25 Squirrel Facts: Clever, Acrobatic Little Nut Collectors

There are around 280 species of squirrel in the world.

The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, flying squirrels and ground squirrels, as well as chipmunks, marmots and prairie dogs.

Squirrels are native to every continent except Australia and Antarctica.

A small population of Indian palm squirrels was introduced to Perth in Australia more than a century ago.

The word "squirrel" comes from an ancient Greek word meaning "shadow tail", because squirrels often sit in the shade of their own bushy tails.

Like other rodents, a squirrel's front teeth never stop growing, so it has to keep gnawing to wear them down.

Squirrels can turn their back feet around, which lets them climb down trees headfirst.

A squirrel can leap up to about ten times its own body length.

A squirrel's bushy tail helps it balance, acts as a parachute when it falls, shades it from the sun and keeps it warm like a blanket.

Squirrels pretend to bury food to fool thieves

Many squirrels store food for later by burying nuts in hundreds of different spots, which is called scatter hoarding. But other squirrels and birds often watch and try to steal these hidden snacks. Scientists have found that when a grey squirrel thinks it is being watched, it sometimes digs a hole and pretends to bury a nut, while secretly keeping it in its mouth. It then hides the real nut somewhere else. This clever trick is called deceptive caching.

Squirrels remember where they hid many of their nuts using memory and smell, but they forget some of them.

The nuts squirrels forget can sprout into new trees, so squirrels help plant forests.

Some squirrels sort the nuts they bury by type, keeping similar nuts together, much like organising a cupboard.

Squirrels communicate with each other using chattering calls, squeaks and quick flicks of their tails.

Baby squirrels are born blind and hairless, and depend completely on their mother for the first few weeks.

Flying squirrels don't actually fly. They glide between trees using a furry flap of skin stretched between their front and back legs.

Large flying squirrels can glide for long distances, sometimes more than 100 metres in a single glide.

In 2019, scientists discovered that some North American flying squirrels glow pink under ultraviolet light.

During hibernation, the Arctic ground squirrel's body temperature can drop below freezing, the lowest recorded body temperature of any mammal.

India is home to a giant rainbow-coloured squirrel

The Indian giant squirrel, also called the Malabar giant squirrel, lives in the forests of the Western Ghats, central India and parts of eastern India. Its fur comes in striking shades of maroon, purple, orange and cream, making it one of the most colourful mammals in the world. Including its long, fluffy tail, it can measure about a metre from head to tail tip. It can leap around 6 metres between trees, and it is the state animal of Maharashtra, where it is known as the "Shekru".

India's familiar three-striped palm squirrel is found in towns, gardens and parks across the country.

A popular Indian legend says Lord Rama gave the palm squirrel its stripes when he gently stroked its back, to thank it for helping build a bridge to Lanka.

Grey squirrels from North America were brought to Britain in the 1870s, and they have since replaced native red squirrels in many areas.

Squirrels can run at around 20 to 25 kilometres per hour.

Wild squirrels usually live for only a few years, although they can live much longer in protected settings.