Much as they annoy me, they are successful because they are exceptionally flexible, adaptive and intelligent.
Squirrels can leap a span 10 times the length of their body, roughly double what the best human long jumper can manage. They can rotate their ankles 180 degrees, and so keep a grip while climbing no matter which way they’re facing.The little blighters are also smart in ways that recall primate intelligence.
Squirrels can learn by watching others — cross-phyletically, if need be. In their book “Squirrels: The Animal Answer Guide,” Richard W. Thorington Jr. and Katie Ferrell of the Smithsonian Institution described the safe-pedestrian approach of a gray squirrel eager to traverse a busy avenue near the White House. The squirrel waited on the grass near a crosswalk until people began to cross the street, said the authors, “and then it crossed the street behind them.”Eastern grays are prolific precisely because they are very, very good at inhabiting the urban and suburban ecologies we humans create. They haven't so much as displaced our native Douglas squirrels as replaced them; moved in after the Dougs could no longer afford the neighborhood. It's our clumsy tinkering with nature that's created the habitat niche the Eastern grays are so well-qualified to fill.
The Eastern gray is one of about 278 squirrelly species alive today, a lineage that split off from other rodents about 40 million years ago and that includes chipmunks, marmots, woodchucks — a k a groundhogs — and prairie dogs. Squirrels are found on all continents save Antarctica and Australia, and in some of the harshest settings: the Himalayan marmot, found at up to 18,000 feet above sea level, is among the highest-living mammals of the world.The diversity of squirrel species aside, expect the Eastern gray squirrels to only grow their range as human cities grow.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment