Squirrel Psychology

868 Words4 Pages
In both reviews, the purpose is to show how squirrels defend themselves against snakes, one of their predators. Instead of running or succumbing without a fight, the squirrels battle back against their hunters. Snakes, hungry for food, sneak into squirrel burrows at night and eat their young. Since the squirrels are asleep at this time, the parents of the young have no way to defend their children against the snakes. Through evolution, change of traits in offspring, the squirrels are now equipped with some methods to defend themselves. The two reviews each show a way that squirrels protect themselves and their young from hungry snakes. One way that squirrels protect themselves is by producing rattlesnake scent to dissuade the snakes from their…show more content…
Based off of the hypothesis that squirrels give off the infrared signal to scare away rattlesnakes, one experiment used an infrared video camera to record the reaction of squirrels when they see a rattlesnake and a gopher snake. The scientists also watched the reactions of the snakes to the squirrels when they tail flagged. When the rattlesnake approached the squirrel, the squirrel tail flagged, giving off infrared signal from their entire body. This resulted in the snake to be more cautious, almost defensive when approaching the squirrel. When the gopher snake approached the squirrel, the squirrel tail flagged but did not give off infrared signal in its tail. Since gopher snakes can’t read infrared signal, the squirrel didn’t waste heat in attempted to produce infrared light in its tail. The tail flagging had no impact on the hunting gopher snake. In the second experiment, scientists built a robot squirrel with the ability to tail flag. In the first interaction with the rattlesnake, the robot squirrel tail flagged but did not release infrared signal from its tail. This resulted in no change of the snake’s hunting methods. However, when the robot squirrel tail flagged and released an infrared signal, the rattlesnake became more careful. From these two experiments, scientists concluded that tail flagging makes snakes more cautious and less likely to enter a squirrel’s burrow, since…show more content…
The five hypotheses were that the snake smell could help hide the squirrels since snakes hunt via scent; other predators would also leave the squirrels alone, wanting to avoid snakes; the scent could help warn other squirrels; squirrels in combat could confuse their opponent with snake smell; lastly, fleas and ticks would be repelled by the snake scent. In experiment one there were four pieces of paper each with four different scents: water, snake, squirrel and snake & squirrel scent. The amount of time the snake spent licking each paper was recoded. Licking the squirrel scent the most, the experiment showed that the secretion of snake scent will indeed help hide the squirrels. In experiment two, squirrels were watched and how they reacted to snake scent and snakes. The results showed that squirrels acted the same with and without the snake skins. In the third experiment, fleas could choose between living on a squirrel with or without snake scent. With the flea’s decisions varying, it showed that the snake scent did not help to protect squirrels from fleas. The scientists concluded that all of the hypotheses were inaccurate except for the first hypothesis. Since squirrels released snake smell in their burrows, there was a greater chance that the snake wouldn’t enter because the squirrel smell would be hidden (Clucas et al.
Open Document