Squirrels, Ahoy!

Summary

Podcast Summary: Stuff You Should Know – “Squirrels, Ahoy!”

Episode Date: March 20, 2026
Hosts: Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant
Producer: iHeartPodcasts

Main Theme / Purpose

In this episode, Josh and Chuck enthusiastically explore the world of squirrels – their evolution, taxonomy, types, behaviors, ecological significance, and curious cultural history. The hosts talk with delight about their growing appreciation for squirrels, delve into how these rodents have diversified and adapted across the planet, and share fascinating facts (and memorable stories) about our bushy-tailed neighbors.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Hosts’ Relationship with Squirrels

• Personal transformation: Josh describes how his views shifted from seeing squirrels as pests to beloved animals, thanks to his dog Momo.
  • “Momo pointed out to me, said, ‘Dad, squirrels are great. I’m going to teach you to love them.’ And she did.” (08:18)
• Squirrel enthusiasm: Chuck and Josh share stories of seeing dozens of squirrels daily in Atlanta and marvel at their ubiquity and antics.
  • “I counted 22 squirrels that I just saw…on a 12-minute car ride.” – Chuck (09:13)

2. Squirrel Classification & Anatomy

• Taxonomy:
  • Squirrels belong to the rodent order, family Sciuridae (debated pronunciation provided with some comic relief) (04:01–04:13).
  • There are roughly 300 species worldwide.
  • Squirrels have adapted to almost every continent except Antarctica.
• Signature Features:
  • Bushy tail: Essential to squirrel identity and referenced in their Greek-derived name, “shadow tail.” (06:05)
  • Unique jaw & muscle attachment: The sciuromorphous zygomatic system differentiates squirrels from other rodents. (06:40)
• Evolutionary History:
  • Squirrels have existed in North America for 35–40 million years, migrated to Eurasia, then Africa. “Squirrels like to get around as we will see.” (08:41)

3. Three Groups of Squirrels

• Ground Squirrels (15:49)
  • Includes prairie dogs, chipmunks, marmots, groundhogs.
  • Live communally; prairie dogs famously form “towns.”
    • Largest recorded: over 400 million prairie dogs across 100x250 miles in Texas (17:15–18:34).
  • Sophisticated communication; can recognize blood relations by scent and use alarm calls for kin.
    • “They have a lot of sophisticated different communication…and the groundhog or the prairie dog knows this because it can smell its blood relations.” (18:41)
• Tree Squirrels (20:06)
  • The familiar urban squirrels; nest in “drays” (20:57).
  • Social, especially in winter—can snuggle in large groups for warmth.
  • Anatomical marvel: back legs can rotate, allowing headfirst descents down trees (22:44).
  • Ecological role: Major forest “gardeners”; squirrels bury masses of nuts, many of which grow into new trees. (25:53)
  • Deception: Squirrels may “fake bury” nuts if watched by other squirrels (26:11).
• Flying Squirrels (28:33)
  • Nocturnal and therefore less commonly seen.
  • Glide, rather than fly, using skin flaps (“patagium”)—can cover up to 300 feet (29:09–30:14).
  • Their gliding inspired human “bat suits.”
  • Some species are endangered (e.g., Carolina northern flying squirrel); new land bridges help these and other animals cross highways. (31:27)

4. Squirrel Migrations & Historical Animosity

• Historic migrations:
  • “Squirrel stampedes” used to occur, sometimes involving tens of thousands of squirrels moving en masse, especially after population booms followed by food shortages (40:41–41:29).
  • Accounts tell of squirrels swimming rivers and even being eaten by fish (42:12).
• Attitudes shifted over time:
  • Once viewed as crop-destroying vermin and widely hunted, squirrels became rare by mid-1800s.
  • Urban parks began reintroducing squirrels as curiosities and then for nature enjoyment—this helped rehabilitate their public image (43:40–44:53).
  • Feeding squirrels in parks became a way to teach children compassion. (45:09+)

5. Ecological and Behavioral Intricacies

• Diet:
  • Opportunistic eaters—primarily nuts, seeds, fruits, but also insects, fungi, small eggs, and even birds or lizards (34:39).
    • “They will eat whatever keeps them alive.” (30:50)
  • Help reforest by spreading seeds and mycorrhizal fungi.
• Teeth:
  • Their incisors grow continuously—up to 6 inches/year—which requires constant gnawing (34:39–35:08).
• Learning & Problem-Solving:
  • Squirrels can learn from others, especially in food acquisition. (35:58)
• Scent Marking and Camouflage:
  • Squirrels use specialized glands to mark territory or food; ground squirrels may disguise themselves by rubbing shed rattlesnake skin on their bodies (26:58).

6. Squirrels Around the World

• Australia:
  • Squirrels aren’t native to Australia; introduced species generally died out, apart from a few feral populations. (36:18)
• Invasives:
  • Eastern grays are problematic in Europe, outcompeting native red squirrels (“American killer squirrels” in Italy); red squirrels now survive mostly in Scotland (47:53–49:02).

7. Squirrels and Urban Life

• Changes in cultural attitudes:
  • From targets of hunting and pest control to ambassadors of urban green spaces.
• Feeding squirrels:
  • Sensible advice: plant mast-producing trees, avoid “human” food, shred fruits/veggies to avoid garden burial, avoid salted/sugared nuts (51:39–53:28).
  • “If you do feed them, don’t let them eat out of your hand…they’re still bitey.” (57:54)

8. Fun Facts & Memorable Moments

• Why do squirrels freeze in front of cars?:
  • It’s not stupidity, but an evolutionary anti-predator behavior—waiting, then darting to evade a threat. Doesn’t work so well with cars. (53:39)
• Black squirrels:
  • Not a separate species, but a genetic color morph due to a recessive gene; more common in isolated urban populations like NYC, DC, Toronto. (55:23–57:30)
  • “It’s a recessive gene that causes an abnormal pigmentation…and you’re only going to get more of that…if these squirrels…are reproducing in a smaller area.” (56:49)
• Roadkill dioramas:
  • Chuck describes (with some reluctance) the odd mini-scenes people create using GI Joe figures and squirrel roadkill (27:28).

9. Listener Mail: The Three Sisters

• Kindergarten class in Baltimore shares knowledge about “the Three Sisters” (corn, beans, squash companion planting) with the hosts (58:11–59:32).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On changing attitudes:
  • “If you come close…to one of their trees…the squirrel…will sit there…and basically tell you to beat it, you punk, get away from my tree. That’s one of the great lovable things about squirrels. They have such huge personalities.” – Josh (11:08)
• On interactions with nature:
  • “Just…how crazy it is that there are these little mammals…they’re just out all over the place at all times. We’re surrounded by these little mammals.” – Chuck (10:01)
• On their ecological value:
  • “They’re known as the gardeners of the forest…” – Josh (26:10)
• On learning from each other:
  • “Squirrels can learn by observing other squirrels doing something particularly finding new ways to get food.” – Josh (35:58)
• On the evolution of city squirrels:
  • “By the mid to late nineteenth century…that’s when squirrels started to reestablish themselves and the way people saw squirrels started to change too…” – Josh (45:09)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:48 – Josh describes his personal transformation about squirrels
• 03:44 – 04:13 – Squirrel taxonomy and names
• 05:42 – 06:05 – Size and diversity of squirrels (from African pygmy to Bhutani giant)
• 06:55 – 07:10 – Anatomy and taxonomy up close
• 09:13 – 11:29 – Squirrel prevalence in Atlanta and squirrel personalities
• 15:49 – Division into ground, tree, and flying squirrels
• 17:15 – 18:34 – Prairie dog ‘towns’ and ground squirrel society
• 20:06 – Transition to tree squirrels
• 22:44 – Unique adaptation: rotating feet for climbing
• 25:53 – The gardening role of squirrels
• 28:33 – Introduction to flying squirrels
• 29:09–30:14 – Patagium and gliding abilities
• 34:39 – Squirrel diet and omnivory
• 35:08 – Incisor growth and self-sharpening
• 40:41 – Squirrel migrations (“stampedes”)
• 43:40 – The reintroduction of squirrels in urban parks
• 47:53 – Squirrels as invasive species in Europe
• 53:39 – Why squirrels dash in front of cars
• 55:23 – 57:30 – Black squirrels and genetics
• 58:11–59:32 – Listener Mail: Kindergarten class on “the Three Sisters”

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Final Thoughts

This episode delivers a fun, affectionate, and info-packed exploration of all things squirrel. The hosts blend personal anecdotes with natural history, scientific discoveries, and urban lore, embracing the complexity and value of these familiar rodents while answering age-old mysteries (like why they cross the road and where black squirrels come from). The tone throughout is playful, curious, and warmly appreciative of nature’s bushy-tailed wonders.

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Recommended If You Enjoy…

• Animal behavior and evolution
• Urban wildlife stories
• Eccentric trivia and heartfelt banter
• Learning about the ecological roles of overlooked species
• Surprising twists in cultural history

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Summary prepared for listeners who want the highlights and insights—from anatomy to adorable, science to city parks, mythology to personal tales—all about squirrels, ahoy!

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

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[Josh Clark]

longtime listeners of stuff youf should know are well aware that i've come a long

[Ad Voice 2]

way with my feelings on squirrels time was i saw them as a common pest who invaded my bird feeders it

[Josh Clark]

made me see red but then along

[Ad Voice 2]

came my precious four legged daughter momo who taught me to appreciate squirrels in

[Josh Clark]

ways i never thought possible now momo takes me and her mom to feed

[Ad Voice 2]

the squirrels in the park every morning and not a day goes by that

[Josh Clark]

i don't lift my gaze to the

[Ad Voice 2]

skies and thank mother earth for our squirrel friends squirrels are great squirrels ahoy

[Podcast Host]

welcome to stuff youf should know a production of iheartradio

[Josh Clark]

hey and welcome to the podcast i'm josh and there's chuck and jerry is here and this is one of the greatest episodes we'll ever do as far as i'm concerned squirrels

[Chuck Bryant]

all i really want is squirrels i've

[Josh Clark]

been that all day it's wonderful that is so wonderful it is that song isn't but you know yeah yeah if you go back and listen to bc boys you're like wow they've come a

[Chuck Bryant]

long way though in renouncing that stuff

[Josh Clark]

yeah for sure so we're talking not about the beastie boys surprisingly we're talking about squirrels in the morning it's squirrels every evening it's squirrels squirrels two syllables right i don't care however you want to say it they're from new york sure or boston i guess probably they say it similarly as well yeah but if you want to get fancy you can bust out their latin name they're members of the rodent order but for their family they're squirre day skewer a day nope skewer a day i look

[Chuck Bryant]

this one up all right sierradae

[Josh Clark]

i like mine more okay did you just

[Chuck Bryant]

toot on my pronunciation yeah even though

[Josh Clark]

it was correct did you give me a bronx cheer how how is it

[Chuck Bryant]

seuridi well let me do the person online sierra die okay is that emma who said that or sierra day was another but i think we've heard from people that d a e is da

[Josh Clark]

okay and that's fine if that's what it's called i'm just going to call them squirrels from now on but there's actually exactly like three hundred species of squirrels and it's kind of hard to wrap your head around because usually if you live in a place with squirrels meaning you live on a continent outside of antarctica yeah like everywhere basically there are probably a lot of squirrels living around you and they probably all look basically exactly alike because it seems like when they fill an ecological niche brother they fill it and there's not much room for competing species it seems like

[Chuck Bryant]

from my experience yeah i mean there are who helped us with this was

[Josh Clark]

this s this is a grabster yeah

[Chuck Bryant]

so grabster points out that you know you can find mountain squirrels and city squirrels and forest squirrels and jungle squirrels and desert squirrels you can find squirrels in alaska that hibernate with the lowest body temperature of any mammal they have body temperatures below freezing at times so cool you can go to africa and find one of the cutest squirrels the african pygmy squirrel which is as small as a tiny little mouse or you can go to bhutan and find the giant flying squirrel of bhutan that with their head and body is over two feet long with that tail they're huge

[Josh Clark]

no two feet long without the tail oh without the tail yes they're distressingly

[Chuck Bryant]

large yeah cause the squirrel tail we'll get into this but that's one of their signature features generally although depending on the species because there are three hundred species like you said more than or almost three hundred some of those tails are a little diminished but usually when you think squirrel you think of that

[Josh Clark]

big bushy tail yeah and not only when you think of squirrel you think of the tail but the greeks themselves or at the very least somebody decided that a greek term would make sense but skurios or skurios which roughly means something like shadow tail ed says shady butt i also saw shadow tail which is a reference to how squirrels sometimes hide in the shadow cast by their own tail it's pretty pretty clever but the squirrel is usually kind of the bushy tail of the squirrel is what makes a squirrel a squirrel one of the other things that really differentiates it from other rodents is the way that its jaw and muscle are attached to its skull there's actually a name for it cereomorphous zygomasoteric system hey look at you hooked on phonics works for me

[Chuck Bryant]

you even recorded the new pronunciation that's right you worked it right in there with the cereidae i adapted yeah because

[Josh Clark]

you should have heard it before when i was workshopping it that was the

[Chuck Bryant]

first take everybody we're not lying so

[Josh Clark]

those are two things that really kind of differentiate squirrels but as we've really gotten better and better at taxonomy with the introduction of genome mapping we can see like oh this animal that doesn't look anything like this animal is actually really closely related and with as with just about every other animal we've studied using modern genetic taxonomy squirrels our understanding of squirrels has really kind of changed shape of who's related to whom who's descended from who but we're kind of going to go the old school way which is differentiating them based on the their habitat and their behavior so there's three groups of squirrels that we're going to cover even though there's technically five subfamilies now ground squirrels tree squirrels and flying squirrels and before we go any further i officially dedicate this episode to momo one of the great lovers of squirrels of all time who changed me and my heart towards squirrels i used to be a squirrel hater chuck but

[Chuck Bryant]

love squirrels you remember oh yeah the

[Josh Clark]

bird feeder momo pointed out to me said dad squirrels are great i'm going to teach you to love them and

[Chuck Bryant]

she did yeah dogs and squirrels it's what was the disney it was either pixar or disney had an animated movie where the dog would just stop and go squirrel anytime there's a squirrel i

[Josh Clark]

can't remember which one it was i

[Chuck Bryant]

don't remember it wasn't that long ago but before we move on to ground squirrels it is kind of fun to learn that because of that dna analysis that we now have at our fingertips and fossil evidence we know that squirrels went to western north america thirty five to forty million years ago because squirrels like to get around as we will see they crossed a land bridge to eurasia about ten million years after that and then as soon as they could as soon as eurasia met up with africa about twenty million years ago they went all right we're in africa now too because squirrels like to get around they as you will see well we'll just tease that and say squirrels like to get around yeah i mean you

[Josh Clark]

put one tree next to another squirrel's gonna go from tree to tree put another tree squirrel's gonna go to the next tree and if you put trees all the way across one continent to another they're going to migrate that's just what they do and that's what they did but if i thought i loved squirrels before now that i know that they're actually native from thirty five million years back to north america i just think that's just the tops yeah and

[Chuck Bryant]

we talked about it before when you were having your bird feeder issue but you know atlanta is a city in the forest and we have tons and tons and tons of squirrels kind of everywhere along the east coast does but atlanta just has a lot of squirrels and as i was reading from my upstairs office there's a window not right in front of my face but sort of above me and our huge big beautiful oak in our front yard i'm doing this on squirrels i just look up for a second and i see four squirrels running around that tree together playing like circling it like a barber pole yeah i take my daughter to school this morning and i count the squirrels that i see on the way i counted twenty two squirrels that i just saw on a you know twelve minute car ride you hit one of them i have before it's the worst thing ever it is the worst but they're everywhere in atlanta and it hit me a while ago about how easy it is living here just or anywhere where there's a lot of squirrels just to sort of be like yeah the squirrels but it kind of hit me like how crazy it is that there are these little mammals that they're not hiding in holes generally like mice and stuff like that yeah like they're just out all over the place at all times we're surrounded by these little mammals

[Josh Clark]

yeah out and proud and if you come close too close to one of their trees when you're walking by and the squirrel doesn't like it he's going to sit there or she and chatter at you and basically tell you to beat it you punk get away from my tree that's one of the great lovable things about squirrels they have such huge personalities they're just so great chuck

[Chuck Bryant]

i remember my famous squirrel attack not too long ago when i went outside i got it on my doorbell camera and that squirrel leapt through the air and hit me in the leg it was a complete accident of course i don't think the squirrel was trying to kill me but you don't know they're just they're all over the place we're gonna get to all the fun stuff about the black squirrels of new york and why squirrels stop in the middle of the road when they go to across the street like there we found reasons for all this stuff which i love it's not that squirrels are dumb and we're going to reveal all that

[Josh Clark]

in this episode okay i'm a little excited i'm a little worked up i know it's a tad early but i say we take our first break okay we are so squirrel positive that i mean it's a great way to put

[Chuck Bryant]

it chuck all right so are we

[Josh Clark]

taking a break i say all right

[Chuck Bryant]

i need to calm down too and i guarantee you i'm going to go like blow my nose in the other room i'm going to see a squirrel i'll be right back

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[Josh Clark]

all right chuck so as promised we're going to break squirrels down into three groups ground tree flying or aerial and i i propose that we start with the ground squirrel sure many species of which you probably not you but i mean you dear listener and may i include too didn't realize were actual squirrels like brown brown groundhog chuck did

[Chuck Bryant]

not know that was a squirrel chipmunk i had a feeling that might have

[Josh Clark]

been a squirrel gosh they're so great too yeah i love chipmunks what about a groundhog you already said groundhog did i yeah okay well i'm loving a list of four things i'm swirling i'm swirling still at my love of scrap prairie dog yeah well that's what was coming out of my mouth next a

[Chuck Bryant]

prairie dog yeah prairie dog didn't know

[Josh Clark]

that what about that meerkat i didn't know that well that's because they're not but prairie dogs chipmunks and what was the other one marmots yeah marmots i hadn't brought them in and groundhogs those are all ground squirrels they're squirrels friends and that makes them pretty awesome but one of the reasons why they you wouldn't think they're squirrels is because in a lot of those species they lack that characteristic bushy tail yeah but then also they live almost a totally different life from their tree dwelling more famous

[Chuck Bryant]

cousins yeah i mean they might climb a tree but generally you're not going to see a groundhog or a prairie dog up in the tree if they need to you know for a brief time if they're trying to find food or something or like on the run from something trying to kill it they might go up in a tree but they generally hang out on the ground hence the name they love their rocky terrain chipmunks speaking for them are pretty solitary unless they're trying to reproduce but i know that you found some stuff was it on the prairie dogs that have their big families and colonies yeah

[Josh Clark]

i mean that's one of the main characteristics of ground squirrels in general aside from a couple but that they're much more communal than tree squirrels and in particular the largest town a prairie dog town is what they're called the largest prairie dog town on record is in texas because of course everything's bigger there but it was a colony of black tailed prairie dogs and this town chuck stretched one hundred miles wide wow by two hundred fifty miles long and contained four hundred million prairie dogs my gosh again ground squirrels all living in this kind of large community geez i mean that's like that's like a chinese mega city or something like that times ten

[Chuck Bryant]

yeah so are these the ones that tend to stay grouped with their own sex

[Josh Clark]

no those tend to be either tree squirrels or flying squirrels these are more the the because they live in communal groups and kinship is a big deal ground squirrels like prairie dogs tend to have really good ability to scent to smell the scent of other ground squirrels so they can tell like who's a blood relation who's not and they've done studies to see you know if a like if a ground squirrel they have a lot of really sophisticated calls too because they're alerting others to the presence of a rattlesnake or a hawk or something so they're really talkative and they're they have a lot of sophisticated different communication and they found that like a prairie dog that will stand up and take the time to risk its own life to alert others it's actually alerting the others that it's alerting are actually related by blood and the groundhog or the prairie dog knows this because it can smell its blood relations among all these other you know extended family members in the town there's not much

[Chuck Bryant]

cuter than a squirrel sitting up on its rear haunches yeah whether it's i mean obviously those prairie dogs you know they do it for a living but even our eastern gray squirrels sit up on those back legs if they want to work a nut with their little

[Josh Clark]

front paw pads yeah or a chipmunk on its back legs it doesn't get

[Chuck Bryant]

much cuter little busy hands goodness me yeah all right so we can move on to our tree squirrel this is they're known as arboreal squirrels obviously because they are tree squirrels and this is when you're talking your eastern gray squirrel this is not a groundhog this is not a prairie dog this is your dyed in the wool cute little fluffy tailed sort of you know they're called gray but they're sort of a light brownish color generally although the colors do range as we'll see and these are the ones that you're going to find all over atlanta jumping around climbing around leaping at podcasters in their front lawn they spend most of the time i mean you see them on the ground plenty but they live in trees they nest in trees called drays or drays or drays spelled with an e or

[Josh Clark]

an a right and you probably if you've ever looked up and seen a mass of like sticks and twigs in a leafless tree in the middle of winter you're looking at a squirrel's nest called a dray and this is where you were asking about them staying in like same sex groups apparently in the winter even though the tree squirrel does not live in a communal society like a ground squirrel does they're still social they still interact with one another they play they chase they chase one another off they like mate but when it gets really cold tree squirrels will kind of group their heat together by staying in a dray communally up to like thirty members it's adorable yeah it is very adorable i want to do a little exercise here real quick chuck okay i want you to use your imagination my eyes are closed imagine a very cold winter day the wind's blowing snow's being carried on the wind and it's passing by just outside a woodpecker hole and we're inside that woodpecker hole i love it dark the light is very very faint because it's kind of an overcast snowy day to begin with but we're also inside a tree in an old woodpecker hole and it's lined with a bunch of different leaves and there's half a dozen or so squirrels all kind of snuggled together sleeping sharing their warmth as the winter day passes by outside and they snooze an afternoon away fat on acorns that they all just ate oh boy isn't that amazing i

[Chuck Bryant]

almost fell asleep you're real robert frost my friend thank you thank you that

[Josh Clark]

was something else i like to think robert redford crossed with robert frost but

[Chuck Bryant]

sure well you know robert redford if you look in the mirror but robert frost when you pick a pen up

[Josh Clark]

with the touch of robert goulet if

[Chuck Bryant]

you sang it surely oh man that really did almost put me to sleep that's quite nice i love that scene so here's a little fun adaptation that squirrels have if you see a tree squirrel running down a tree face first with with little resistance just like it was made to do it it's because it is and they have those little claws of course that really helps but if you look closely or if you look up a picture rather and you see like a still image you will notice that they have the ability to and ed says they can turn their feet around they really kind of just turn their whole back legs around backwards to where those claws are gripping on the way down and that's why they're you know it's like the perfect adaptation to be able to run up and

[Josh Clark]

down a tree so have you ever watched one do that up close sure so anytime i've seen that there if you look their legs because they're turned around it kicks kind of their elbows out a little bit and they climb down it looks a little different and i've noticed that it triggers the part of my lizard brain that's like a spider alert that's like that comes that's triggered by that so it's like a giant furry spider is coming down to some little part of my brain that sends off an alarm and it's really off putting sometimes until i you know the larger part the executive functioning part of my brain is like it's a squirrel don't worry but there's that one just zap of like this is weird and scary for a second but it happens to me from time to time when they come down the tree like

[Chuck Bryant]

that well it can be a little startling you know if you're going to take out the trash or something and your trash can is next to a big live oak like ours is and there are two or more squirrels that are they seem i don't know what they're doing they seem like they have a beef with one another but maybe they're just playing chase but when they're really boogieing up and down and around a tree right as you walk upon it it can be a little bit like oh okay i read that when

[Josh Clark]

one was chasing the other it's a part of the mating ritual oh okay

[Chuck Bryant]

so that's embarrassing for them i don't

[Josh Clark]

know if that's across the board but i saw that in at least one place all right i like knowing that

[Chuck Bryant]

here's another cool thing about squirrels they have all kinds of squirrels have scent glands and it depends on the species where that scent gland is located it can be near their little bum hole it can be near their mouth in the corners of their mouth can be on their back but in the case of the tree squirrel they have their scent glands on their feet and sweat glands on the bottom of their feet and they are a squirrel that buries their food over large large areas sometimes like up to twenty five acres can be their habitat where they're burying and hiding food and they are literally every time they walk to bury something they're leaving a little scent trail that they can go back and pick up ideally but it's not a perfect system sometimes they will lose stuff and not be able to go back but what they have then done is planted a tree

[Josh Clark]

yeah which brings up their huge ecological role which is like planting new forests like keeping forests healthy by forgetting about nuts and that nut is actually a seed and it grows into a new tree that the squirrel helped move away from the tree it's amazing expanding its

[Chuck Bryant]

range they're known as the gardeners of

[Josh Clark]

the forest yeah and we taught we did a whole short stuff on squirrels bearing nuts and i remember one of the things that came up was there was a study that found that if they if they know they're being watched by another squirrel they'll fake dig a hole and then won't drop the nut in it and then we'll go somewhere else and mislead a squirrel that they think is watching yeah they'll look around

[Chuck Bryant]

first and be like did anyone see

[Josh Clark]

that yeah i think i'm good todd was watching i better not drop the nut in this hole he'll come along

[Chuck Bryant]

so that's what the i'm sorry not the flying but the tree squirrels that's how they use their scent the ground squirrels we should say mainly use their scent glands to mark their territory and you know because they're all about their clan or their colony to sort of mark their territory and find out if someone is a part of their clan

[Josh Clark]

yeah and then also as far as scents go i saw somewhere that some kinds of ground squirrels that are prey to rattlesnakes will actually find shed rattlesnake skin and rub it on themselves they'll chew it up and rub it on themselves to give themselves a rattlesnake scent to throw off rattlesnakes they camouflage their

[Chuck Bryant]

scent that's pretty cool yeah i wonder if they ever wear it and just like fashion a couple of holes and

[Josh Clark]

stick their arms through yeah and they brag that they killed it yeah have

[Chuck Bryant]

you oh man i shouldn't even mention this i'm going to mention it have you because it is roadkill but have you ever seen the pictures of the squirrel roadkill with the little gi joe action figures no just look it up they aren't squirrels that someone killed someone will take a roadkill picture of a squirrel and they'll take the little gi joe figures as if they were big game hunters and they'll have their guns and they'll have one leg up on the squirrel's head as if it was their trophy and the squirrel looks positively giant next to the little action figures

[Josh Clark]

and it's kind of funny i'll have to check that one out i don't

[Chuck Bryant]

want to encourage people maybe i shouldn't have even said anything well i don't

[Josh Clark]

know if you're encouraging people to like swerve onto a squirrel you know there's probably that one guy or kill a

[Chuck Bryant]

squirrel to do that but maybe just look it up on the internet if you want to see that don't recreate

[Josh Clark]

it if you kill a squirrel and we find out about it we're coming

[Chuck Bryant]

to your house i know okay with the ghost of that squirrel yeah that we'll introduce to your attic there you

[Josh Clark]

go so have we moved on to flying squirrels yet yeah let's do it

[Chuck Bryant]

those are you know the old story when we had one growing up for a little while you probably don't remember but my uncle gave us his flying squirrel to watch for a while and he would leap from the curtains on the other side of the room onto my shoulder and then when we went out of town apparently they said the squirrel got out but now that i'm an adult i realize that the cat

[Josh Clark]

ate the squirrel oh man yeah just

[Chuck Bryant]

to recap that childhood trauma that's wow okay but for a little while we had a flying squirrel in our home

[Josh Clark]

for a brief shining moment that's the upshot so a flying squirrel and i thought this i thought they were fairly rare apparently they're as common as tree squirrels in some places the reason that you think they're rare is because they're nocturnal so we're usually sleeping when they're

[Chuck Bryant]

out and about i love thinking about those things just flying around all night

[Josh Clark]

yeah and flying is right man i saw ed says that they can glide up to one hundred fifty feet i saw three hundred in some cases wow and that's what they're doing they're gliding they're not flying they have no means of like propulsion but they have a skin flap they've evolved a skin flap that is you know the batsuit that people like you know skydive with that's that is based basically one hundred percent on the the flying squirrels membranes between its front legs and hind legs that it can you know spread out when it jumps and it just catches the air and they can move it this way and that and use their tail as a rudder and go one hundred fifty feet in a pretty purposeful direction

[Chuck Bryant]

too did you say what the name of the flap was no do you

[Josh Clark]

want to no i'd probably screw it up

[Chuck Bryant]

i'm gonna go with patagium that's great i wonder what they call that with i wonder what they call that in the in the flying suit biz extreme flying suit biz i don't know

[Josh Clark]

and i think they call them bat suits but that's that's a misnomer if

[Chuck Bryant]

you ask me those i gotta say i mean i'm not into any of that stuff i would never do it but those videos are amazing and it's oh i know as close as humans have come i think to flying it

[Josh Clark]

feels like agreed yeah i would have to have probably a lobotomy to to actually try that it would take that radical of a personality change for me

[Chuck Bryant]

to try well and i mean sure that kind of thing that's the most extreme like years and years of training yes skydiving training and stuff like that you don't jump into a batsuit no

[Josh Clark]

no no definitely not but even if you do you know once you get to that point like i can't imagine how dangerous that is you know if you smack into something you're going really

[Chuck Bryant]

fast yeah yeah you're toast yeah and

[Josh Clark]

that happens sadly but i get the impression that it's the rush is worth

[Chuck Bryant]

the risk that's right and speaking of risk there are endangered flying squirrels the carolina northern flying squirrel and we talked a little bit about these little land bridges that are starting to pop up in the united states over overpasses and freeway crossings and i just read today there's one in la that's opening up that's like one hundred sixty feet wide i can't remember the name of it it's named after someone and to allow cougars and mountain lions to pass and all kinds of animals and they're using you know they have done studies for squirrels and that they found tagged like radio tagged squirrels are foraging and building on the other side of these massive freeways thanks to these bridges like it's been proven to work yeah for sure

[Josh Clark]

i think it's called the robert evans memorial animal land bridge baby yeah if

[Chuck Bryant]

only

[Josh Clark]

so that actually kind of leads us to a quote i ran across chuck because if you put like i was saying if you can kind of connect a tree to another tree which really ties into that rewilding episode because you're you're using you're connecting core to core via corridor basically is what what they're doing with that that there was an old saying that before well not too long ago i think in into the eighteenth century maybe even early nineteenth century that there was so many chestnut trees in in north america that a squirrel could make it from maine to georgia without ever touching yeah where did

[Chuck Bryant]

we cover that in was it i don't remember i remember that factoid that's

[Josh Clark]

a great one so it really kind of goes to show like there used to be a lot more forest in the united states but there were also a lot more squirrels because there's a positive correlation between mass producing trees which are chestnut beech oak trees that produce nuts that squirrels and other forest animals eat and the number and population density of squirrels in an area you have a lot of mass producing trees you're going to have a lot of squirrels because again they fill their ecological niche

[Chuck Bryant]

to basically bursting yeah and they you know bursting with food because they are opportunistic eaters is what ed says and that's a pretty good way to say it because while they well obviously if they can get fruit or nuts and seeds that's the stock of their diet but they will eat whatever keeps them alive they will eat insects and fungus and they actually spread fungus which is great they eat roots they have found little tiny eggs and little tiny birds and little tiny lizards in the guts of squirrels so they technically are omnivores which is just to say squirrels are remarkable at staying alive and they will eat your garbage they will eat whatever they need to but that's only if they're not finding the nuts and the seeds and stuff like that which there are generally plenty plenty of in the

[Josh Clark]

united states and one reason that they're they're suited for nuts or that nuts are suited for them is because they have two sets of incisors i believe up and down is the technical term and they grow constantly throughout their lifetime i think they grow something like is this even possible that i'm seeing it six inches a year well i mean

[Chuck Bryant]

they're constantly grinding them down so i think if a squirrel was in a coma they could have six inch fangs

[Josh Clark]

that's crazy and then apparently if they don't continuously grind them down and they kept growing they would grow through the top and the bottom of their face a la lisa simpson that time she needed braces but that's crazy so they use these very very hard nuts like chestnut or pecan or walnut shell to impart it's a food source but as they're getting to the food source they're keeping their teeth ground down which apparently they have to do all the time

[Chuck Bryant]

that's pretty amazing squirrels also like a little sweet treat every now and then they have found red squirrels in maine that will tap sugar maple trees they make little bite marks in the tree and then they just say all right do your thing and they come back a few days later and that trap has hardened up and run out a little bit and that is just a little tiny sweet treat for a squirrel

[Josh Clark]

that's right it's pretty awesome they also found that squirrels can learn by observing other squirrels doing something particularly finding new ways to get food they're adept at

[Chuck Bryant]

that okay so they see todd doing something and they say not a bad idea let's give that a shot yeah

[Josh Clark]

that todd really came around yeah and

[Chuck Bryant]

if you'll notice i think we kind of skipped over this if we didn't mention australia squirrels i think used to be in australia but aren't so much now and is it a mystery or is it just the obvious that the australians were like soup's on mate i

[Josh Clark]

don't know i didn't see that anywhere but i know that they introduced the eastern gray and then in perth they introduced the indian palm which is like if you mash together an eastern gray squirrel and a chipmunk that would be an indian palm squirrel but apparently they both died out i don't know if it's a mystery or not like you're saying but supposedly there's some feral colonies that escape from zoos at least in perth so there are wild squirrels in australia but they were introduced in the nineteenth century which is actually a trend as we'll see but i say before we tackle all that we take a break how about that all right well

[Chuck Bryant]

we'll take the break and we'll talk about squirrel migration right up to this foreign

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[Josh Clark]

okay chuck so as i was saying like back before pre colonial days in particular but also even into the nineteenth century i think even the nineteen sixties there were reports of massive numbers of squirrels basically stampeding yeah they call them squirrel migrations and they have been documented enough times that it's not an anomaly but they are fairly rare and today they've kind of figured out that there aren't dense enough populations of squirrels to ever have a genuine like squirrel stampede like they had before but there used to be so many of them that every once in a while thousands to tens of thousands to tens to tens of thousands of squirrels would pass generally in like a big wave over an area and apparently it was quite a thing to

[Chuck Bryant]

see i imagine it was and this happened because there would just be a really big fruitful year for squirrel food tons of availability and they would you know they would boom in numbers because they go to where the food is and usually if that is followed by or i guess historically when that was followed by a really bad year like the rain you know didn't work out so great for producing nuts and seeds and stuff and fruit that all of a sudden you've got a ton of squirrels in an area that are all looking around going oh what's the deal and they're opportunists so they said all right we're getting out of here we're going to where the food is let's go everybody and they would do it

[Josh Clark]

all at once yeah all at once for some reason and so these migrations they'd be running through the forest they'd be running across fields they'd be swimming across rivers and apparently in at least one account i saw they would be gulped up by bass in the rivers and i can't imagine seeing anything worse than a squirrel being eaten by a

[Chuck Bryant]

that seems unnatural yeah but there were

[Josh Clark]

so many of them this is also at a time where squirrels were roundly among basically everyone living in america viewed as vermin as invaders as things that were unwanted but also a tasty food source too so anytime there was a squirrel stampede the yokels would run out with their sticks and bags and beat squirrels to death and then cook them and sell their pelts and do all sorts of things with them and one of the reasons why they were viewed as vermin chuck is because on these squirrel migrations and other times where they were just you know if you were unlucky with your planting those squirrels might see as a food source the crops you just planted all those seeds and would dig them up and ruin your year's crops in a day or so so people didn't like squirrels for a very long time and this idea of squirrels being everywhere these little mammals living among us like you were talking about earlier that's fairly new and that's actually very deliberate and purposeful because squirrels were basically gone up until about the mid to late nineteenth century in america yeah

[Chuck Bryant]

i mean between being hunted because people hated them on their farms like you said people and people still and like generally in certain parts of like appalachia still eat squirrel on the menu it is a little gamey from what i'm told i'm never going to eat a squirrel but they still use pelts but that kind of you know just like they would eat any larger mammal and use their pelts they would just get crafty with you know as small as a squirrel and certainly in times of you know real need you know small rodents would come in handy on the menu back then but they were almost gone we started growing more urban in the eighteen hundreds obviously and they were killing squirrels as fast as they could and in the eighteen forties and fifties there were so few squirrels that they were introduced to city parks but not many at first they were just like this weird curiosity where you would go out kind of like bird watching and you would like try to spot a squirrel running around because it was such a novel thing but then by the time frederick law olmsted who by the way deserves his own podcast came along and really introduced the idea of these really large city parks and urban parks they introduced a lot of squirrels to these parks and they really really like that's kind of why we have the squirrels we have today was from this movement to reintroduce them in a big way to urban parks yeah and i

[Josh Clark]

mean we talk kind of a lot about that whole idea in our central park episode this idea that you know they just kept building the city and building the city and building the city and people started going crazy because there weren't green spaces so that brought the parks in and then the idea of adding animals to the park just to kind of naturalize it even more that squirrels played a huge role in that and not only you know in central park but also it started out in i believe philadelphia and then followed by boston and so by the mid to late nineteenth century that's when squirrels started to reestablish themselves and the way that people saw squirrels started to change too and there was this idea that they weren't vermin anymore don't shoot them please try not to hit them with a stick instead let's go to the park spend some time outside and bring some nuts with you and maybe feed the squirrels and not only you feed the squirrels but you got a little kid that little kid wants to hit that squirrel with a stick so bad because kids are awful like that good luck but you can actually use squirrels feeding squirrels as a way to teach kids to have compassion to be upstanding morally to have charity and that was kind of how the the whole interaction between humans and squirrels was kind of framed around that time like the late nineteenth

[Chuck Bryant]

early twentieth century yeah the boy scout co founder ernest thompson seton said that squirrels and introducing them to boys in general would say would cure them of their tendency toward cruelty but i said good luck a second ago how do you hit it i mean i guess if there's a stampede but you show me a kid that can get a squirrel and hit it with a stick and that's a future olympian sure there's no way those things are so fast but don't try to do it kids

[Josh Clark]

definitely not no don't even practice that don't try to qualify for the olympics and that because you'll show up to the olympics will be like we don't have that that's not one of our sports what do you think these days

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[Chuck Bryant]

so these days we've kind of come full circle into just sort of letting squirrels be there are you know if you're a hunter in the united states and it may be the tradition in your family if you live out in the country to start off your child with hunting squirrels with a little twenty two rifle or something to as practice to teach young hunters i'm certainly not into that but i'm not going to judge you if that's your thing and like i said people still do eat squirrel in certain parts of the united states today i guess we can talk i mean we found a lot of extra fun stuff well well let's

[Josh Clark]

talk about so we were talking about how they're viewed in america depending on where you are in the world and depending on the squirrel you're talking about they're actually they can be viewed quite negatively i remember in our rewilding episode we talked about how eastern gray squirrels are considered an invasive species in italy where they call them american killer squirrels and there's also an issue with eastern gray squirrels in europe where they've killed off most of the eurasian red squirrels over there that's true they've just out competed them it's not like they've you know choked them or anything like that they're like almost twice as big they're a lot more ornery and they've just kind of diminished the number of eurasia red squirrels in the uk so much so that three quarters of the population lives in scotland and i would just like to direct everybody to the scottish squirrels website go to scottish squirrels dot org dot uk and this is very important about and on their about page the header image is maybe the cutest squirrel you'll ever see in your entire

[Chuck Bryant]

life is that the one you sent me and jerry yes isn't that the cutest squirrel ever it's pretty cute you also sent something else if you go to rspca dot org uk adviceandwellfare wildlife animals graysquirrels feeding or you could just google feeding squirrels and using nest boxes you're going to see a squirrel with a chicken wing in its mouth that's

[Josh Clark]

pretty true it's better than a bass eating a squirrel i'll tell you that

[Chuck Bryant]

yeah that's a good article you sent because it talks about if you like squirrels around which i certainly do creating a good habitat for them trees obviously is a good thing to have not cutting down trees is a great thing to do if you can avoid it yeah and then having squirrel safe bird feeders and this means not that the squirrels can't get to that seed because they as you have attested they will find a way life finds a way right but it won't trap the squirrel

[Josh Clark]

inside of it no that's a big one too they also kind of get into they get all macbeth or hamlet which one was to be or not

[Chuck Bryant]

to be why are you asking me

[Josh Clark]

this and putting because they get all hamlet or macbeth on whether or not to feed squirrels there you go so they're like you could feed squirrels but really you shouldn't and the rspca takes i think a pretty sensible tact which is build a habitat for the squirrels and that you're planting the right kind of trees that provide a place for them to nest and a place for them to get food and then just step back and enjoy them that should be enough if you're like you know me and mo and you go on walks or whatever and you want to feed the squirrels there are some things that are better for squirrels than others and it's basically you want to give them what they would naturally eat which is mast unshelled nuts like walnuts chestnuts acorns hazelnuts that kind of thing sunflower seeds probably huh yes but not black safflower seeds i saw that if you are one of those people who can't stand squirrels raiding your bird feeder black safflower seeds are they'll eat them but they're not crazy about them and most birds like them instead so that's one way to do it but you can also feed them vegetables too and chuck they included this little tip that i didn't realize but if you if you're feeding squirrels or leaving food out for squirrels in your yard and you have a garden that you care about you don't really want the squirrel taking the food and then burying it elsewhere so they said if you're going to feed them fruits and vegetables shred it because the squirrels is going to eat it there it's not going to try to bury it i thought that was smart

[Chuck Bryant]

yeah and if you have the nuts don't give them like honey roasted almonds like unsweetened unsalted stuff i have set up you know i have a camp cam at the family camp trail cam and it's it's keyed in on my deer feeder that i got which is corn and i've seen one deer but almost every night i have scores of raccoons nice and almost every day well every day i have squirrels crows and now daily turkeys visiting oh neat lots and lots of turkeys so i don't care that the deer aren't visiting all kinds of animals are coming around it's always fun to watch on the camp

[Josh Clark]

cam that is very cool one thing you want to be careful with with peanuts too is giving them raw peanuts because peanut can carry an aflatoxin which is very it's not good it's not good for squirrels it's not good for humans either it's a type of fungus i think that actually is not only carcinogen carcinogens it can actually like just kill you on the spot neurologically speaking so you actually want roasted peanuts but not salted or anything like that so raw like plain roasted peanuts or what's even better because it helps with their teeth are mass nuts again like pecans walnuts that kind of stuff but a lot of people say don't feed squirrels because you're actually what you're doing is as we've seen if squirrels know that there's a lot of food they're going to mate mate mate mate mate and there's going to be a lot of squirrels and they're going to become dependent on that additional food supply and they might start showing up at your neighbor's house they might start burrowing into your attic there's just a lot of there's a lot of things to take into consideration i guess yeah well the family

[Chuck Bryant]

camp there's nothing but wood so i

[Josh Clark]

hope we get overrun so i agree with you so you found a couple of cool things including why squirrels seem to dash in front of your car

[Chuck Bryant]

when you're driving right yeah and again i love that we've just finally found answers for this stuff because this is kind of a fun non obnoxious fact to jump on to drop on someone if you're driving around a neighborhood and the squirrel does that thing and people go why do squirrels do that we can say well it's actually an evolutionary instinct to get away from a predator so if you run out and you initially freeze when there's a predator the predator is sort of like a football player waiting for the defensive player to make their move and then you go the opposite way with a little juke and that's what the squirrel's doing they go out they freeze when they see that car and if it was a predator they would wait on the predator to sort of make a move and then they can quickly go in a direction that is really comes in handy when it's a predator when it's a car that's going generally in a big hulking straight line it's not the same thing but a squirrel has a squirrel brain and it doesn't realize that so that's why a squirrel will jump out in a street see a car and just stop they're not dumb they're waiting on you to make some hawk like move which doesn't happen in the car so what you do is you just slow down and check your rear view mirror don't slam on the brakes or anything but you know they're everywhere and i've hit i think maybe two squirrels in my adult life so it's not like the most common thing to run

[Josh Clark]

over a squirrel yeah i ran over one once and my brother in law said that he was on his way to buy a birthday present for his young kid who was waiting forever for their dad to come back for his birthday present for his party yeah it was not helpful

[Chuck Bryant]

and what about these black squirrels emily and i were taking a walk through brooklyn one day and saw a black black black squirrel not just a hint of black and it was the coolest thing i've ever seen and i've since seen a few more here and there in new york and we have the answer there too right

[Josh Clark]

yes they seem to be so they they used to think that they were freaks of nature i think as one naturalist put it like years and years ago and somebody said i don't know if that's true i think these actually might have been the dominant version they seem to be closely related to eastern grays if not just a type of eastern gray like a different breed of that species but they were saying they used to possibly be the dominant version and they got edged out by the eastern grey and so they're there they're just kind of infrequently they infrequently appear but there are parts of north america where they seem to populate more than others like new york yumi and i used to see them in dc toronto they're all over toronto and ontario in general from what i understand so it seems like from what i could tell that they think that they were there already and now we're just kind of seeing them in like this kind of moment in time where their numbers have diminished tremendously where if we went back in time we might see a lot more does that seem accurate yeah i

[Chuck Bryant]

mean it's just genetics it's a recessive gene that causes an abnormal pigmentation and you will you know you're only going to get more of that recessive gene if these squirrels or any you know creature is reproducing in a in a smaller area so if you've got a contained population like let's say an island like new york or ontario roosevelt island has a lot of them yeah you're just going to see more of them so dc is a little not inexplicable but it makes more sense in new york because you're just going to get more you know more of this recessive gene happening in a small area so

[Josh Clark]

not at all my explanation then no

[Chuck Bryant]

it's your explanation no you nailed it and this was an article the mysterious black squirrels of nyc from what turns out to be a really good website called untappedcities dot com and writer michelle young it's really cool read yeah so

[Josh Clark]

you got anything else on squirrels nothing

[Chuck Bryant]

hug a squirrel embrace a squirrel but

[Josh Clark]

but don't do that don't and if you do feed them don't don't let them eat out of your hand yeah because they'll bite you even though they're grateful they're still bitey and since i said that everybody it's time for listener mail

[Chuck Bryant]

that's right and it's a great listener mail because we get to say hello to a kindergarten class which is always fun hello hi mister chuck and mister josh my name is katie it's either fink or finky and i'm emailing with my kindergarten class in baltimore city we sometimes listen to your show and we were so excited when you heard you mention the three sisters in the recent watermelon episode we actually spent a whole weekend learning about the three sisters this fall and wanted to share with you our excitement we hope you do a short stuff on them soon we definitely will if you need some three sisters experts we wanted to tell you these facts that we learned this year oh yes and here's a little short list native americans would plant fish first in the ground to prepare the soil make it healthy and rich love that the corn grows so tall it holds up the beans and the squash keeps the soil moist so the other two sisters have enough water to stay hydrated and finally all three of the sisters are dried so that people can save them to eat later in the winter which is a great benefit so we really want to share our knowledge in case you do a short stuff thanks for reading love miss finkies or miss fink's kindergarten class and like i said this is in baltimore city man that's

[Josh Clark]

really impressive like i remember in kindergarten i was learning red red red i wasn't learning about the three sisters and ground covers like keeping the moisture in place for the other two i mean come on that's really impressive this week red i think it was more like that month yeah february is red month right oh that's great well thank you miss fink or finkies class hats off to you guys keep it up and yes we will definitely do a three sisters episode someday dedicated to you guys right chuck for sure if you want to get in touch with us you can too via email at stuffpodcastheartradio dot com

[Podcast Host]

stuff youf should know is a production of iheartradio for more podcasts my heart radio visit the iheartradio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows

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[Josh Clark]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Josh Clark]

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