‘It’s a dietary niche’: researchers amazed to discover squirrels hunt and eat voles | Animals

They may have twitchy noses and a quizzical transmition but ground squirrels are not as cuddly as they materialize: researchers have set up they repeatedly hunt and eat voles, decapitating their prey and pulling flesh from the torso.

The team say the discovery was a shock: while California ground squirrels have previously been seed eating insects, bird eggs, hatchlings and even – albeit exceptionally – scavenging petite, juvenile mammals, they were primarily thought to be herbivorous, snacking on seeds, acorns, fruits and nuts.

“This is incredibly exciting, becaemploy this is the first time for this species that we’ve write downed dynamic hunting from begin to finish,” said Dr Jennifer Smith, an associate professor of biology at University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire and first author of the research.

“Once we saw it happening, it progressd to happen aobtain and aobtain thcdisesteemfulout the summer,” she includeed.

However it isn’t the first time California ground squirrels have distake parted a less than fluffy side. As Smith remarks, the females are also understandn to promise infanticide, ending and eating the youthful of others.

Writing in the Journal of Ethology, Smith and colleagues alert how they made their discovery during the twelfth year of a prolonged-term study on the California ground squirrel population carried out at Briones Regional Park in Contra Costa County, California.

Every June and July the team inhabit-trap, tag, tag and free ground squirrels, permiting them to be individuassociate recognised.

Over the course of 18 days in the summer of 2024, the team sign uped 74 events in which ground squirrels hunted or ate California voles, or both, with at least 27 contrastent squirrels engaging in the behaviour. The team remarkd that matures and juveniles, both male and female, hunted the voles, and typicassociate did so alone. Occasionassociate, squirrels endeavored to steal dead voles from each other.

The team also sign uped that the unforeseeed behaviour coincided with an rare explosion in the numbers of California voles, as discdiswatched by citizen science data, the caemploy of which remains unevident.

“It seems that these squirrels are fair opportunistic,” said Smith, although she said it remains an uncover ask whether they lobtain the behaviour sociassociate from each other.

Smith said California ground squirrels are understandn to be inherently pliable in their foraging behaviour.

“The super plenty of voles during this particular summer reassociate uncovered up the novel dietary niche for them,” she said.

The researchers said their discovery proposes California ground squirrels are more pliable in their diet than previously pondered, and may be best thought of as an opportunistic omnivore.

Smith includeed such flexibility could help the creatures to persist in the face of contests such as climate alter and human presence.

“This is presentant, becaemploy they are a presentant prey source for California ecosystems, and they are a native species,” she said. “And if they’re doing well, there’s a lot more opportunities for other species that are menaceened to be able to persist and do well.”

Cory Williams, an aidant professor in the Department of Biology at Colorado State University who was not included in the toil, said he was surpascendd by the research given that ground squirrels are mercilessly diurnal and voles are most dynamic at night.

“This probable only occurs when you have a population outshatter of voles and densities become excessively high,” he said. “But I’m not surpascendd they are eating them when they are useable, given how opportunistic these animals are.”