Red Squirrel

Fascinating facts about the Red Squirrel

• A single red squirrel can store food in hidden middens during autumn, creating a personal pantry that can sustain it through harsh winters when 75-85% of juveniles die. "Excess food is put into caches called "middens" These caches, especially of hard nuts, buffer the population against seasonal scarcity and influence forest seed dispersal.
• Since the 1870s, the introduced eastern grey squirrel has driven the British red squirrel population down to fewer than 140 000 individuals, with about 85% now confined to Scotland. The grey squirrel spreads a lethal parapoxvirus and outcompetes reds for acorns, showing how an invasive species can reshape native mammal distributions.
• Red squirrels can leap up to four meters between trees, thanks to their light bones and disproportionately long hind legs. Their long tail also acts as a balance pole, steering mid-air and keeping them stable on narrow branches.
• Red squirrels shed their coat twice a year, swapping a thin summer fur for a thicker winter coat between August and November. without hibernating.
• Red squirrels are born weighing just 10-15 g, and remain blind and deaf, and they leave the nest after 6-7 weeks, a period when most juveniles do not survive.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia

At a glance

About the Red Squirrel

In the pine forests of Scotland and Scandinavia, the red squirrel remains the vivid, tufted-eared sprite that European folklore placed at the top of every mythological world-tree. A victim of the grey squirrel invasion across much of Britain and Ireland, its survival now depends on isolated strongholds and the careful removal of its grey competitors. For every forgotten cache of seeds buried in autumn, a future tree waits underground.

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