While squirrels are considered omnivores—meaning they eat both plants and other animals—we don’t often witness them killing and consuming rodents like voles. That is, until recently.
California squirrels have been spotted hunting and eating voles, seemingly for the first time. After shocking researchers, these killer squirrels were recorded in the Journal Of Ethology.
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“I could barely believe my eyes,” said Sonja Wild, a UC Davis Environmental Science and Policy department postdoctoral research fellow. “From then, we saw that behavior almost every day. Once we started looking, we saw it everywhere.”
“This was shocking,” added lead author Jennifer E. Smith, an associate professor of biology at UW-Eau Claire, which conducted the study in collaboration with UC Davis. “We had never seen this behavior before.”
This behavior has shed light on squirrels’ ability to adapt and survive. While these adorable rodents are often portrayed as spastic airheads, they’re actually incredibly intelligent creatures.
“The fact that California ground squirrels are behaviorally flexible and can respond to changes in food availability might help them persist in environments rapidly changing due to the presence of humans,” Wild said.
“Squirrels are one of the most familiar animals to people,” Smith added, per UC Davis. “We see them right outside our windows; we interact with them regularly. Yet here’s this never-before-encountered-in-science behavior that sheds light on the fact that there’s so much more to learn about the natural history of the world around us.
