Squirrels … do you love them or hate them?

Squirrels can evoke some very positive or negative comments from people in the love them or hate them vein.  Some people think they are vermin and not to be tolerated and other people think they are industrious cute little creatures.  We are firmly in the latter camp.  Here at Kawaii Animals HQ we have a gorgeous little squirrel who comes to see us.  Although we think he is drawn more to the hazelnut tree in the garden than to seeing us! But he’s a forgetful little squirrel.  We have lots of little hazelnut seedlings all over the garden which are growing from nuts that he has forgotten to dig up.

Here are some fascinating squirrel facts for you:

• There are over 265 species of squirrels worldwide, Australia and Antarctica being the notable exceptions, and they range in size from the African Pygmy squirrel at 10cm long to the Indian Giant squirrel which reaches around 92cm long.
• Squirrels are very trusting animals, and are one of the few wild animal species which will eat out of a person’s hand.
• Squirrels tend to run in erratic paths.  This is intended to deceive potential predators about its chosen direction.
• Baby squirrels are called kits or kittens.
• Squirrels are amazing little creatures. They have padded feet that cushion them from jumps up to 6 meters, their eyes are high on their head and placed so that they can see a large amount of their surroundings without having to turn their heads, and they are very quick runners … they can run at up to 20 mph.
• Squirrels communicate with each other with various sounds and by scent marking. But they also uses their tails as signalling devices, twitching it to alert other squirrels to potential danger.
• One last squirrel fact: flying squirrels don’t actually fly, they glide.  They use a special membrane which stretches from their wrists to their ankles.  It’s almost as if the squirrel was carrying its own little parachute!

Thanks to www.livescience.com and www.onekind.org for our squirrel facts.

We have a couple of squirrels in our range.  Click here to have a look at them.  If you want to see lots of squirrel pictures from around the world click here to have a look at our Pinterest board all about squirrels.