How smart are squirrels?

Squirrels are some of the most intelligent animals around, perhaps everyone will remember them for their ability to bury food, just to deceive onlookers. There are several ways to consider the smartness of squirrels, and they include the following;



- A squirrel is smart for instance when it feels its life is in danger, it will remain motionless first, and when it noticed no one is watching , it quickly runs to the next tree and climb to safety. A squirrel often hangs onto the tree by pressing its body tightly to the tree.

- Squirrels are fond of eating out of the hand of humans, but very few animals can trust humans for food.

- In cold regions of Europe and North America, squirrels have been found to plan ahead of the cold winter months, by storing nuts and seeds in strategic locations, and then return to such locations to eat stored food for energy.

- Squirrels are known to run through erratic paths, and this is done to deceive their predators and for this reason, they can easily escape from such.

- Squirrels are very intelligent, they normally bury their foods to deceive humans or any other animal watching them from nearby, and the burying of food is normally to trick potential stalkers or thieves such as birds or other squirrels, who may think that the squirrel is storing its food in that position. Any animal hoping to uncover the buried food on that spot will definitely miss it, thus allowing the squirrel to bury the food somewhere else.

- Squirrels that live on trees often build dreys that look like bird nests, and such dreys are made up of twigs , moss, feathers and grass. The dreys are often the size of a football – all the items surrounding the dreys provide support and insulation.

- Squirrels make use of several vocalizations to communicate with each other, they also create scents to attract opposite sex or communicate, likewise they can create signals with their tails by twitching it just to alert some other squirrels about the presence of a potential danger.

- There are some species of squirrels often referred to as ‘Flying squirrels”, though they don’t actually fly, they actually fly with the aid of a membrane that is attached from their wrists to ankles, and this feature helps squirrels to glide just like humans.

With all these features , one can conclude that squirrels are indeed some of the smartest animals in the world.

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