What's the use of a squirrel's tail?

Squirrels belong to the genus Squirrel in the family Rodentia. Usually medium-sized, it is a typical representative animal in cold temperate coniferous forest and mixed forest. The limbs are strong, the toes have pointed claws, the claw ends are hooked, and the weight is usually about 350 grams. Female individuals are slightly heavier than male individuals. Squirrels are slender and light, with a body length of about 18-26 cm, and a long and thick tail, which is more than two-thirds of the body length, but less than the body length.

The tail hair is thick and fluffy, and the limbs and front and rear feet are long, but the forelimbs are shorter than the hind limbs. The ear shell is well developed, which can reach the eyes when folded forward, and there is a bunch of long black hair at the ear end in winter. The back of the whole body is brown-gray from the kissing end to the tail root, the sides and limbs of the body are brown-gray, the hair roots are gray-black, and the hair tips are brown or gray. The abdomen is white from the back of the lower collar to the tail root and the inside of the limbs. The back and ventral surface of the tail are brown-black, the hair roots are gray and the hair tips are brown-black. The snout, cheeks and lower protrusions are back color, but blue-gray, the ear shell is black-gray, and there is a large bunch of black tufts in winter. Individual coat colors vary greatly, such as cyan, gray, brownish gray, dark gray and dark brown. With the regional differences, the coat color also changes. For example, the coat color of Liaoning squirrels is gray, while the coat color of China southern squirrels is black. In addition, the coat color is also affected by the seasons. The coat color is gray or taupe in winter and black or dark brown in summer.

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The hair on the squirrel's ears and tail is particularly long, which can adapt to the life in the tree; They hang upside down from the branches with claws and tails like long hooks. At dawn and evening, they also leave the trees and hunt on the ground. After finding enough food in autumn, squirrels will use tree holes or dig holes in the ground to store fruits and other foods, and at the same time block the holes with dirt or fallen leaves.

Squirrels are covered with red hair in summer, and in autumn, they will put on black and gray winter hair to cover their bodies tightly. The newborn squirrel, with no hair and unclear eyes, began to grow long hair 8 days after birth, opened its eyes 30 days later and ate hard fruit 45 days later, becoming very agile. Squirrels are very docile to their owners. We should treat them gently, so that they will be dead set on you and will never hurt you with their teeth. Of course, they will gently chew your fingers with their teeth, tease you and feel itchy, which is their friendly performance to you.

Squirrels nest in dense branches, or use abandoned nests of crows and magpies, and sometimes nest in tree holes; They eat not only wild fruits, but also twigs, buds, leaves, insects and eggs. As soon as autumn comes, squirrels begin to store food. A squirrel often stores several kilograms of food in several places, and sometimes sees squirrels drying food in the trees to prevent food from going bad and moldy. In this way, in the cold winter, squirrels have nothing to eat.

Squirrels have strong fertility. Squirrels, like other rodents, have the characteristics of early maturity and rapid reproduction. From January to February every year, the male squirrel and the female squirrel begin to fall in love. The male mouse swings its thick tail and jumps into the canopy to chase the female mouse. At this time, the mother mouse is also very excited and enthusiastic. Estrus lasts about two weeks, during which the male and female are almost inseparable. Female rats give birth to babies at 35-40 days of pregnancy, usually giving birth to two babies every year and occasionally giving birth to three babies. Female rats born in the first year give birth to 3-6 cubs per fetus, and after the second year, they can give birth to 5- 10 cubs per fetus. Newborn cubs are smooth and hairless, with red body and closed eyes. Weight 7-8.5g, body length 5.6cm and tail length 2.4cm.. Young rats begin to mature sexually at 8-9 months, that is, they can reproduce with their spouses in the next year.

Squirrels like to be vegetarian and eat meat occasionally. Its vegetarian diet is mainly Korean pine, spruce, fir, larch and Mongolian pine. Mongolian almond and hazelnut, acorn dried fruit and seeds; Carnivorous foods are mainly insects, larvae, ant eggs and other small animals. When the food is green and yellow, the squirrel has another choice. We eat tree buds in spring and berries such as mushrooms, trays and cranberries in summer. In autumn, food is extremely rich, and we can eat whatever we want, but the most popular is red pine nuts. Speaking of picking pine nuts, this is squirrel's specialty. No matter how tall the tree is and where the cones grow, squirrels can eat them. The specific process is: it first bites the mature cone to the ground and then comes down from the tree. Like primates, it pries open the cone scales with its front feet, bites open the seed coat, takes out the seeds and feeds on pine nuts. Interestingly, when the squirrel is frightened, it doesn't put down the food easily, but runs away with a cone in its mouth.

Squirrels have a developed sense of smell. They can accurately identify the empty seeds of pine nuts. None of the seeds abandoned by pinecone-topped squirrels have any seeds. Although the shells of these seeds have not been bitten open, squirrels can still smell them. Squirrels also have the instinct to store food. When the seeds of Korean pine are ripe in autumn, squirrels run around with pine nuts in their mouths and transport them to a safe place to hide. A few or a dozen are buried underground as food for winter. Although the earth is covered with snow in winter, squirrels can still find their hidden food without difficulty, and some of them are missing. However, it is precisely because it is buried underground that it has not been discovered, which contributes to the diffusion and spread of Korean pine seeds and promotes natural regeneration.

Squirrels are widely distributed, almost all over the forest. Its population depends largely on the richness of food. If there is enough food for several years in a row, the population will increase obviously, especially in the year when pine nuts are harvested, squirrels living in other places will migrate here in groups and breed in situ the next year, so the population will increase sharply; If there is no good harvest of pine nuts in this area, squirrels will have to move their families to find another habitat, resulting in a sharp decline in the number of squirrels in this area. The squirrel's behavior of determining the population size by the richness of food is indeed superior, which is not only conducive to population reproduction but also conducive to population spread.

Squirrels have different living habits from other animals. They like to be active in broad daylight, especially in the early morning. They often jump around between tree trunks and branches, foraging and playing for a while, unrestrained and uncomfortable. Squirrels have no habit of hibernating, but they are not very active in winter. Especially in severe winter, the time to leave the nest is short, usually around 9 am, 1-2 hours; Come out for activities after 1 pm, and stay in the nest at other times. Squirrel has a habit. No matter how cold the weather is, it doesn't eat in its nest. Instead, it sits on a branch, facing the rising sun, puts food into its mouth with its forelimbs in its arms, chews and tastes it with relish, sometimes pricks up its ears to listen, and sometimes turns its eyes to look around, which makes people laugh.

Although the squirrel is one of the larger rodents, it is still threatened by natural enemies because it is not at the top of the food chain. One is carnivorous birds of prey, such as mink, ferret, weasel, owl, golden eagle and so on. The other is mainly magpies and crows, which attack squirrel cubs during the breeding season. In a sense, the healthy reproduction of the hostile squirrel population the day before yesterday is beneficial, because most of the natural enemies are old, weak and sick. The natural enemies of the latter are harmful. Squirrels are not only cute, but also widely known for their economic value. Squirrel skin has always been one of the main wild furs in Heilongjiang Province, and it was once an important product to earn foreign exchange through export. Squirrel skin can be made into fur coats, scarves and hats, and tail hair can be made into brushes. In recent years, due to the decrease of Korean pine forest, the output of Korean pine nuts for squirrel foraging has decreased, and the number of squirrels has also decreased. At present, the annual output of squirrel skins is less than 20,000 pieces, and the highest in history has reached 1.85 million pieces. It can be seen that the number of squirrels is scarce, and measures should be taken to strictly protect them.