I have always considered squirrels to be positively adorable creatures, but I am aware that plenty of us are not fans of these little creatures. I should arguably stipulate that I have also always found mice to be very cute, so it’s possible I’m a wee bit fucked in the head.
But, aside from my lunacy, I am also aware that people other than myself find squirrels to be admirable animals, and so I decided to write about them in hopes of generating and spreading some love for these guys. The following information comes from treehugger.com.
“The squirrel family is among the most diverse of all modern mammals, with more than 278 species and 51 genera thriving everywhere from Arctic tundra and tropical rainforest to farms, suburbs, and big cities.1 It includes a variety of tree squirrels and flying squirrels, but also many ground-dwelling species—like chipmunks, prairie dogs, and marmots—that may be less obviously squirrelly to casual observers more familiar with bushy-tailed acrobats. Nonetheless, they’re all members of the taxonomic family Sciuridae, which is native to every continent except Australia and Antarctica.
“Squirrels range in size from the five-inch (13-centimeter) African pygmy squirrel to relative behemoths like the Indian giant squirrel (pictured above) or China’s red-and-white giant flying squirrel, both of which can grow more than three feet (almost one meter) long.
“Squirrels have four front teeth that grow continuously throughout their lives, at a rate of about six inches (15 cm) per year. This helps their incisors endure the seemingly incessant gnawing, otherwise they’d quickly run out of teeth.
“Electrical lines are no match for squirrel teeth, which have been blamed for hundreds of power disruptions across the U.S. in the past 30 years—including outages that briefly shut down the NASDAQ stock market in 1987 and 1994. As the Brookings Institution points out, ‘Squirrels have taken down the power grid more times than the zero times that hackers have,’2″ the webpage states.
Check back tomorrow for more.
Photo by Shane Young on Unsplash
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