Flying squirrels in China have discovered a clever new trick to store nuts for longer
By Carissa Wong published about 12 hours ago
Two species of tropical flying squirrels have worked out that if they nibble grooves around nuts to store them between tree branches, they are preserved for longer.
A squirrel going to get a nut it stored in the branches of a tree in a rainforest in China. (Image credit: Han et al/eLife)
Flying squirrels in China have developed a clever way to hide their nuts — chewing grooves in them so they can be stored between tree branches.
The unusual behavior, seen in two species in the tropical rainforests of Hainan Island, may preserve the critters' food for longer than burying the nuts in the moist forest floor, scientists said.
"Only these two flying squirrel [species] have this technique and no other squirrel species or animals are known to have this ability," Han Xu, professor of ecology at the Chinese Academy of Forestry in China, told Live Science. The findings were published June 13 in the journal eLife.
To capture the unusual behavior, Han and his colleagues set up 32 infrared cameras across 13.5 acres (5.5 hectares) of rainforest where they had found 151 nuts wedged between tree branches. Most of the nuts were stored between 5 and 8 feet (1.5 to 2.5 m) above the ground.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/animals/land-mammals/flying-squirrels-in-china-have-discovered-a-clever-new-trick-to-store-nuts-for-longer
Chinese flying squirrel
Chinese flying squirrel
Young Chinese flying squirrels
Short video showing Red Chinese Giant Flying Squirrels
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