Squirrels are not critters to be taken lightly.
While we tend to think of our bushy-tailed neighbors as cute but otherwise inconsequential little animals, there is a lot more to them. They are living fossils; the family Sciuridae has been around since the Miocene and hasn’t changed much in all this time. They are quick and alert, and occupy a wide variety of habitats. They are also adaptable when it comes to foraging. Folks think of squirrels subsisting mostly on seeds and nuts, but they won’t turn down other food sources.
So it’s curious that some researchers were surprised to find that some California ground squirrels were preying on voles.
Have the squirrels gone nuts?
Killer squirrels might seem like sci-fi, but squirrels in California have been observed hunting and eating voles for the first time, leading scientists to believe that they have a wider diet…
