Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Chapter 2: What are the unique characteristics of squirrels?
They're distressingly large. Yeah, because 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 300 species, like you said, more than, or almost 300. Some of those tails are a little diminished, but usually when you think squirrel, you think of that big bushy tail.
Yeah, and not only when you think of squirrel, you think of the tail, but the Greeks themselves, right? 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 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. Psyriomorphous zygomasseteric system. Hey, look at you. Hooked on phonics. Works for me.
You even recorded the new pronunciation. That's right. You worked it right in there with the syriadi. I adapted. Yeah, because you should have heard it before when I was workshopping it. That was the first take, everybody. We're not lying. So 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 squirrels, genome mapping, we can see like, oh, this animal that doesn't look anything like this animal is actually really closely related.
And 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 there's We're kind of going to go the old school way, which is differentiating them based on 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.
Dogs love squirrels. You remember? Oh, yeah. The bird feeder. Momo pointed out to me, said, Dad, squirrels are great. I'm going to teach you to love them. And she did. Yeah, dogs and squirrels. It's ā what was the Disney ā 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 can't remember which one it was.
I 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 35 to 40 million years ago. because squirrels like to get around, as we will see.
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Chapter 3: How do different species of squirrels adapt to their environments?
Chipmunk? I had a feeling that might have 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. I'm loving a list of four things. I'm swirling. I'm swirling still at my love of squirrels.
Prairie dog.
Yeah, well, that's what was coming out of my mouth next. A prairie dog. Yeah, a prairie dog. Didn't know 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 I said?
Marmots.
Yeah, marmots.
And groundhogs.
And groundhogs. Those are all ground squirrels. They're squirrels' friends. And that makes them pretty awesome. But one of the reasons why 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 cousins. Yeah.
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 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, just 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?
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Chapter 4: What are the social behaviors of ground squirrels?
Oh, man. Yeah, just to recap that childhood trauma. That's, wow. But for a little while, we had a flying squirrel in our home. 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 out and about. I love thinking about those things just flying around all night. Yeah, and flying is right, man. Ed says that they can glide up to 150 feet. I saw 300 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 the skin flap that is, you know, the bat suit that people, like, you know, skydive with. That is basically 100% on the flying squirrel's membranes between its front legs and hind legs. that it can 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 150 feet in a pretty purposeful direction too.
Did you say what the name of the flap was? No. Do you want to? No, I'd probably screw it up. I'm going to go with patagium. That's great.
I wonder what they call that. Patagium.
Patagium. I wonder what they call that in the flying suit biz, extreme flying suit biz. I don't know. And I think they call them bat suits, but that's a misnomer if you ask me. I got to say, I mean, I'm not into any of that stuff. I would never do it. But those videos are amazing. Oh, I know. As close as humans have come, I think, to flying, it feels like. Agreed. Yeah, I would have to have ā
Probably a lobotomy to actually try that. It would take that radical of a personality change for me to try. Well, 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 just jump into a bat suit. No, 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 fast. Yeah, yeah. You're toast. Yeah. And that happens, sadly. But I get the impression that the rush is worth the risk.
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