Nugget

If you see an all-white or all-black squirrel in North America, it’s probably a gray or fox squirrel in disguise. The black variation is a result of melanism, a development of dark pigment that occurs in many animals. White fur could be caused by albinism, although many white squirrels lack the distinctive pink or red eyes, instead owing their…[Read more]

Thanks to detailed spatial memory and a strong sense of smell, squirrels still recover up to 80% of their cache. Some fox squirrels also use a mnemonic strategy to organize nuts by species.

Some ground squirrels hibernate, but most squirrel species rely on caches of food to get through the winter. That could mean storing all their food in a single larder, although that’s vulnerable to thieves, and some larder-hoarding ground squirrels lose up to half their cache this way. Many squirrels instead use a technique called “scatter…[Read more]

Tree squirrels are known to dig fake holes to fool onlookers and throw off thieves—a move known as “deceptive caching.” This involves a squirrel digging a hole and covering it up again but not depositing a nut. A classic bait-and-switch.

The squirrel family also includes more sociable types. Prairie dogs, for example, are social ground squirrels with complex communication systems and large colonies, or “towns,” that can span hundreds of acres. The largest town on record was a Texas colony of black-tailed prairie dogs that stretched about 100 miles (160 kilometers) wide, 250 miles…[Read more]

Adult tree squirrels normally live alone, but they sometimes nest in groups during severe cold spells. A group of squirrels is called a “scurry” or “dray.”