strategy
ScienceDaily (Dec. 24, 2006) ~ If you look at evolutionary biology as a big game of “Survivor,” it’s squirrels: one, spruce trees: zero. In the Dec. 22 edition of Science, Andrew McAdam, an assistant professor of fisheries and wildlife at The remarkable part: The squirrels are divining the arrival of bumper crops of spruce cones months before the cones ever materialize and then betting on those crops with the most expensive evolutionary collateral... a second litter of pups. “We’ve been watching a co-evolutionary arms race where the trees and the squirrels are constantly trying to outwit each other,” McAdam said. “The trees’ strategy to outwit the squirrels has been documented, but now we’ve documented a counter strike by the squirrels.” Red squirrels dine almost exclusively on the seeds of spruce cones, which they gnaw off before the seeds ripen. The squirrels are thus a major enemy of the spruce trees. If the squirrels become too successful, their hoarding and gorging on the cones thwarts the trees’ ability to cast seeds and reproduce. So the battle continues. Over the years, the trees devised a strategy called masting in which they unpredictably – every few years – produce an overabundance of cones. It’s called a “swamp and starve” strategy to take predators by surprise, flooding the market with more seeds than the squirrels could harvest. The starve part of the strategy comes from the few cones that are produced in the years between bumper crops. Swamp and starve is designed to play to the squirrels’ weakness. Squirrels are territorial and need not only food to feed growing pups, but also a place for their offspring to call their own. When there are lots of cones, there is plenty to feed pups, but the catch is that adults also survive well so there aren’t many vacancies for young squirrels searching for a home. “If you produce lots of pups after the mast, there’s no place for them to go. To be successful they need to produce the pups ahead of time.” What the latest paper shows is that the squirrels are on to the trees’ game. Prior to masting seasons, the squirrels are producing second litters – an act that would be, well, squirrelly in seasons of low food supply. But a population boom that coincides with a seed boom is brilliant. More food means more places for juvenile squirrels to set up shop. “What we’ve shown is that the squirrels also are playing an adaptive strategy,” McAdam said. “They’re not just following along; they’re making reproductive decisions that are best for them. This is about how red squirrels make a living in a variable world and how they make reproductive decisions in what seems like unpredictability. And given the currency they use, the stakes are high.” Boutin speculates that buds the spruce trees put out the summer before cones develop may hold the clues to a masting event. These buds differentiate in the summer; some become tree branches, some develop into cones. The squirrels eat the buds and may detect which destiny they’ll follow thus getting a tip-off to an upcoming masting event. “I hope this gives people a better appreciation that these squirrels are not just taking what they get,” McAdam said. “Both players – the squirrels and the trees – are following these strategies to try to maximize their fitness.”
Adapted from materials provided by Michigan State University.
The Marysville Black Squirrel Phenomena Entering town from any direction, there are signs proclaiming, "
So, what’s the causative force behind the abundance of black squirrels in Marysville? An interesting possible explanation involves a traveling carnival that passed through town in the 1920's and stayed for a few days in the City's park. Among the carnival exhibits was a cage full of black squirrels and the story is that one night a child opened the cage and the squirrels escaped. Since then, the squirrels have been increasing exponentially. About 1/5th of Marysville's squirrel population is now black.
~ David R. Hawkins ~
oneself and others.”
