These Squirrels Are Hunting and Eating Meat and Scientists Only Just Noticed
These Squirrels Are Hunting and Eating Meat and Scientists Only Just Noticed
Red squirrels are the top predator of infant rabbits, and this has been known a long time
And this is why there are so few talking rabbits!
An article from last year:
https://www.ucdavis.edu/climate/news/carnivorous-feeding-squirrels-documented-california
This had been known since the 50's in urban areas.
If you give a mammal little choice and they are desperate, they will eat anything. Same with predator fowl like Hawks and Pelicans. This is all well documented. Rabbits are also known to eat meat if necessary.
I’ve read, many years ago, how the common grey squirrel ( which is ubiquitous in the eastern USA) will hunt mice and eat only their brains, presumably for missing nutrients
Cervids will gnaw on bones they find, I don't know why but that creeps me out, like a lot.
Edit: accidentally put corvid. Also, I've seen my neighbors Corvette gnawing on a raccoon corpse. It growled at me when I approached.
The numbers suggest it’s not an act of desperation. Deer eat small birds. Pika eat meat. Apparently squirrels too.
“This was shocking,” Jennifer E. Smith, a biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and the study’s lead author, said in a press release. “Squirrels are one of the most familiar animals to people. Yet here’s this never-before-encountered behavior that sheds light on how much we still have to learn.”
What?
Squirrels eat mice all the fucking time...
They compete for the same food source, but they're drastically different sizes, it's like if a silverback fought a chimpanzee. And after the fight the squirrel doesn't waste the free meal.
Grew up in Appalachia and this was common knowledge I thought. Everyone kinda knew that squirrels would sometimes eat meat, although there were guesses like opportunity or sickness as to why they did it.
I'm assuming it's a bunk article. No way this was just flying under the radar, unless the hunting part is new. Not sure I remember that being part of it.
And baby birds. Nonsense article.
Yeah, the biologist is sort of showing their ignorance for the free 15-minutes of fame to get into an article I suppose.
Squirrel 1: Hey have you ever noticed we have really sharp teeth?
Squirrel 2: Sure have, and our claws too.
Squirrel 1: Know what I'm thinking?
Squirrel 2: Yes. Yes I do.
Was G.O.B. using squirrels in his latest act?
Illusion, Michael!
Reminds me of the thing where Australians were eating a common species of fish that was previously unknown to science.
That happens a lot. Not specifically just eating, but a society, or any group of people, who often cross paths with some species that they don't think much about and it just happens to be unknown to science.