98 Fun Facts About Squirrels

What family of rodents do all squirrels belong to?

Sciuridae is the one family that unites tree, ground and flying squirrels, all small to medium-sized rodents.

Besides balance, a parachute and signalling, a squirrel's bushy tail serves which purpose?

Cooling off by pumping blood through it is one job; the tail also shields against rain and cold, and its fine hairs are prized for tying fishing flies.

Squirrels eat nuts, seeds and fungi but also insects and bird eggs; what type of diet is that?

Omnivore: most species top up a plant-based diet of nuts, seeds, fruit and fungi with insects, bird eggs or small vertebrates.

Which of these species, at 15 to 18 grams, shares the title of the world's smallest sciurid?

The African pygmy squirrel (Myosciurus pumilio) weighs about 15 to 18 grams, less than a house mouse, and lives in Central African forests; Asia's least pygmy squirrel is about as small.

What is the name for a squirrel's nest made from twigs and leaves, typically found in tree branches?

A drey is almost always at least 20 feet (6 m) up, and flying squirrels build much higher; new ones become obvious each autumn when the leaves fall.

The word 'squirrel' traces back to the Ancient Greek skiouros, which literally combines 'tail' with what?

The name pictures the animal sitting in the shadow of its own tail; the Old English word, ācweorna, survived into Middle English as aquerne before dying out.

Which bird hunts the eastern gray squirrel?

Owls and hawks are the main threats from above; squirrels hide in canopy and midstory trees and warn each other with tail flicks and 'kuk' calls.

What is special about a squirrel's gnawing incisors, which lets it chew through hard nuts year after year?

They keep growing for life, and constant gnawing wears them to length; behind them sits a wide gap, the diastema, then the grinding cheek teeth.

Which kind of squirrel is the more social, often living in well-developed colonies?

Prairie dogs and marmots are ground squirrels; when a predator appears, colony members give high-pitched alarm calls that send neighbours diving for their burrows.

The Eastern Gray Squirrel is a common sight in which continent?

The Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) is native to the eastern and Midwestern regions of North America and is one of the most widely recognized squirrel species there.

What is the furred wrist-to-ankle membrane a flying squirrel glides on called?

The patagium is the furred membrane stretching from wrist to ankle that a flying squirrel glides on; the flattened tail works as an extra airfoil and air brake before landing.

What is an eastern gray squirrel's life expectancy at birth, before the lucky ones reach adulthood?

1 to 2 years at birth; an adult that beats the odds typically lives to about six, exceptional individuals reach 12, and captives can hit 20.

What is it called when squirrels bury single nuts in many separate spots for later, rather than in one store?

Scatter hoarding: an eastern gray squirrel makes several thousand caches a season and relies on spatial memory, plus smell, to find them again.

How many litters can a female eastern gray squirrel raise in a year?

Two: eastern gray squirrels breed in late winter and again in early summer, so a healthy female can raise two litters a year, each usually of two to four kits.

Along with 'dray', which of these is a collective term for a group of squirrels?

A scurry of squirrels; 'dray' is the other accepted term, and it doubles as the word for a tree squirrel's leafy nest.

Squirrels are native to every inhabited continent but one, where humans introduced them; which is it?

Australia's introduced eastern gray squirrels were wiped out again by 1973.

Which two rodent groups are squirrels most closely related to?

Squirrels' closest living relatives are the mountain beaver and dormice; the three groups form the rodent suborder Sciuromorpha, and the earliest squirrel fossils date to the Eocene.

Tree squirrels can climb down a trunk headfirst by rotating which joints 180 degrees?

Their ankles turn a full 180 degrees, letting the hind feet point backward and grip the bark from the opposite direction.

The Bhutan giant flying squirrel, the longest squirrel, can reach roughly what total length?

The Bhutan giant flying squirrel, Petaurista nobilis of the Himalayas, reaches about 1.27 metres from nose to tail tip, the greatest total length of any squirrel.

The eastern gray squirrel is the official state mammal of which US state?

North Carolina named the eastern gray squirrel its state mammal in 1969; the species is abundant across the state's hardwood forests and city parks.

Newborn squirrels are described as altricial; what does that mean about how they are born?

Naked, toothless and blind at birth, the young take six to ten weeks to wean, and in most species the mother raises them alone.

In 2005, a pack of black squirrels in Lazo, Russia, reportedly killed and ate what?

A large stray dog: in late 2005 villagers in Lazo, in Russia's Primorye region, reported a pack of black squirrels killing and eating a stray dog in the village park; attacks on humans are exceedingly rare.

What is the term for animals like squirrels and pigeons that thrive by living alongside humans?

Synanthropes are wild species such as squirrels, pigeons and house sparrows that benefit from living near humans; the process of adapting to city life is called synurbanization.

Which US city first released squirrels into a city park, in 1847?

Philadelphia released squirrels into Franklin Square in 1847, the first recorded attempt to stock a city park with them; Boston and New Haven followed in the 1850s and New York's Central Park in 1877.

Roughly how many living squirrel species are there?

About 285 living squirrel species are recognised, split across five subfamilies and some 58 genera.

The Callosciurinae, a subfamily of some 60 squirrel species, are mostly found in which region?

Southeast Asia: the Callosciurinae, which include the Callosciurus 'beautiful squirrels' and the striped palm squirrels, are an Asian radiation centred there; the Sciurinae, by contrast, span tree and flying squirrels across several continents.

The Ratufinae subfamily consists of four cat-sized species known as what?

Oriental giant squirrels, genus Ratufa, make up the Ratufinae; the four species live in south and southeast Asia and are among the most ancient squirrel lineages.

Which subfamily contains the chipmunks, marmots and prairie dogs?

Xerinae: this subfamily holds the ground-living tribe Marmotini, which includes marmots, chipmunks, prairie dogs and most ground squirrels, as well as the African ground squirrels of tribe Xerini.

Gray squirrels, which have since displaced the native red, were first brought to Britain in the 1870s for what reason?

As fashionable additions to estates; on mainland Britain they have since almost entirely displaced the native red squirrel.

Since 2016 the eastern gray squirrel has been officially designated what in Europe?

An Invasive Alien Species of Union concern: the EU placed the eastern gray squirrel on its first such list in 2016, banning its sale, breeding and release; the species had earlier spread to Ireland (1911) and Italy (1948).

Melanistic (black) gray squirrels are especially common in which region?

Southeastern Canada: black squirrels are especially common around the Great Lakes and in Canada's eastern provinces, and melanistic animals lose 18% less heat than the gray morph at −10 °C, a real advantage in cold winters.

Gray squirrels pretending to bury food when they know they are being watched is taken as evidence of what?

Theory of mind: the fake burials imply a squirrel models what a watcher knows; they also use smell to raid rivals' caches and landmarks to recall their own.

In 2019, researchers noticed by chance that flying squirrels do what under ultraviolet light?

Glow pink: flying squirrels fluoresce under UV, while non-flying squirrels show no fluorescence at all.

The genus name of New World flying squirrels, Glaucomys, comes from the Greek for what?

Gleaming mouse: Glaucomys joins the Greek glaukos, 'gleaming' or 'silvery grey', with mys, 'mouse'; the genus ranges from Central America to Canada.

The groundhog, also called the woodchuck, belongs to which group of large ground squirrels?

Marmots: the groundhog, Marmota monax, is North America's most widespread marmot, a burrowing ground squirrel of fields and woodland edges from the eastern United States to Alaska.

During true hibernation, a groundhog's heart rate falls to roughly what?

4–10 beats per minute: a hibernating groundhog's heart slows from around 80 beats per minute to a handful, and its body temperature falls to within a few degrees of freezing.

The nickname 'whistle-pig' for the groundhog comes from what behaviour?

Whistling to warn the colony of danger: an alarmed groundhog gives a shrill whistle that sends others near its burrow diving underground, which earned it the 'whistle-pig' name.

The prairie dog genus name Cynomys translates from Greek as what?

Dog mouse: Cynomys joins the Greek kyon (dog) with mys (mouse), a nod to the bark-like calls that led French trappers to name the animal the prairie dog.

What is the 'jump-yip' of the black-tailed prairie dog?

A territorial call that spreads: a black-tailed prairie dog rears up, throws its forepaws skyward and yips, and one animal's jump-yip triggers the same display in its neighbours, rippling across the town.

Which researcher argues that prairie dog alarm calls describe specific predators in detail?

Con Slobodchikoff, a Northern Arizona University biologist, argues that Gunnison's prairie dog alarm calls encode a predator's species, size and colour, even distinguishing humans by the colour of their shirts.

Grey squirrels carry which disease that rarely harms them but often kills Britain's red squirrels?

Squirrel parapoxvirus, or squirrelpox, is carried harmlessly by grey squirrels but is usually fatal to reds; an outbreak at Formby on Merseyside cut the red population there by about 80% in the late 2000s.

Which island is the largest remaining haven for red squirrels in England?

The Isle of Wight has no grey squirrels and holds one of England's largest red squirrel populations, several thousand animals; Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour is a far smaller refuge.

In Norse myth, the squirrel Ratatoskr carries messages between an eagle and which creature?

The dragon Níðhöggr, who gnaws at Yggdrasil's roots: Ratatoskr, whose name is usually read as 'drill-tooth', runs up and down the tree relaying slanderous gossip between him and the unnamed eagle at its top.

Every chipmunk species lives in North America except one, found mainly in Asia; which is it?

The Siberian chipmunk is the lone Asian species; eastern chipmunks hibernate, while western species stay active on stored food.

How long is the gestation period of the eastern gray squirrel?

About 44 days: eastern gray squirrel gestation lasts roughly six weeks, after which a litter of usually two to four kits is born in a drey or tree hollow.

Like all squirrels, the eastern gray has how many toes on each front foot?

Four: like other squirrels, the eastern gray has four toes on each front foot, with only a vestigial thumb, and five on each hind foot; adults weigh roughly 400 to 600 grams.

Which South African city received eastern gray squirrels around 1900, reputedly via Cecil Rhodes?

Cape Town: Cecil Rhodes had eastern gray squirrels released on his estate around 1900, and the population stayed confined to the Cape Peninsula's oaks and pines, never colonising the native fynbos.

Flying squirrels steer in mid-air using a cartilage projection from which body part?

The wrist: a styliform cartilage projecting from each wrist can be angled to trim the patagium in flight and, with the hand, forms a wing tip; among gliding mammals it is unique to flying squirrels.

The Old World flying squirrel genus Pteromys takes its name from the Greek for what?

Winged mouse: Pteromys joins the Greek pteron, 'wing', with mys, 'mouse'; the genus holds the Siberian flying squirrel and the Japanese dwarf flying squirrel.

What is the scientific name of the Eurasian red squirrel?

Sciurus vulgaris, named by Linnaeus in 1758, is the Eurasian red squirrel found from Ireland to Hokkaido; the unrelated American red squirrel is Tamiasciurus hudsonicus.

The Indian giant squirrel, or shekaru, is the state animal of which Indian state?

Maharashtra adopted the Indian giant squirrel, the shekaru, as its state animal; the squirrel weighs up to 2 kg, can leap 6 metres between trees and freezes flat against a trunk rather than fleeing.

By tradition, what does it mean if Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow on February 2?

Six more weeks of winter, by Groundhog Day lore; a 2021 Lakehead University study of 33 forecasting groundhogs found their calls right about half the time, no better than chance.

Groundhog Day grew from a German Candlemas tradition built around which animal?

The badger: German Dachstag lore held that a badger emerging on Candlemas to see its shadow meant four more weeks of winter, a rule Pennsylvania Dutch settlers transferred to the groundhog and stretched to six.

The 1993 film Groundhog Day was shot not in Punxsutawney but in which Illinois town?

The town now has its own forecasting groundhog, Woodstock Willie, while Punxsutawney's crowds jumped from about 2,000 to 10,000 after the film.

The groundhog's species name, monax, comes from an Algonquian word meaning what?

Digger: monax comes from an Algonquian name meaning 'the digger'; 'woodchuck' likewise has nothing to do with wood, deriving from the Algonquian wuchak, and the tongue-twister followed the pun.

How low does a hibernating Arctic ground squirrel's core body temperature fall?

Its heart slows to about one beat a minute, and its blood stays liquid at subzero temperatures, apparently because it purges the particles ice would form around.

In hibernation, a thirteen-lined ground squirrel slows its breathing to roughly what rate?

Awake it breathes 100 to 200 times a minute. It can go more than six months without food or water, cycling between deep torpor and brief arousals.

North Dakota's nickname, the Flickertail State, honours which animal?

Richardson's ground squirrel, whose tail trembles constantly, gave North Dakota the Flickertail nickname; around Minot Air Force Base it goes by 'dakrat', short for Dakota rat.

Cape ground squirrels in southern Africa share their burrow clusters with which animal?

Meerkats: Cape ground squirrels often share their burrow systems with meerkats, apparently amicably, and yellow mongooses move in as well.

Why do California ground squirrel mothers chew shed rattlesnake skin and lick their pups?

Pups have no venom resistance before one month old, so the mother borrows the snake's smell instead. Adults in some populations do tolerate the venom.

California ground squirrels warm and swish their tails to confuse which rattlesnake sense?

Rattlesnakes hunt mostly with their heat-sensing pit organs, so a hot waving tail makes the squirrel look bigger and bolder than it is.

Meriwether Lewis described the black-tailed prairie dog under what name?

Barking squirrel: Lewis's journals call the black-tailed prairie dog the 'barking squirrel' for its yelping alarm call; the Lakota name for the animal is pispíza.

Which endangered predator depends heavily on prairie dogs for its diet?

The black-footed ferret gets around 90% of its diet from prairie dogs and lives in their burrows; burrowing owls and mountain plovers use the colonies too, which is why the rodent is treated as a keystone species.

Europe's only flying squirrel lives in which two EU countries?

Estonia and Finland: the Siberian flying squirrel's EU range is confined to these two countries; it was last seen in Latvia in 2001 and is the emblem of Finland's Nuuksio National Park.

Molecular studies date the origin of flying squirrels to roughly how many years ago?

20 million: molecular studies place the origin of flying squirrels some 18 to 20 million years ago as a single branch with tree squirrels as sister group; their limb bones are longer than a tree squirrel's to cut wing loading.

Contact with southern flying squirrels has been linked to which human disease?

The CDC logged 39 US cases of 'sylvatic typhus' between 1976 and 2001, probably spread by the squirrels' fleas and lice.

Which North American flying squirrel was only recognised as a separate species in 2017?

Humboldt's flying squirrel, Glaucomys oregonensis, was split from the northern flying squirrel by genetic work in 2017; it lives in Pacific coastal forests from British Columbia to southern California.

What is the Japanese name for the Japanese dwarf flying squirrel, also its epithet?

Momonga is both the Japanese name and the species epithet of Pteromys momonga, a 150-to-220-gram glider; the Japanese giant flying squirrel, the musasabi, can reach 1.5 kilograms.

The white-tailed Kaibab squirrel is confined to the ponderosa forest above which canyon?

The Grand Canyon: the Kaibab squirrel is confined to the North Rim's Kaibab Plateau, a 20-by-40-mile patch of ponderosa pine, 200,000 acres of which became a National Natural Landmark in 1965.

The Delmarva fox squirrel came off the US Endangered Species List in which year?

2015: the Delmarva fox squirrel was declared recovered and delisted in November 2015 after 48 years on the list; when listed in 1967 it survived in only about 10% of its historical range on the Eastern Shore.

What colour is most of the Vancouver Island marmot's coat?

Chocolate brown: the Vancouver Island marmot's dark brown coat, broken by white patches on the muzzle, chin and chest, sets it apart from the grizzled grey marmots of the mainland.

The ski resort of Whistler, British Columbia, was renamed after which animal?

It was originally London Mountain, a name dropped for its fog-and-rain connotations. The hoary marmot is North America's largest ground squirrel.

Which composer wrote a song titled 'Marmotte' about a wandering Savoyard and his marmot?

Beethoven set Goethe's 'Marmotte' as Op. 52 No. 7, a song of a wandering Savoyard boy and his marmot; such showmen carried trained alpine marmots in boxes and had them dance to the hurdy-gurdy.

Alpine marmots have claws on most digits, but what do they have on their thumbs?

Nails: an alpine marmot's thumbs carry flat nails rather than claws; they are formidable diggers all the same, able to work soil that defeats a pickaxe, and they seal their burrow for winter with earth and their own droppings.

Yellow-bellied marmots hitch rides out of the Sierra Nevada in engine bays, drawn by what?

Radiator fluid: sweet-tasting antifreeze draws marmots into engine bays, where they chew hoses and occasionally ride out of the mountains, which is how a Sierra animal turned up in the San Francisco Bay Area.

'Chipmunk' probably comes from an Ojibwe word that literally means what?

One who descends trees headlong: the Ojibwe ajidamoo, 'red squirrel', is built from a root meaning 'headlong' or 'upside down'; early English spellings included chitmunk and chipmuck, and Audubon called the animal the 'chipping squirrel'.

What was Rocky the Flying Squirrel's most frequent catchphrase?

'Hokey smoke!' was Rocky's stock exclamation in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show; he learned to fly at the Cedar Yorpantz Flying School, a pun on 'seat of your pants'.

SpongeBob's squirrel friend Sandy Cheeks hails from which US state?

Texas: Sandy Cheeks is a Texan squirrel living in an air-filled treedome under Bikini Bottom; she first appeared in 'Tea at the Treedome' in May 1999.

Hanna-Barbera's spy parody Secret Squirrel carried which code number?

000: Secret Squirrel was 'Agent 000'; Mel Blanc voiced him with a slight lisp, and his fez-wearing sidekick Morocco Mole was Paul Frees doing Peter Lorre.

In Beatrix Potter's tale, Squirrel Nutkin loses part of what to the owl Old Brown?

His tail: Old Brown finally seizes Nutkin, who escapes only by leaving most of his tail behind after six days of taunting the owl with riddles; ever after, a riddle makes him throw sticks and shout.

The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin (1903) was the follow-up to which Beatrix Potter hit?

Peter Rabbit: after The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902) made her name, Potter followed it in 1903 with Squirrel Nutkin, whose Owl Island was modelled on St Herbert's Island in Derwentwater, sketched on her Lake District holidays.

Which artist co-created Marvel's Squirrel Girl with writer Will Murray in 1991?

Steve Ditko drew Squirrel Girl's 1991 debut in Marvel Super-Heroes, where writer Will Murray, who based her on an ex-girlfriend who loved 'critters', had her beat Doctor Doom.

Tufty Fluffytail, the UK's red squirrel puppet of the 1950s-70s, taught children what?

Road safety: RoSPA's Tufty Club used the squirrel to teach kerb drill and crossing rules, with nearly 25,000 branches and two million members by the early 1970s and Bernard Cribbins narrating the films.

Conker the Squirrel made his playable debut in which 1997 Nintendo 64 title?

Diddy Kong Racing, Rare's 1997 kart game, gave Conker his first playable role; four years later Rare turned him into the foul-mouthed star of Conker's Bad Fur Day, one of the few Mature-rated Nintendo 64 games.

Squirrel Appreciation Day falls on which date?

January 21: Squirrel Appreciation Day was started in 2001 by Christy Hargrove, a wildlife rehabilitator in Asheville, to encourage people to put out food for squirrels in midwinter.

In 1987 a squirrel knocked which stock exchange's trading computer offline for over an hour?

Nasdaq: in December 1987 a squirrel chewed through a power line in Trumbull, Connecticut, halting Nasdaq trading for 82 minutes, and another squirrel did it again in 1994.

Ground squirrels have repeatedly breached nuclear missile sites at which Montana air base?

Malmstrom Air Force Base, whose Minuteman silos dot the Montana prairie: ground squirrels tunnel under the fences, dodge the motion detectors, and the ones that go over the top trigger thousands of false alarms a year.

Brunswick stew, originally a squirrel dish, is claimed by Georgia and which other state?

A 1941 Virginia recipe calls for nine pounds of game, 'squirrels are preferred', boiled in two gallons of water for six hours.

A 2006 British campaign promoting squirrel meat ran under which slogan?

'Save a red, eat a grey!': the 2006 campaign put grey squirrel meat on British menus with celebrity chefs backing it; releasing a captured grey squirrel is illegal in the UK.

Which native predator's comeback is credited with pushing grey squirrels back in Britain?

The pine marten: research in Ireland and Scotland found grey squirrels vanishing where martens recovered, since greys spend more time on the ground than reds and so meet the marten more often.

The medieval red squirrel fur trade has been proposed as a route for which disease?

Leprosy: a strain of Mycobacterium leprae found in medieval skeletons from East Anglia, where squirrel fur was heavily traded, matches the one carried by modern red squirrels on Brownsea Island.

Black fur in eastern gray squirrels traces to a 24-base-pair deletion in which gene?

MC1R: a 24-base-pair deletion in the melanocortin-1 receptor gene produces the black morph, probably introduced from black fox squirrels by interbreeding; one copy gives a brown-black coat, two copies jet black.

Washington, D.C.'s black squirrels descend from 18 animals from which Canadian province?

Ontario: 18 black squirrels from Rondeau Provincial Park were released at the National Zoo in 1902 and 1906, and by 2005 their descendants made up 5 to 25 percent of the gray squirrels across the area.

Why do gray squirrels often bite out the embryo of an acorn before burying it?

To stop it sprouting: white oak acorns germinate soon after falling, so squirrels excise the embryo before caching them, since a sprouted acorn has spent its nutrients; red oak acorns, which stay dormant, are buried intact.

US physicians have warned against eating squirrel brains over the risk of which illness?

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: in 1997 Kentucky doctors reported a cluster of CJD cases among people who had eaten squirrel brains, a regional delicacy, and warned against the dish in The Lancet.

What is the name of Punxsutawney Phil's mate?

Phyllis: Phil's mate Phyllis gave birth to two pups in 2024, surprising the Inner Circle, who had assumed groundhogs do not breed in captivity; by club lore the babies cannot inherit Phil's job.

What is it called when a squirrel lies belly-down on a cool surface in hot weather?

Splooting: lying flat with the belly pressed to cool pavement or shade dumps body heat, a pose New York's parks department drew attention to during the 2022 heatwave.

Which squirrel, Sciurus niger, is the largest tree squirrel native to North America?

Fox squirrel: Sciurus niger, the eastern fox squirrel, is the largest tree squirrel native to North America, weighing up to about a kilogram, and is named for its rusty, fox-like coat.