Squirrels – the kings of chunking
Squirrels use different strategies for caching different types of nuts. Nuts are an optimal source of fat and protein for squirrels. If given a choice, these are the nuts that squirrels prefer: pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios, acorns, cashews, chestnuts, hickory nuts, macadamia nuts, and pine nuts out of pine cones. Squirrels use complex sorting methods to easily locate their nut supplies and recall what’s in them. When foraging from a single area, squirrels have a tendency to bury the same kinds of nuts in the same area, a process known as chunking. If a squirrel picks up a hazelnut, it will store it in an area where it had buried other hazelnuts, probably as a way to help remember a particular location or reduce the amount of energy used during foraging. In the case of foraging from several sites, they avoided the chunking process and cache their new collection nuts in places they have not used before. This strategy not only helps to evenly cover a territory, but it also help prevents other squirrels from looting another squirrel’s entire stockpile of high-value nuts.
Did you know?
There are more than 250 species of squirrels.
Personalities of mother squirrels can affect survival rates of their offspring.
A group of squirrels is a “scurry” or “dray”
The red-and-white giant flying squirrel of China can grow up to three feet long.
Flying squirrels can glide as far as 90 metres.
The front teeth of a squirrel grow 15 centimeters a year.
gogreenpestcontrol.ca Ladner tsawwassen Delta B.C. Randy Bilesky
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/squirrels-kings-chunking-randy-bilesky/?published=t
http://www.delta-optimist.com/opinion/blogs/blog-squirrels-the-kings-of-chunking-1.23151433
