Sciuridology (SQUIRRELS) Encore with Karen Munroe

Flying squirrels. Fox squirrels. Giant squirrels. Tiny ones. Grey ones. Black ones. Fluorescent ones? Alie is losing her mind talking to dream guest and Sciuridologist, Dr. Karen Munroe. This Baldwin Wallace University professor has studied squirrels for decades and addresses where they sleep, how many babies they have, if they bite each other’s junk, how they find their acorns, Marvel movies, birdfeeder drama, imported squirrels, melanistic morphs, world domination, fistfights with birders, the rarest squirrel, the best place for squirrel tourism and more. You’ll scatter hoard so many nuggets of squirrel trivia. Enjoy.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alie Ward?

  This episode is sponsored by Seed. Bloating, irregular bowel movement, gas. When your gut is off, it gets your attention. Seed's DS1 is a three-time award-winning probiotic, clinically shown to improve regularity, reduce bloating, and alleviate gas so you can move and eat more freely. Take better care of your gut with Seed. Get 25% off with code 25OLOGIES at seed.com/ologies. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. We have to say that. Father Ward, you say, there's no way you would need a career coach. You have it all together. That's a lie, and you know it. I actually hired a career coach, and without them, I wouldn't have

• 0:43Alie Ward?

  started Ologies. It was one of the best investments I've ever made. And if you're like, I don't know where to find a career coach, I can help you. You need an experienced pro who asks the right questions, sets you down a path where you're most likely to succeed. And that's what you can expect from a coach at today's sponsor, strawberry.me. This is so cool. They match you with a certified coach who's been vetted to work closely with company founders. And yeah, sometimes I'm like, oh, wait, that's right, I am one. And if you're founding a business, even if you're along the way, and you're maybe stuck in a rut, or you have to make a decision about expansion, or what direction you want to take your company, that's what I did. I went to strawberry.me, and I was like, okay, can you help me pare down some stuff? I think I have too much on my plate. I'm not sure

• 1:27Alie Ward?

  what to say yes to, and what to say no to. And they were super helpful in helping me streamline, and now I get to sleep more, and I enjoy that. So get the help every entrepreneur needs. Go to strawberry.me/ologies. That's strawberry.me/ologies. You're the boss. Oh, hello, up top. This is me from the future 2026. And the three-part menopause episodes laid me out a little, so here's an encore of one of my favorites. I can't believe we've never re-earred it because it's so good. We have also added some new information that might haunt you in a good way forever. It's so good. Also, stick around until the end for an update. My original secret, also haunting, to me at least. Okay.

• 2:11Alie Ward?

  Oh, hey, it's your neighbor with the smelly trashcans. What's in there? Ally Ward. I am going to make this intro as short as possible because I have squirrels in my pants. I want to start this. First things first, I wanted to interview this person for years. Somehow, my emails never got returned, my dreams never materialized. And then one day, I realized she followed me on social media. Hot dang, I DM'd her with so many exclamation points. It was embarrassing. And from the first second of this interview, I'm losing my shit, and I think you will too. So she got her undergrad in cellular and molecular biology at Arizona State University. She did a master's in ecology and evolutionary biology at Purdue, and then got a PhD in wildlife ecology and conservation back at the University of Arizona. We're going to talk about it. She's

• 2:54Alie Ward?

  now a professor of biology at Baldwin Wallace University in Ohio, where she has done many things. One of them, co-creating a full-length dance work called Liars in Fur Coats about the social and mating habits of squirrels. She's studied fox squirrels, gray squirrels, ground squirrels, and more for decades. And her handles on social media reflect this commitment, Squirrel Doc. It's linked in the show notes. Also linked, patreon.com/ologies. For a buck or more a month, you can submit questions ahead of time, and I might say your name with my face. Ologies merch is also linked in the show notes. And thanks to everyone who leaves reviews and subscribes. I read all of them. And 2026 me here. That is still very true. And to prove it, here's a freshie from E. Tut Hans,

• 3:39Alie Ward?

  who wrote, oh, hey, it's the woman who just found your podcast and made it her whole personality. Each episode leaves me entertained, interested, inspired, and in awe. E. Tut Hans says that they're a self-described perfectionist, and my advice is perfectionism is a lie and a dream killer, so don't fall for it. Okay, squirrels. So let's get into it. So scuridiology, it's hard to say, but it's a real word, people, and it comes from the Greek for shade tail. And we're going to talk about who's who in the family of scuridi. We'll also chat about the best part of the acorns, how many trees squirrels plant, why they're so good at bird feeders, do they glow in the dark, what their chirps and

• 4:24Alie Ward?

  barks mean, flying squirrels, ground squirrels, litter sizes, cozy nests, if squirrels love you back, their absolutely glorious and terrible sex lives, hoarding, hiding, gliding, conservation statuses that might shock you, and why you should never, never put a squirrel in your pocket before you board an airplane, and so much more with mammologist, biologist, and most importantly, scuridiologist, Dr. Karen Munroe.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  My name is Karen Munroe, and I use she/her pronouns.

• 5:12Alie Ward?

  My god, it's you. It's really you. Oh.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  It's really me. I promise it's me.

• 5:17Alie Ward?

  Literally, so many people in my life know today's a really exciting one for me. No chill, zero chill whatsoever, and that is the correct way to be when talking to Dr. Karen Munroe. By the way, do you know that scurriology, do you know that, have you ever heard the term?

• 5:34Speaker 01

  No, I've always referred to myself as a mammologist.

• 5:36Alie Ward?

  You're very good at squirrels, though.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:40Alie Ward?

  And I just want you to know that out there in just the miasma of life and words, a scuridiologist is a term for someone who is very good at squirrels.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  I know this term. I believe you. As I say, I've studied squirrels for a very long time, longer than I've been married. I mean, since I was my freshman year in college. So since I was 17, I've studied squirrels, but I still, to this day, have active squirrel research because people are just fascinated by it.

• 6:12Alie Ward?

  We love squirrels, but we're scared of most other rodents.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Right. Why is that? Is it, it's the fluffy tail, isn't it?

• 6:20Alie Ward?

  It's gotta be. I mean, that's where they get their name from even, right? I read that it's

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Shade tail.

• 6:24Alie Ward?

  Shade tail. Wait a second. Wait a second. Their tail is for shade?

• 6:29Speaker 01

  Partially, sure. It's all kinds of thermoregulation. So, you know, you can think of it as an umbrella, if it's just kind of misting, raining. But yeah, you'd cover yourself in sun, or, you know, when they splat, right? So like when they lay flat, they're trying to thermoregulate, you know, it's a way for them to give off heat, pick up heat, however you'd like.

• 6:45Alie Ward?

  More on body heat in a bit, but we have a whole ding-dang episode on thermophysiology and body temperature regulation, as well as a kid-friendly smologies episode on it with Dr. Shane Campbell-Staten, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I gotta admit, I've wanted to talk about squirrels for a long time, but I don't think I've ever thought about the function of a squirrel tail. And of course, they have a function. They wouldn't have evolved to have it otherwise.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Right. And then like when you watch them jump and fall and stuff like that, they also use it to totally right themselves so that they land, you know, on all fours.

• 7:18Alie Ward?

  That makes so much sense. Is it kind of like when you see a tightrope walker that has one of those really big poles?

• 7:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. They're kind of like, well, I don't know about poles, but yeah, like at the Yankees game last night, probably 10 people sent me this clip. There was a squirrel in the outfield, and the fans were shocked by this. It's like running across, and then it falls, and it falls eight feet onto the ground.

• 7:39Speaker 02

  Now he's become a flying squirrel.

• 7:41Speaker 03

  Oh, this is not good.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  He sticks a landing much better than we would, I'll tell you that. Like, it's nothing. Off to the races.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  And you just watch it, and it kind of goes side to side to side. And like, you can watch the tail kind of work as a rudder, and then it lands just fine and runs away.

• 7:57Alie Ward?

  Is there any part of that that also is just like a parachute to slow it down?

• 8:02Speaker 01

  I don't know about a parachute. I mean, I think more like flying squirrels, right? Like the gliding with that membrane really kind of is better to catch some air. But gray squirrels, which this was just a gray squirrel, they kind of use it more kind of as a rudder side to side.

• 8:14Alie Ward?

  Oh, boy. Howdy. We will address different kinds of squirrels: gray, fox, giant, dwarf, flying, marvel. But first, let's talk about the specimen, Karen Munroe. I gotta ask, how did you get so, I'm going to say, lucky that somehow life just shot Dr. Karen Munroe down a path from the age of 17 where she gets to study the most beloved woodland creature there is?

• 8:45Speaker 01

  The perfect confluence of luck and mistakes, I guess. So when I was in high school, right? My high school guidance counselor was like, oh, you know, you like biology, you should become a vet or a doctor, right? That was pretty much the two career paths. And there was no way I could ever tell somebody they had to put their pet down. That was not even an option for me. So I was like, well, I'll be a doctor. I like, I like people, and I, I really like kids. And so I was like, oh, I'll be a pediatrician. And my undergraduate advisor, one of the smartest things he did was he made me go shadow a pediatrician for a week. And I learned two very important things during that week-long shadowing experience. One, sick kids are no fun.

• 9:25Speaker 04

  Oh, no.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Two, parents of sick kids are even less fun. But he, at that point, had already enveloped me in his lab. And so I was working for him mainly as an undergraduate, you know, hourly job, collecting acorns and feeding acorns to squirrels as part of his, his lab component. And I tell my students all the time, after I figured out I did not want to be a pediatrician, I tried to find an area of medicine that I liked, and I really didn't. And I tried to find somewhere else for me to go. Like, what is it that I really was interested in and what did I like? And I ended up thinking, well, I was at this small liberal arts college and that if I transferred someplace bigger, so I was from a small town, if I went to someplace bigger, I would have more opportunities and I could figure it out.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  And so I transferred from Wilkes University, which is, at that time, I think 1,300 students, to Arizona State University.

• 10:17Speaker 04

  Oh, huge.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  So across country.

• 10:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  1,300 students to 40,000 students.

• 10:21Speaker 04

  Climate differences even.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, climate, cultural, everything and anything you could possibly imagine. What I really figured out at Arizona was that there were even less opportunities as a lonely undergraduate to get involved in research and really kind of figure out what it is I want to do.

• 10:37Alie Ward?

  So Karen was majoring in cellular and molecular biology, but couldn't seem to get lab experience in Arizona. So hungry for research, she would spend summers and spring breaks not getting crunk on four logos in Miami Beach, but heading back to her small town to work on squirrels.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  And so I kind of did a huge 180. So my undergrad degree is in cellular molecular biology. And I went to Purdue and eventually ended up leaving there with my master's in ecology and evolutionary biology. But it meant I had to take all of those classes.

• 11:10Speaker 04

  Oh, man.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  Ecology, evolution, animal behavior, advanced mammalogy, all those kinds of things I took as a graduate student. And that's when I kind of really started putting things together that like, oh, all this cell and molecular genetic stuff that I really liked in college, I could actually apply that to the squirrels and the systems that I do so very well from working in the lab. So that's kind of where my PhD ends up. My, my PhD is actually in a wildlife conservation management. And it really is the confluence of those two things. It's applying all the genetic stuff to an animal of conservation concern was my original thought, but in that way to a group of animals that have a great conservation concern.

• 11:51Alie Ward?

  Are squirrels in trouble? It seems like they're everywhere. Maybe one tried to even steal your croissant yesterday. They seem like they're doing fine to some of us, but we will get into how different species are doing later in the episode. But yes, her interests and experience all converged to make her a truly lauded sciradiologist.

• 12:10Speaker 04

  It sounds like one was the peanut butter and the other was the bread. And you're like, oh, I guess I could make a sandwich.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  You've got my chocolate, my peanut butter.

• 12:19Speaker 04

  Exactly. So when it comes to your work, was there anything about the field work that you were drawn to, or was it more systemic that you liked?

• 12:31Speaker 01

  No, it was much more systemic. I mean, I really enjoyed the fact that I could walk, and I do this now, right? I walk outside and my study organism is right there. It's not like I need, you know, to get on a plane and fly 3,000 miles with all this equipment and things like that. It's right there, which means it's accessible and I can talk about it to the public and I can talk about it to my students. And so I really enjoy that fact. At the same point, I've also worked places where I've had to drive six hours to the top of a mountain to work with the species. And so there are those distant and far away species as well. But I really liked the fact that as, especially as an undergraduate, you know, I would get on my bike and I could cross campus and start trapping squirrels and making observations and things like that. It just was so accessible, I think, is probably the reason I really got hooked and involved.

• 13:17Speaker 04

  I gotta say, anyone who's listening to this, who's like working on permafrost stuff, is probably like, oh, fewer frequent flyer miles, but still the availability of squirrels. It's why we love them.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  That's, it is. And, and everybody knows them and everybody loves them. And everybody, everybody, everybody has a squirrel story.

• 13:35Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  You know, I go to dinners that have, you know, corporate people and business people and, and whatnot. They're like, oh, a scientist, we're not gonna be able to talk to you. And I'm like, I bet you you are. I bet you, I bet you you will. By the end of the night, you and I are gonna be friends and we will have shared stories.

• 13:50Speaker 04

  Surely. They're attention gathering, no matter who you are, though. But where do squirrels live? Speaking of tundra and permafrost, what continents, or rather, I guess, where don't squirrels live?

• 14:03Speaker 01

  I think Antarctica is the only place squirrels do not live.

• 14:05Speaker 04

  How?

• 14:06Speaker 01

  You know, from the Arctic Circle down into the tropics and, you know, from east to west across the way.

• 14:11Alie Ward?

  So if you are on a continent, squirrels are native to it, except Australia, where American gray squirrels were introduced to Melbourne in the late 1800s. And then a few days later, a scurry of northern palm squirrels busted out of the zoo in Perth. And honestly, it's all over the place how many there still are out there. Oh, and squirrels are also not native to Antarctica, in case you're listening there. And I am impressed that you are and that you have wifi. And I hope that you didn't bring a squirrel there.

• 14:42Speaker 04

  And since you have such a systemic mind about that, what are squirrels doing right to not only capture our hearts, but also to be so omnipresent and to be able to live in all these different biomes? They figured it out, kind of.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, they're just so charismatic, right? Like, they have the little pointy noses and the face and the, you know, the hands. And so you can sit there and watch them rotate the acorn in their hand and get it just right so they can take the perfect bite. They're not intimidating, right? Even when they make noises and things like that, I've had people like, oh, this squirrel's just saying hello. As they're like, chup, chup, chup, and like flapping their tail at them. And I'm like, no, they're, they're saying that you're a predator and they're trying to make sure everybody else knows that you're a predator and, and to get away. But I think that they're just kind of the right size and shape and they're just charismatic.

• 15:27Speaker 04

  From an evolutionary standpoint, what do you think has helped them survive in, on prairies and mountains and in the cold and in jungles?

• 15:37Speaker 01

  You know, I want to say that they're such generalist, kind of across the board, that they're willing to eat just about anything. But that is not always true, because there are definitely cases where they really do specifically eat, you know, a very small number of plants, things like that. I think of like ground squirrels really specialize in a plant type and their whole physiology and when they come out of hibernation or torpor really is tied to that specific plant type and precipitation and things like that. But then I think of like the classic gray squirrel, and man, they will eat anything from plants to animals, eggs, insects, truffles. Human food is kind of the last resort. That's not generally what they're after, but their diet is so general. And they have the ability just to, they're scatter hoarders, so they put a little bit of food here, there, there, and there.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  They like to take things like mushrooms and fungi and up into the trees and they will dry it and then put it in their dray nests with them for the winter.

• 16:29Speaker 04

  No. Wait, they have better meal planning than I do.

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:34Speaker 04

  That's hurts so bad and I'm really impressed. Cause I can't.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, I've seen, I have a, you know, squirrel in my neighborhood that has taken, you know, a chunk of a Halloween pumpkin and put it up in the tree to dry. And I'm sure it stored it away for winter.

• 16:50Speaker 04

  How many of our trees are because of forgetful squirrels?

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Almost all of them. I know from my undergraduate research that if a acorn is handled by a squirrel, even if it is half eaten by the squirrel, it will germinate better than an acorn that has not been touched at all by a squirrel.

• 17:04Speaker 04

  So we owe so much carbon capture to squirrels.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  I mean, they really are like the gardener of the planet.

• 17:11Alie Ward?

  Half eaten? Really? Yeah. Just saunter over to the 1993 paper, Tannins and Partial Consumption of Acorns: Implications for Dispersal of Oaks by Seed Predators. And you can get a little fact snack like germination experiments revealed equal or greater germination frequencies for partially consumed acorns than for the intact acorns. And they say, we suggest that the higher tannin levels may render the apical portion less palatable and thereby increase the probability of embryo survival after attack by seed consumer, which would be the squirrel. I guess more delicious fat is at the top of the acorn.

• 17:54Alie Ward?

  And remember this for later, because something's gonna blow your mind related to this. Also, for anyone who has ever, I don't know, found a handful of loose Reese's Pieces in a blazer pocket that I rarely wear, you should know that the tastier the acorn is, the more likely the squirrel says to itself, none of those other jabroni squirrels are gonna eat this good one. So they bury them farther away where they might not find them, which gives the acorn distance from the parent tree, which it needs to not get choked out by its siblings. All of this drama, under our noses, under our trees.

• 18:31Alie Ward?

  Also, yes, I did eat the Reese's that I found in my pocket. And no, I don't know how long they had been in there.

• 18:35Speaker 04

  How many acorns are boreal squirrels stashing away? I've read something that they really only remember, like 10% of them, or they don't even remember. They just look around and be like, where might there be acorns? And it might have been someone else's acorns, but they're like, yep, they're acorns.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Exactly. As part of an undergrad project, we tagged thousands of acorns and put them out in the forest, little brad nails, and then walked for hours with a melbyector trying to recover acorns to see how far squirrels were actually dispersing them. And it's quite a distance. And they, they are so smart. They know acorns that are infested with weevils or other insects that are not going to make it through the winter. And they will either eat them immediately or excise the insect and then bury it. They will flip the acorn over. They will use their front incisors to scrape out the cotyledon and then stash it so that it won't germinate and it'll be there longer.

• 19:29Alie Ward?

  So yes, squirrels do not have a 100% recovery rate with their food. All right? And they don't pretend to. It can range from 25 to 95% recovery rate, depending on the species and area and food. But a ton of research has shown that squirrels have excellent spatial memory and they know to head back to their cache. But if they smell a neighbor's food buried on the way, they might eat that too. Also, according to the 1986 paper, Gray Squirrel Food Preferences: The Effects of Tannin and Fat Concentration, squirrels know which acorn species are more perishable.

• 20:09Alie Ward?

  And they may bury like red oak nuts because they'll last longer and germinate in the spring. But they might eat white acorns because they germinate earlier in autumn. Although years later, scientists at Berkeley were like, hmm, not so fast. It might just be that some acorns are just bigger. And it's like taking a few bites of a huge calzone in October and then just digging a hole in the backyard, tossing it in there to snack on during the Super Bowl. Also, scrape out the what? The cotyledon? Who? Okay, so cotyledon. It sounds like a very expensive shade of paint. Everyone would be telling you to paint your kitchen, but it's actually an embryonic leaf or a pair of them.

• 20:52Alie Ward?

  And they're in seeds and in acorns, for example, it stores a lot of energy. And while the squirrels usually only bury about an inch deep in the soil, their whole food festival area can be up to seven acres wide. They're hard workers and also liars. So a 2008 study titled Cache Protection Strategies of Scatter Hoarding Rodent: Do Tree Squirrels Engage in Behavioral Deception? It showed that in about 13% of caching events on a specific college campus, squirrels dug a hole, pretended to drop their acorn into it, but kept the acorn in their mouths and ran away. And this may have been the result of just a lot of squirrels being around and they didn't want anyone to see where they were stashing their booty.

• 21:37Alie Ward?

  And I didn't even think to ask this, but in the paper, the researchers mentioned that they could tell which squirrel was which by noting distinctive markings or, according to the study, quote, "Others were uniquely marked with small spots of various brands of men's hair dye, applied with a plastic dropper from a short distance without restraining the animals." So squirrel researchers, they're just out there, they're offering snacks, makeovers. And then in another study, published in 2017 out of UC Berkeley, titled Caching for Where and What: Evidence for a Pneumonic Strategy in a Scatter Hoarder. That one found that fox squirrels buried their food in different areas depending on

• 22:20Alie Ward?

  what the food was. So if they got a mixed batch of almonds and hazelnuts and pecans and walnuts, they spatially chunked their caches by nut species, but only when caching food that was taken from one single location. And I'm reading this paper and I'm like, one of the authors is none other than Dr. Michael Delgado, who was the expert in our legendary phelanology episode, which I will link in the show notes. But the point is, these fuzzy little babies, they're organizing their dirt pantries. And again, unlike me, they have apparently something akin to self-control.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  You know, they only eat an acorn based on how much of their food is available because the plant's smart and puts tannins into the acorn. And as it gets closer to the cotyledon, it puts more tannin. So it tastes more bitter, if that's possible. If you've ever eaten an acorn, it is incredibly bitter. But the concentration of tannins increases as you get towards the cotyledon. So they will just eat the top half of the acorn and drop it. And so it is nice that kind of back and forth evolutionary adaptation between oaks and squirrels. But they do that for lots of seeds and things like that. So we really do have squirrels to thank for most of our trees and mature hardwood forests.

• 23:34Alie Ward?

  For more on eating acorns as humans, you can listen to the Indigenous Colonology episode, which I will link in the show notes is a great one.

• 23:42Speaker 04

  I'm so curious what a squirrel's yearly planner looks like. When are they sleeping? When are they up? When are they getting it on? What's their year look like at a glance?

• 23:53Speaker 01

  So if I kind of take a traditional gray squirrel, North American squirrel. So in the wintertime, they're mainly active in the middle of the day. And that's when they're relying on most of their stored foods and things like that. Typically, once, you know, you start to get warmed up, I will say February, although the climate change is getting earlier and earlier. And I've actually seen squirrels mate as early as December. Once kind of buds on trees start happening and things like that, you'll get the first round of reproduction. And squirrels will eat the Entercaebium off of tree branches and limbs, as well as other insects, forbs, grasses, things like that.

• 24:26Alie Ward?

  Entercaebium, side note, is part of a tree. It's specifically the sugary, really nutrient heavy layer of new growth. It's just below the bark and we talk all about it in the dendrology two parter with K C J Clapp. But yes, some squirrels, thanks in part to climate change, are having steamy, romantic hallmark holidays and canoodling in December. But usually they hold off until around Valentine's Day, when spring is springing, the days grow longer and the world grows ever hornier.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  Once young are out, usually it's springtime and food's abundant and available. And if squirrels are in good enough body condition, they can reproduce again. So in a few weeks later, they'll kind of go through that whole process again. Most squirrels will not reproduce until they're about a year old. And so we can kind of classify typically subadults or juveniles, less than six months, and then subadults. And then, once they mate, we usually refer to them as adults. So they don't ever really, most squirrels are not through hibernators. They'll go into torpor for a day or two and it's really cold. We know that they like to nest share a lot.

• 25:30Speaker 04

  Really? I love that. I love a co-op.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  So if it's really cold out, why not get with a bunch of your friends and all cozy and together and, you know, save some body heat?

• 25:40Speaker 04

  It's like Huga. It's like that Scandinavian concept of just like cozy up.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Snuggle down. And we know that different species, they do it slightly differently. So gray squirrels, they tend to be matrilineal. And so females that tend to have some kind of relatedness will tend to nest together. And there can be like little bachelor groups as well, kind of help save some of that body heat and whatnot. And they'll move from nest to nest, from night to night. It's not like one nest, one squirrel. So they are kind of communal. They'll move from group to group.

• 26:10Alie Ward?

  So no, squirrels aren't setting up ring cameras and calling the cops if someone naps on their couch. And if you need a visual, their drays are like twigs on the outside for structure. And then they're stuffed with a leafy lining for insulation. And then there's like a little inner mattress of moss and fur. So when you see a clot of leaves in a denuded tree in winter, just think, there might be a snoozing squirrel burping up your bagel in there. Just heaven.

• 26:39Speaker 04

  Well, okay, here's the thing. I try to think about like a squirrel home. And I always think about like a hollow in a log or something.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Oh, sure.

• 26:46Speaker 04

  But I, I live in California where we don't have the same sort of like bare winter branches that the East Coast does. We have a lot of palm trees. We got oaks. But I thought when I saw clots of nests in bare winter trees, I thought those were big bird nests. And someone told me, no, those are squirrel nests.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:06Speaker 04

  How do they make a nest in the top of a tree on skinny branches out of leaves?

• 27:11Speaker 01

  I mean, you just kind of wove it in together and they're, you can usually tell it's a squirrel nest and then a bird nest from the doming on the top.

• 27:17Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  So like, when you look at bird nests, most of them are kind of flat and then curved on the bottom. But drays have a shelter top. So they are kind of curved on the top, especially when they're being used a lot. As they become less used, they will sink down a little bit. But yeah, those big clumpy, leafy pieces are squirrel drays.

• 27:35Alie Ward?

  So a nest is shaped like a bowl and for birds, and a dray for squirrels is more like a bubble or a dome. And no, you didn't ask, but the study of nests is called Nedology. And not two hours from me is the world's best museum of nests. It's called the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology. It's in Camarillo and it's home to more than 18,000 nest specimens. Oh, I want to go there so bad, but back to tree holes.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  And they absolutely will use cavities too in trees. So like a cavity is definitely prime location in real estate, particularly if you're going to raise young. Right? So like, if you want more protection from not only the outside sources, but predators as well, the cavities are the preferred location to raise young. But then, you know, there are issues with things like mites and fleas and things like that. And so squirrels do kind of move between nest sites.

• 28:29Speaker 04

  And let's say that you love a squirrel. You love all squirrels and you would like to offer them a home in your yard. My dad and I shared a love of squirrels and my dad built several squirrel condominiums and just hoped that someone would take up residence. I think he put a for rent sign on one. And so is there a protocol? Is there a good way to attract a squirrel or to say squirrels, please? I would like to be your friend.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  I mean, certainly there are squirrel nest boxes that you could build and put out. And I've seen squirrels use nest boxes, but I think it kind of depends on where you are and what kind of squirrel you want to attract. Like where you are, ground squirrels probably have more ground nests than they do nests kind of up in the trees and things like that. But for those people who are in the Midwest and the East Coast, having oak trees, having edge of forests, gray squirrels really love forest edges, much like white paled deer. They really like those highly overlapping branches. They like that high number of tree counts. If you are a true Midwesterner and you like those big chunky fox squirrels.

• 29:29Alie Ward?

  So these are the ones with the grayish brown fur, but they have rusty reddish coloring on their faces and paws and tails. And when I leave peanuts out for the crows, the fox squirrels come by and say, thank you very much, and they probably pretend to hide it if they think that I'm watching.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Which are easily 20%, if not 50% larger than gray squirrels. They really like a much more open park-like place. And so they don't want lots of overlapping trees. They really want to come down on the ground and do their eating and whatnot down on the ground. And so it kind of depends on where you live and what kind of squirrels you really want to attract.

• 30:05Speaker 04

  I have to ask, as a squirrediologist, have you ever gotten into fistfight with birders?

• 30:11Speaker 01

  So usually, I mean, I've been asked to come and speak to all kinds of Audubon societies and bird or groups and whatnot. And usually one of the first questions they want to ask me is how do I keep squirrels out of my bird zoo? And so I do address this. I usually start off as like, okay, let's just, you know, let's talk about the elephant in the room first.

• 30:27Alie Ward?

  The first thing you do, you break a bottle on the side of a table. Listen.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  But I talk about how cool squirrels are to watch, you know? And we talk about a lot of their behaviors. When I go and talk in public about squirrels and what it is I do and why it's important, one of the first things I try to bring up is that it's really only here, kind of in the US, that we think of squirrels as like pests and a species to be managed, a species to be hunted. 80% of the world's squirrel populations are threatened or endangered. And.

• 30:57Speaker 04

  I didn't expect that.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Right? And for that reason alone, you know, we should take advantage of the fact that we have this opportunity and try and study them and learn more about them so that we can help answer questions for those places. And a lot of it comes down to, right, habitat availability.

• 31:11Alie Ward?

  80% of squirrels are in decline? Okay, so the International Union for Conservation of Nature's red list of threatened species lists the Nhdafa flying squirrel, which is globally critically endangered. It's currently described by one known specimen that was collected in northeast India in 1981. It's the Sasquatch of squirrels. People think they see it sometimes, but they're usually confused and looking at a red giant flying squirrel. And then there are 11 more globally endangered squirrel species, like the northern Idaho ground squirrel. There's only about 1,000 left.

• 31:50Alie Ward?

  And Nelson's antelope squirrel, which is native to this vast California Central Valley that's mostly become farmland. I looked at pictures for longer than I needed to, that antelope squirrel. Oh, it's a cutie. So we've all been distracted though, by the really successful and ubiquitous park squirrels. And yes, sometimes they're invasive, but meanwhile, other squirrels need our help. Well, they need their land back, really.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  One of my favorite places to talk about squirrels is Japan. And really, the only places you find squirrels anymore in Japan are the really old sacred shrines, because that's the only places left that have enough large old growth trees to support a population of squirrels.

• 32:31Speaker 04

  My gosh, just thinking about they're getting shrunken and shrunken. I didn't realize that they were so threatened. I would always think they must be a species of least concern because they're so visible. And that's so fascinating. And I'm also wondering, how many kinds of squirrels are there? And what's the difference between a ground squirrel, a tree squirrel, a flying squirrel? Where's chipmunks in this mix? Who are they?

• 32:55Speaker 01

  Chipmunks are cousins. They're a cute cousin. We keep them in along with the groundhogs and other marmots and things like that. I believe, I had to look this up actually, because I wanted to make sure I gave you the correct number, because I believe two weeks ago, whatever, there was a publication about a new species of squirrel fountain. So I believe we're up to 289 species of squirrels worldwide.

• 33:12Speaker 04

  Fewer than I thought, to be honest.

• 33:14Alie Ward?

  Right around 300 species from ones that glide where zip lines wish they could go to ground dwelling tunnel cuties that I want to kiss, but I won't.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  It really comes down to where they're used to nesting, whether they prefer, you know, tree squirrels versus ground squirrels. Flying squirrels are definitely a different grouping, a lot of physiological differences or anatomical at least differences there. But I mean, tree squirrels, I think they're usually what people picture when they think about a squirrel with the fluffy tail and everything. Ground squirrels to me are even more fascinating if possible, because we know a little bit less about them. You know, they're underground, doing all those things that we can't really see. And I really want to know what they're doing under there, but they are highly related. They have lots of the same kinds of timings and activities and behaviors for sure.

• 34:00Alie Ward?

  So to recap, the family Skyrididae is in the order Rodentia, and it involves squirrels and chipmunks and even marmots and prairie dogs. But there is a smaller genus of just squirrels. But in general, all of these squirrels we're talking about may live in trees or the ground or have wildly different diets and lives, living up to 10 years in the wild or 20 in captivity. Imagine a squirrel that could legally get a driver's license, but not really because it's a squirrel.

• 34:31Speaker 04

  You've had the privilege of being in this field since a young age and technology has changed so much. Have you seen things change in terms of knowledge now that we can put a fiber optic camera and record on a tiny SD card that costs a dollar? Like, how has your work changed now that you can spy on them?

• 34:53Speaker 01

  So for my dissertation, I studied a species of squirrels called the round tailed ground squirrel. It does not have a round tail. I don't know why it's called that.

• 35:01Speaker 04

  You didn't name it.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  I didn't name it. It looks like a little baby prairie dog and has kind of a long, thin tail. And they, they live in the ground, in the desert. And so we really wanted to know how social these squirrels were. They were once thought to be this great model outlier in that the literature and all of the models say they should be very solitary and alone. But the two papers that were published in the mid 70s said, no, they are highly social. They're like prairie dogs. They form these family groups, you know? Oh, my goodness, they have all these social behaviors, dah, dah, dah. And so one of the first things we wanted to know is, okay, so they're going down and there, you know, holes, entrances everywhere. How many of these are really connected? What are they actually doing down there? Is there a lot of social behavior going on under the ground?

• 35:43Speaker 01

  And my field site was the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument in Coolidge, Arizona, where there are 69 recognized archaeological sites within one square mile.

• 35:52Speaker 04

  Oh, my gosh.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  It's a beautiful, stunning place.

• 35:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  But there was no way they were about to let me dig up and look at a ground squirrel burrow in any way, shape or form. And in my four years working there, they did bring in an expert that had ground penetrating radar, and they were using it to look at some of their archaeological sites. And we were actually able to try and use it to kind of map out a burrow area. And we weren't incredibly successful, not as much as I wanted it to be.

• 36:21Alie Ward?

  That was a long time ago.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  But now I think, right, in terms of fiber optic cameras, yep, you can just slide one of those right down and in and, and sure enough, really see the extent of the burrow. And possibly you could actually even leave the camera down there and see any kind of social behaviors and actions and things like that. I know I was there to study their mating system and things like that, and I never saw squirrels mate because they clearly were doing it underground.

• 36:49Speaker 04

  I guess they like their privacy, I suppose.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  They like their privacy, yes. We saw evidence of mating. We saw copulatory plugs and things like that, but never an actual mating.

• 36:58Speaker 04

  A copulatory plug?

• 37:01Speaker 01

  Copulatory plugs.

• 37:03Speaker 04

  Really?

• 37:04Speaker 01

  Yes. So copulatory plugs are this proteus gelatin piece that males will deposit in the female reproductive tract to try and stop her from mating with any other males.

• 37:15Speaker 04

  Well, that's a dibs.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  And lots of squirrels have this, lots of mammals have these. And in most of the time, in just about all the squirrels I've studied, females will just take them out. And mate again.

• 37:26Alie Ward?

  Oh, this drama continues. Literal cock blocking, actual cock blocking going on in squirrel romance. But before you go around flipping the bird to insecure male squirrels, please know that copulatory plugs are also common in some primate species, bees, kangaroos, reptiles, rats, rodents, mice, scorpions, spiders. But back to squirrels, we're talking about squirrels. So ground squirrels might keep this jizz tampon in for almost a day. But I found a study in the Journal of Mematology titled, Removal of Copulatory Plugs by Female Tree Squirrels, which described these in fox squirrels and eastern gray squirrels as, quote, "opaque white with waxy to rubbery consistency."

• 38:11Alie Ward?

  And if you're eating right now, I'm sorry. And also, that's not my fault. But now that the scene is set, both visually and from a tactile perspective, it continues. Although copulatory plugs are hypothesized to prevent the successful copulation of subsequent males, female tree squirrels often remove the plug within 30 seconds of copulating and either discard or consume it. Yeet it or eat it, babies. Yeet it or eat it. He's not the boss of you.

• 38:42Speaker 04

  Can they have litters with different paternal?

• 38:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:47Speaker 04

  They can. How many uteruses do they have? They have one big one?

• 38:51Speaker 01

  It's kind of this weird corkscrew kind of shaped uterus. And so round-tailed ground squirrels, I had a litter of 13 squirrels for one of my females. I would say the average was usually three to four. And in eastern gray squirrels, the average litter size is between two and three. But absolutely, those squirrels can be sired from different males.

• 39:11Alie Ward?

  Okay, so usually, just a few baby squirrels are kits. Sometimes they're called kittens, unless you have 13 at a time. And perhaps that squirrel mom is related to my Catholic grandmother, who had 11 children by the age of 30 and stark white hair. But let's get off the topic of my deceased and beloved Catholic grandmother and talk about group sex in your backyard.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  We know that females will mate multiply. Female gray squirrels will mate multiply. They're only in estrus for eight hours, so they're only receptive to mating for eight hours. And in that eight hours, I believe the published number is 24 males. She will mate with up to 24 males in that eight hours.

• 39:49Speaker 04

  Oh, get it, girl. Is that eight hours a day or a year?

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Uh, mating season, so maybe twice a year.

• 39:54Speaker 04

  Wow, so she goes fast and hard.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 39:57Speaker 04

  And then, is there any paternal care? Or are they just like, I don't even remember, there's so much, it was an orgy?

• 40:02Speaker 01

  Nope, nope, just there and gone. See you never.

• 40:06Speaker 04

  And if they can reproduce like more than once a year, do they tend to give a lot of resources to their young? Or is it kind of like, we just, we kind of make as many as we can and then, you know, we wish them well?

• 40:16Speaker 01

  I mean, and we know that lactation is incredibly expensive and they tend to stay in the nest for probably six to eight weeks with mom after that. And then you can actually watch them, it's one of my favorite behaviors to watch is, you'll watch the juveniles come out of the nest and kind of play. And then you will see the female, you'll see mom come out and basically just yell at them and chase them off. And then they'll come back and at the end of the night and everything, but it's kind of this, you know, ritualized, like, you kids, you stop, you quit this, you know, go.

• 40:41Speaker 05

  Get out. Go outside and play right now.

• 40:43Speaker 04

  What about rat kings in squirrel nests? I've seen saps that can glue their tail together. It makes me want to throw myself in the ocean. I can't, it's the saddest, cutest, most terrible thing I've ever seen.

• 40:55Alie Ward?

  Yeah, okay, I explained that partly, but sometimes squirrel tails will get glued together by tree sap. And we discussed this notion of a rat king in the Urban Rodentology episode with Dr. Bobby Corrigan, but it's just awful. Please call a wildlife rehabber. And unless you see it in real life, don't look it up. Don't look it up. Don't look it up.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  I get people all the time who call me with baby squirrels who have fallen out of a nest and things like that. And that is, that is not my jam in any way, shape or form. I have several wildlife rehabbers on call and so I send them to places much like that. But I will also get calls about squirrels who have mange, who have lost fur because they have a flea infection or something. And, you know, I just, I tell people like, they know what they're doing, they know how to treat it, let them go and they'll be okay.

• 41:38Speaker 04

  What about redenticide? Is that a threat since some of them are generalists?

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yeah. I've definitely worked in places that it's one of the main ways that they will control squirrels, particularly ground squirrels, when they don't want them in a place.

• 41:49Speaker 04

  Hmm. I mean, I feel like gophers are like, everyone hates a gopher. Like culturally, it's, people are quite unfair to gophers.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:57Speaker 04

  But do ground squirrels cause that kind of damage to like lawns and sports fields and stuff like that?

• 42:03Speaker 01

  They can.

• 42:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  They certainly can.

• 42:05Alie Ward?

  And now, a once in a lifetime chance to ask a personal burning question.

• 42:10Speaker 04

  I cannot believe that I have the opportunity to ask a ground squirrel expert about some hazing that I got from a squirrel.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 42:19Speaker 04

  Can I play you a noise? And can you tell me what's going on?

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 42:22Speaker 04

  Okay. I was having a bad day last week. You know me, I get personal here. I was bummed and my husband was like, let's go to the park and let's walk around. And I was like, that's a good idea. We did. And then this squirrel started yelling at us. This might hurt my heart, what you have to tell me, but that's okay.

• 42:49Speaker 04

  A little guy or girl is hanging out just under a bush, maybe five feet away from us.

• 42:56Speaker 01

  Calling you a predator.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Little California ground squirrel. Probably is young down in the burrow. And so it's just kind of that warning.

• 43:05Speaker 04

  We're such dipshits. Here we were, standing there longer because we're like, does she need help? Like, is she the lassie of a squirrel family? Like.

• 43:18Speaker 04

  We were like, what do, what do we do? And then the whole time she was like. Go away, I hate you. But I mean, there's a reason why dog squeaky toys sound like that, right?

• 43:28Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. And, and really, if you did not know right where she was, it would have been hard for you to locate it. It's a single tonal whistle. It's really hard for a million predator to echolocate that and figure out exactly where that is.

• 43:40Speaker 04

  Oh, so she, she probably had some cute little babies that were underground, not far from us.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:46Alie Ward?

  And if you've ever heard chirping or barking coming from a squirrel, there are correct terms. I just learned that scuridiologists have words for those like barking, like clicking Donald Duck calls. They're called cooks, quaws, and moans. And according to the paper, Joint Tail and Vocal Alarm Signals of Gray Squirrels in the Journal of Behavior, researchers from the University of Miami flew gliders painted like hawks and they drove robot cats around campus towards squirrels. And they found that only sweeping back and forth tail movements, known as flags, and

• 44:28Alie Ward?

  vocalizations called moans are associated with a certain predator type. Moans happened more often when there were aerial predators present and the flagging with the tail happened when the cat approached. But they also found quaws more strongly associated with aerial threats, too. They might also clack their teeth at other squirrels. But my point is that if a squirrel is chirping at you and twitching its tail, it wants you to please go to hell. It hates you.

• 44:58Speaker 04

  I've never seen so many ground squirrels in my life. I was like.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  That's awesome.

• 45:01Speaker 04

  I mean, they were everywhere. And this was a couple of weeks ago, so this was like late spring. Would there be a reason why they were out so much? Or do you think it's just a really good place for ground squirrels because of oak trees?

• 45:11Speaker 01

  No, I think it's probably just a great place for ground squirrels.

• 45:12Speaker 04

  Oh, it's just a party. Oh, that's exciting.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  I know when I started to study round-tailed ground squirrels, I was trying to find a population that would be good to study. And I was having a hard time kind of really locating a good dense population. And I actually went to some snake researchers and I was like, could you look at your records and tell me like where you have good populations? And, and they came through. I mean, this is, you know, a perfect confluence.

• 45:37Speaker 04

  Oh, no one tell the snakes. It's like they're going to blow up this restaurant.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  But the squirrels, you know, they have a relationship with the snakes as well. Like, it's not like every time the snake sees a squirrel, the snake gets the squirrel. The squirrels fight the snakes right off. I saw a pregnant female totally chase off a rattlesnake.

• 45:55Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  You know, you could tell from the roundness of her belly that she was pregnant and kind of the snake was just coming through. And she started on high alert and let everybody know. And when it's a ground predator like a snake, they will also thump their back feet, let anybody underground also know that there's a snake. And she just completely chased them away. And it did not bite her, it didn't really try to bite her, and she just kept pouncing on it and forcing it away.

• 46:20Speaker 04

  Okay, so I'm learning squirrels are cute and beautiful and they also will talk shit.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Oh, they're badasses.

• 46:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, and they'll cut you.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  We, we know that they have some resistance to some venoms and possibly even some rattlesnake venoms. We don't know quite how much, but certainly they have some resistance.

• 46:38Alie Ward?

  Okay, 2026 Sally here. And this is some shit that will rock you. We added it into this episode because last year we released a chronology episode with Dr. Emily Taylor, who is a rattlesnake expert.

• 46:52Alie Ward?

  And it deserves to be in here. You deserve to hear it. Okay.

• 46:55Speaker 06

  Rattlesnakes have evolved in the past 12 to 14 million years.

• 46:59Alie Ward?

  Oh, okay. And how long have snakes been around?

• 47:02Speaker 06

  A lot longer than that. Many, many, many, many millions of years more than that. But certainly, the ancestors of rattlesnakes were shaking those little tails when they were stressed out for many millions of years before that.

• 47:12Alie Ward?

  Is it kind of like how squirrels shake their tails when they're threatened?

• 47:17Speaker 06

  Well, it's funny that you say that because squirrels in particular will shake their tails in a specific way when they see a rattlesnake.

• 47:22Alie Ward?

  What? How?

• 47:23Speaker 06

  Yeah. So actually, when I'm out in the field, I can see a California ground squirrel from a distance, and I can tell if it's shaking its tail at a snake.

• 47:30Alie Ward?

  No. What does it do?

• 47:31Speaker 06

  So they have this really specific tail flagging behavior where it will waggle back and forth and then stop, waggle back and forth and then stop, kind of sticking up. And are you ready to have your mind blown because this is crazy? They'll do it to both gopher snakes and rattlesnakes because both of them could eat the squirrel. And they're basically saying to the gopher snake or rattlesnake, I see you. Don't even bother hunting. You're not going to sneak up on me. Well, somebody had the brilliant idea of filming the squirrel shaking its tail using a heat sensitive infrared camera.

• 48:01Alie Ward?

  Uh huh.

• 48:01Speaker 06

  And as people out there might know, rattlesnakes actually have heat sensitive pits on their face so they can see this infrared radiation. Gopher snakes don't. The squirrels know this instinctively, and they shunt blood to their tails, and it lights up like a lightsaber in the rattlesnake's face.

• 48:18Alie Ward?

  No.

• 48:18Speaker 06

  Only when it's a rattlesnake.

• 48:20Alie Ward?

  Oh.

• 48:20Speaker 06

  When it's a gopher snake, they don't bother doing that. The tail stays cold.

• 48:23Alie Ward?

  No.

• 48:24Speaker 06

  Incredible.

• 48:24Alie Ward?

  And so that heat definitely shows up for the pit viper.

• 48:30Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 48:31Alie Ward?

  And it's saying, all right, all right, you see me. I can't sneak up on you.

• 48:33Speaker 06

  Yeah. And they'll leave. Usually they'll leave after that and go hunt somewhere else where they can have that element of surprise.

• 48:38Alie Ward?

  I know you are dying to know more about squirrels. And don't worry, we have a whole episode called Squirredeology, and it is wall to wall squirrel facts. And I'm glad it is in the world and in the show notes waiting for you. So the pit vipers are, they're seeing this like hot little tail and they just move on?

• 48:55Speaker 06

  Yeah, they'll basically pick up and move on and hunt somewhere else because they're ambush foragers. They're waiting for some unsuspecting rodent to run by. Surprise, surprise. If the squirrel already knows they're there, then they might as well not bother. Plus, the squirrels can get in their face. They throw dirt at them, they kick them, and sometimes they even bite them. Sometimes they even kill them.

• 49:12Alie Ward?

  Are you, how? They get the butt end of it?

• 49:15Speaker 06

  No, you know what? It's crazy. An adult California ground squirrel can survive a rattlesnake bite.

• 49:21Alie Ward?

  How?

• 49:22Speaker 06

  They're resistant to their venom through co-evolution. Well, okay, resistant doesn't mean immune.

• 49:26Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 49:26Speaker 06

  They sure do die and are eaten by rattlesnakes all the time. But mostly, the rattlesnakes are eating the babies who haven't developed their resistance yet. Actually, it's through millions of years of co-evolution, the squirrel that happened to have a slight resistance from a mutation, more likely to survive, have more babies, pass that on. And then they're actually, the California ground squirrels are the reason the rattlesnake's venom is so toxic.

• 49:47Alie Ward?

  No.

• 49:47Speaker 06

  Because it was only then, over this evolutionary arms race, that the rattlesnake's venom, when mutation made it randomly more toxic, that that rattlesnake had more babies because it had more food and so on. So, you know, defense, offense, defense, offense.

• 50:01Alie Ward?

  And are ground squirrels the only one that have this kind of relationship?

• 50:04Speaker 06

  Nope. Wood rats have it too. In fact, predators that eat rattlesnakes have it too. So certain predators can survive rattlesnake bites, things like possums, probably badgers. Other predators are not resistant, things like hawks and owls, and they just tear off the spicy end of the snake before eating it. I've seen a number of birds grab rattlesnakes and then versus grabbing a gopher snake. When it's a gopher snake, they just pick it up and go. When it's a rattlesnake, you see them kind of stamping around in the distance. And what they're doing is they're ripping the head off.

• 50:32Alie Ward?

  Oh.

• 50:32Speaker 06

  I think they know.

• 50:33Alie Ward?

  They must. So that was Dr. Emily Taylor, who is a rattlesnake expert. We will link the chronology episode in the show notes. Highly suggest you enjoy that. Oh, speaking of biting. In all of your work, have you ever been bit by a squirrel?

• 50:49Speaker 01

  I have never been bit by a squirrel.

• 50:50Alie Ward?

  Oh, I'm knocking on so much wood.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  I have, I have come close once and gotten a blood blister from kind of getting squished. But when we handle them, I use a cloth handling bag that's in the shape of a triangle. I actually usually describe it as a giant pastry bag.

• 51:05Alie Ward?

  Mm hmm.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  So if you imagine a giant pastry bag made out of like a denim material, we wrap the wide end around the trap opening because it's really easy to catch a squirrel, peanut butter, sunflower seeds, things like that. But then you have a very angry squirrel in a metal cage. And so if you wrap the big end around the trap and open the door, the squirrel does not want to be in the trap and will run out and basically run into the narrow end and basically just wedge themselves into this pastry bag. And it's like being, the same like being swaddled physiologically. So they're in there, they're all kind of nice and tight. Their eyes are closed. Usually their nose kind of sticks out the very end, and they're very calm. And they can't open their mouth to bite me, and therefore I am very calm. They're not trying to run away. They're not trying to move or anything. They're just

• 51:50Speaker 01

  basically chill.

• 51:51Alie Ward?

  Yeah, of course, I looked this up, and I found fieldwork photos of Dr. Monroe on a campus lawn. In her lap, a pillowcase sized, dark blue canvas sack pointed at one end. She is wearing a school bus yellow t-shirt, and it matches the shirts of her student assistants. And there's a small logo over the breast, an official seal of some sort. But on the back of the shirts, in bold lettering, it reads, "It's the squirrels. They're watching me." What kind of alien abduction science do you have to do in order to make sure that their population is healthy? Like, do you have to weigh them? Do you have to take their temperatures? You have to check them for fleas? Like, what kinds of things are our scientists looking for?

• 52:32Speaker 01

  Right. So this is, usually this is everything that we're doing. So we catch them, we weigh them, we take a whole set of morphological measurements, right? We want to know not just how much they weigh, but you know, how much of that is fat versus bone and things like that. Certainly, I look for flea infections. I usually feel around, see if they have any broken bones, check their tails. I usually will check to see if they're pregnant, or if they're lactating or things like that. Check to see if the males are actually active in reproduction. And then we mark them. So we put unique colored ear tags, usually numbered and colored ear tags into their ears. And when I do that, I take a DNA sample. And then sometimes if we're going to see how far they're going to go and things like that, we can put a radio collar on them, which is a necklace, weighs less than five grams. And then we can kind of get an idea about, you know, the number of males, number of females, number of juveniles, and things like that.

• 53:16Alie Ward?

  If there is one that's injured or has an infestation, can, because you're a researcher and not a wildlife rehabber, where's the line between getting it help and letting nature do its thing? How do you decide?

• 53:29Speaker 01

  My general default is to let nature take its course. I usually think if it's something that I personally have caused, I definitely have had a squirrel that kind of get a piece of skin, you know, on their nose or whatnot, scratched from the metal trap or whatever, I will tend to swipe a little piece of, you know, spore it on that nose before I let them go. But generally speaking, I let nature take its course. I have not ever come across a squirrel that I've needed to do something significant about. And I'd like to keep it that way as well. So.

• 53:56Alie Ward?

  I mean, I feel like they just probably got wind of you and just respect you a lot. I think they probably like, well.

• 54:01Speaker 01

  I would make it so much easier if they would just kind of stand up and be like, hi, I weigh 250 grams. Here's my measurements. I'm not pregnant.

• 54:08Alie Ward?

  I'm real knocked up right now. I had a great time a couple of months ago. What about, oh, I have a million questions for you. I cannot tell you how exciting this is. If you could stand on a cosmic soapbox and have the biggest bullhorn ever to bust some flim flim about squirrels, what is the biggest misconception that you're like, people, it's not like that?

• 54:28Speaker 01

  I would say people often ask me about rabies, like, are I afraid to catch rabies and things like that? And there's never been a case of a rodent carrying rabies. And so there's never been any kind of report of squirrels carrying rabies. And so that's why I don't mind working with undergraduate students with them. I'm always present when undergraduates trap. But really, the only thing they carry is tetanus. And so as long as students have had their tetanus shot, I'm generally not so worried.

• 54:49Alie Ward?

  You were in Arizona, and I feel like in my brain, someone says squirrels, Arizona bubonic plague.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Plague, yes.

• 54:56Alie Ward?

  Did I make that up?

• 54:57Speaker 01

  So bubonic plague is definitely a thing to be worried about. When I worked at the Casa Grande Ruin, since it's a national monument, they would have their fleas tested annually to see if there was any chance of plague. And fortunately, all four years that I was there, there was no, no chance of plague.

• 55:13Alie Ward?

  Okay, so according to the CDC, small rodents like squirrels and hamsters and guinea pigs and chipmunks and rats and gerbils and mice and bunnies are almost never found to be infected with the rabies. And they have not been known to transmit rabies to humans. However, groundhogs, they got a little more chunk in their trunks, they have bigger bodies. So they do get reported as rabid from time to time. Now, the bubonic plague has been transmitted by fleas on ground squirrels and wood rats and prairie dogs, but it's very rare. And please, I beg you to channel your anxiety toward really anything else. Or as a Slate headline from the summer of 2020 read, "You do not need to worry about the

• 55:55Alie Ward?

  bubonic plague squirrel in Colorado." And just reading that, like, whew, what a time machine, what an eventful few years it's been on planet Earth. Just can we catch a break? But if you do feel very sick and have giant lymph node area nodules, just please see a doctor if you're in trouble. Speaking of being in trouble and confronting that sweet, sweet ache of mortality.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  The most endangered mammal in North America is a squirrel species.

• 56:22Alie Ward?

  Oh.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  The Mount Graham red squirrel is the most endangered mammal in North America.

• 56:27Alie Ward?

  No.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  It only resides on one mountaintop. When I was there studying them, their numbers were probably in the two to three hundreds. I can say that a few years ago, they were down below 100. They've kind of come back a little bit, but.

• 56:41Alie Ward?

  Is that all habitat loss or climate?

• 56:43Speaker 01

  It is a, the Mount Graham is a, is a whole ecosystem of, of a mess. So yes, there's a lot of habitat loss. It was slated to have two dozen telescopes built on the top of the mountain, and they were denied, and some were built. And, and then there was an insect infestation. It's sacred native American land. There was a, you know, several large forest fires. There's an endangered raptor that comes through that eats them. There's an introduced squirrel. I mean, like, every plight that has affected an endangered species is there on the one mountaintop.

• 57:16Alie Ward?

  Oh, it sounds like they were cursed by a witch. Who, boy. So now it might be an okay time to tell you that we have episodes on fire ecology, indigenous fire ecology, fulminology about lightning strikes that cause forest fires, and a recent field trip episode about raptors. I'll link them in the show notes. But yes, Mount Graham is a 10,000 foot tall peak in the southeastern corner of Arizona. So this Mount Graham red squirrel, it's about eight inches long. It has dark gray, brown fur, and a white belly. I want a pet. And it enjoys a diet of seeds and pine cones and air dried mushrooms. Now, this critter is endangered, but at one point in the era of Camaros and Aquanet, there was no hope.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  They actually thought that they were extinct into the mid 80s, and a hunter brought one in. And wildlifeers were like, oh, that is not the abrit squirrel that you should be hunting. That is probably the endangered Mount Graham red squirrel.

• 58:14Alie Ward?

  That must have been a huge day. And the squirreology community.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 58:18Alie Ward?

  They must have been popping bottles. I know that they couldn't text each other, but they must have been paying long distance fees to be like.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 58:26Alie Ward?

  Yeah, to be like, Barbara, I got some news. That is so exciting. What about tiny squirrels on the big screen? Is there a favorite squirrel in film or TV that you're like, you got that right? Or I like that one?

• 58:40Speaker 01

  You know, I do love me a scrat.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  I keep waiting for Squirrel Girl to come out. I have a number of Squirrel Girl paraphernalias in my office and things like that. She was supposed to be in so many Marvel superheroes. I have so many figurines of her. I cannot wait for Doreen to come out and show everybody what a badass she really is. Cause she, you know, supposedly has kicked Deadpool's ass, you know, Thanos ass, you know, Wolverine, like she is just as badass in the Marvel world. And yet I'm waiting, I'm waiting.

• 59:12Alie Ward?

  Just a short PS. So LA is very small and I happen to know Melana Weintraub, the actress and the director who was slated to play Squirrel Girl for Marvel. And I texted her, I told her that she has a friend in the squirrel world. And she said that that was the most giantest honor I know. And she'd pass it along to Ryan North, the comic book creator, who is the real hero, she says, behind Squirrel Girl. And also there's a six-episode scripted podcast series starring Melana called Marvel's Squirrel Girl, the unbeatable radio show. But if you want that movie or TV series, just feel free to get those petitions going, folks. Ologites, I have faith in you. Can I ask you listener questions?

• 59:54Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 59:55Alie Ward?

  I told them you were coming on. I told them that this was the best day of my life. But before your questions, each week we donate to a cause of the ologist's choosing. And this week, we're going to split it between two for Karen. One is Letters to a Pre-Scientist, which connects students to STEM professionals through snail mail to broaden students' awareness of what STEM professionals look like and do at work. And the other is to Squirrel Mapper, a community science project that helps researchers identify populations of squirrels and their morphs. Why, they ask? Because together, we can crack this nut. So find out more at prescientist.org and squirrelmapper.org. And those donations were made possible by sponsors of the show.

• 1:00:40Alie Ward?

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• 1:01:23Alie Ward?

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• 1:02:05Alie Ward?

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• 1:02:51Alie Ward?

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• 1:03:35Alie Ward?

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• 1:05:06Alie Ward?

  Okay, your questions. Let's start with one about goth squirrels, shall we? Asked by Cooper Moore, Kyla Murphy, and Clay Mormon, who says, I've seen a ton of melanistic gray squirrels in Ohio and Toronto, but none in New England. What's the deal? And Jess Shrazan has seen them in central Illinois, but almost none in and around Chicago. Huh. Populations, pockets of squirrels, like the all-black squirrels in DC.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:05:36Alie Ward?

  Yeah, the Canadian black squirrels. How did they get to DC? And also, LA not supposed to have a lot of fox squirrels, and yet here we are, they're everywhere. How did these Canadian squirrels get to DC?

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  People love squirrels and they move them everywhere. That's the easy answer, right? So here, I'm here in Ohio, and the very classic answer is that a man went on vacation in Canada, found these black squirrels, fell in love with them, caught 10 of them, brought them back and released them.

• 1:06:04Alie Ward?

  Oops. So like anything having to do with love and smuggling, it's complicated. But the Smithsonian in Washington says that it has the receipts dating back to the year 1900, when the superintendent of the National Zoo, one Frank Baker, was thirsty for the squirrels that Canada had, and got about eight or 10 of them sent. And they were the talk of the town at the zoo in Washington DC. In six years, a few litters later, they were like, listen, the gray squirrels here in Washington are getting hunted too much. What say you to a little city upgrade by releasing a few of these melanistic ones just on the zoo grounds? Of course, that didn't go as planned. Nature finds a way. And so the squirrels

• 1:06:49Alie Ward?

  that you see in some parts of the Northeast sporting this lustrous jet-black fur are technically gray squirrels.

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  It's a single gene. If you're missing one little part of your gray gene, right, you become this dark black squirrel. If you get both copies are black, if you get one copy, you're just kind of more grayish and you're missing your white belly and things like that. But certainly, I mean, we have black squirrels here in Ohio. They are coming, kind of moving down from Canada and dispersing down. And once the trait gets into the population, it just spreads. It's a dominant trait. So if you get one gene, it's going to be expressed. So we see them more and more and more. I'm willing to bet that there is probably some thermoregulation advantage, but no one really knows why.

• 1:07:36Alie Ward?

  Listen, I know not everyone has a thermophysiatrist that they can text on a whim, but I hit up my friend, Dr. Shane Campbell-Staten of the thermophyseology episodes. And he said, I would imagine being able to absorb more heat from the environment during a time when heat is at a metabolic premium, like winter, would have clear benefits. However, there's also a trend called Glaser's Rule that says mammals should get lighter toward the poles. Ultimately, it probably comes down to which aspect of the environment is the biggest challenge, he said. And sure enough, yep, research has shown that black mammals have 18% lower heat loss in temperatures below negative 10 degrees Celsius. And also, when it comes to these squirrels, the darker morphs may survive the city better because researchers

• 1:08:18Alie Ward?

  say they're more visible to drivers who are looking to avoid squirrel murder on their way to the post office. But remember, this morph didn't evolve to live in this part of the continent. And now also is a great time to plug Dr. Shane Campbell-Staten's new and really stunning PBS show called Human Footprint, which just premiered a few weeks ago. I've known he was shooting it for years. I'm so excited for you to see it. So I'll link it on my website. It's called Human Footprint on PBS. You can look it up. But yes, any melanistic squirrels in DC are likely descendants of Frank Baker's quest to populate the nation's capital with pretty little squirrel babies.

• 1:08:56Speaker 01

  People always say that they're smaller, or they're meaner, or they're more aggressive. And I've not seen any of that. In my studies, they weigh the same as gray squirrels. I've definitely seen litters that are mixed black and gray.

• 1:09:06Alie Ward?

  Oh, maybe different dads.

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  Possibly different dads.

• 1:09:09Alie Ward?

  I mean.

• 1:09:10Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. But yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, brunettes versus blondes.

• 1:09:14Alie Ward?

  Al Ham is a first-time question asker, who appears to know a little bit about this, and asked, are the black squirrels introduced to several areas of the USA, like Kent, Ohio, Holland, Michigan, some areas of Arizona, et cetera, are they considered feral? Or because they were maybe escaped pets? Or does that even matter at the end of the day?

• 1:09:32Speaker 01

  Most of the time, it doesn't matter. So gray squirrels, whether they're black or gray, have been introduced all over the world. And they typically will. Cause trouble wherever they go. They are able to out compete most of the other squirrel species. And we don't have a really easy answer as to why, why that might be. But people just love squirrels. And so they take them and introduce them places where they really shouldn't be. And places like California, where there is a Western gray squirrel, the Western gray squirrels are getting outcompeted by the Eastern gray squirrels. Same kind of thing in Arizona, same kind of thing in England, in Italy. There's reports of Eastern gray squirrels in the hazelnut farms. I love it. I love it. I love it. That's a problem economically. And then if they are somehow able to get over the Alps,

• 1:10:14Speaker 01

  they'll be into Asia and then it easily spread all over Asia. And so there are a lot of management concerns with people releasing pet gray squirrels. And there are lots of conservation organizations looking to rein them back and control them and manage those populations.

• 1:10:32Alie Ward?

  I never even thought about if you've got an almond or a walnut orchard, do they just not like the tannic hull of those nuts?

• 1:10:39Speaker 01

  Right. It's so much better. Why would you bother eating an acorn when you can eat an almond or walnut or a peanut?

• 1:10:43Alie Ward?

  So then I wonder what almond farmers and stuff do about that. I definitely see a lot of owl boxes near orchards, which, you know. Okay, so I did look this up, and catacomb of webpages led me to something called UC Integrated Pest Management Program, which said, "Deep plowing, also known as ripping, along perimeters of fields will destroy burrow entrances and will help slow the rate of ground squirrel invasion in orchards." They also say, "Burrow fumigants, toxic baits and traps currently are the most effective control methods." And I feel like I say this all the time, but on the topic of human footprints, even the most well-meaning diet still affects

• 1:11:28Alie Ward?

  the ecology. It just does. I have no answers for you. Just an urge to have perspective. Okay, moving on. I thought this was an absolutely unhinged question, and I'll ask it. Kate Webb, first time question asker, says, "There are species of flying squirrel in Michigan that fluoresce?"

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  Yes. We didn't know that till just a few years ago. No one had any idea. And they accidentally turned on a black light and it was like, oh crap, this is like bright pink, bright purple. It's pretty amazing.

• 1:11:56Alie Ward?

  For more on this, you can see the paper, "Using mass spectrometry to investigate fluorescent compounds in squirrel fur," which will treat you to the visual of this fuzzy, furry flying squirrel cradled in the palm of a researcher, exposed to black light, and the squirrel's belly looks like a neon pink hallucination. Why is this happening? Well, like many things, no one knows shit. But some scrotiologists hypothesize that fluorescent coloration on their bellies may help camouflage flying squirrels against predators that are UV detecting, like owls, because there are plants and lichen that also glow similarly.

• 1:12:37Alie Ward?

  Also, might be for mating, might be a communication tool. As a human, you would need a cannon event level breakup and a quart of manic panic to achieve it. It's amazing. 12 out of 10. Oh, that is like the Bob Marley poster that no one knew that they needed. Is there any reason why these squirrels would fluoresce? Kate Webb wants to know.

• 1:12:57Speaker 01

  I mean, they can see each other. Other things can see them or not see them, right? The amount of UV radiation that happens at night is very different than the amount that happens during the day.

• 1:13:06Alie Ward?

  Oh.

• 1:13:07Speaker 01

  The types of, you know, eye receptors and things like that.

• 1:13:10Alie Ward?

  Do you think that they are better equipped to see that?

• 1:13:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:13:14Alie Ward?

  With night vision?

• 1:13:15Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:13:16Alie Ward?

  Which brings me to Madison Hunter's question, says, "Not sure if you will cover flying squirrels, but I had one as a pet when I was in middle school, and I noticed it was quite active at night." And Madison says, "I would usually play music to sleep, and I often caught it doing what appeared to be dancing to the music." Do you think it's possible that squirrels get down?

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  Let's boogie. I've never personally seen it. I don't want to say that it couldn't possibly, but I've never seen it.

• 1:13:44Alie Ward?

  And what about the nocturnal versus diurnal? Like, is it totally depend on the environment and the squirrel?

• 1:13:51Speaker 01

  So really, there aren't very many tree squirrels or ground squirrels that are nocturnal. Usually, it's the flying squirrels that are nocturnal.

• 1:13:57Alie Ward?

  Oh. And those, again, in Lila Lake's words, are flying squirrels closely related to walking squirrels? Or is that name just a misnomer?

• 1:14:07Speaker 01

  It's just a total misnomer. They don't fly at all. They glide, right? There's nothing, they have no capacity to actually gain lift by, you know, flapping or anything. They literally are just taking advantage of the ability to get from point A to point B much faster by gliding than by going down the tree, running across the ground, and going back up the tree.

• 1:14:27Alie Ward?

  But them's is squirrels?

• 1:14:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:14:29Alie Ward?

  Okay.

• 1:14:30Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:14:31Alie Ward?

  So everyone, such as Dania Khan, Irina Disazo, Erin Gunderson, Brittany Shafis, Frances Hurst-Brewbaker, Kimberly Bryant, Hudson Ansley, and the squirrel queen who asked about flying squirrels, the expert word is? So the flying is a no, the squirrel is a yes?

• 1:14:46Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 1:14:47Alie Ward?

  Okay, so, oh my gosh, I've never seen one in person, but...

• 1:14:52Speaker 01

  So you need to go to Japan. So one of the questions I almost always get asked is, "What's your favorite squirrel?"

• 1:14:56Alie Ward?

  Oh.

• 1:14:57Speaker 01

  They're like, children, you cannot pick a favorite child. But if you're going to press me, I will typically tell you it's the two Japanese squirrels. So the Japanese pygmy dwarf squirrel, which is teeny tiny little puffball, and Musasabe. Musasabe is an eight-pound flying squirrel.

• 1:15:14Alie Ward?

  What? That's a baby. That's the size of an infant human.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  It's like the size of your house cat, right? And so when it glides over your head, it's like somebody has hurled a trash can lid over your head. Speeds up to 35 miles an hour. When they hit the tree, when they, you know, land, you can just hear the slam. And then you hear them kind of climbing up and then they'll take off again. So I want you to picture a group of researchers in a very sacred Japanese shrine at 2, 3 o'clock in the morning with our red headlamps on, running from tree to tree as we try and follow these Musasabe. I was for sure, like, there are going to be headlines, you know, "American squirrel researcher arrested."

• 1:15:56Alie Ward?

  Well, someone asked if there was a black squirrel lab breach conspiracy. AZM, have you heard that they escaped from a lab? Is there a conspiracy about this?

• 1:16:09Speaker 01

  No. And generally speaking, you know, picking squirrels inside is not always a good thing. They really do chew everything. I would not want a lab full of squirrels in any way, shape, or form. Squirrel stay outside is what I always tease my students.

• 1:16:24Alie Ward?

  If you had a pet nail squirrel, would it be so horny all the time? Because that must be why they have giant balls, right?

• 1:16:30Speaker 01

  Right. There would definitely be points when it is super aggressive and wanting to get outside and things like that. Absolutely. People who keep squirrels as pets generally don't keep them for very long, because once they get to that point, they are just aggressive and bitey and want out.

• 1:16:43Alie Ward?

  Well, you've been in academia a long time, and you've been researching squirrels for a long time. And we have a ton of people who I will list in an aside. Including Adrian, who works on an elementary school campus and whose students have become obsessed with crime squirrel, one who rifles through their backpacks, and patron Alec Joseph, whose friends have, quote, "college squirrel trauma," and Mary Concanon, Natalie Jones, Chelsea Victoria Turner, Cassandra Graffstrom, Tara Tiger Studio, RJ Doidge, Emily Stouffer, and Kyla Murphy. Want to know about college squirrels. They want to know, why are they so big? One says, "What's up with U of M squirrels?" RJ Doidge says, "I dare say you haven't seen Rutgers squirrels." Emily Stouffer, "What is up with squirrels on college campuses?

• 1:17:26Alie Ward?

  They seem to never have a fear of people." Natalie Jones says, "I've seen a college campus squirrel drag a whole bagel away." Stop, don't come back. What is it about college campuses and squirrels?

• 1:17:38Speaker 01

  I mean, they're diurnal. College students are mostly diurnal. And so, you know, they just go kind of hand in hand. I think because they are so charismatic, people feed them all the time. I mean, I can tell you that the squirrels on my campus are 20% larger than if they were just out somewhere else. And people know that I study squirrels on campus. I'm well-known. Squirrel Doc is well-known. But people still will feed squirrels. There is an Instagram account that is not run by me just for our campus squirrels. And I sometimes get salty with them because I will submit good pictures, and they are not chosen to be featured on the Instagram feed.

• 1:18:11Alie Ward?

  How dare, how dare. Patricia G. notes that they found a squirrel eating a hot dog bun in a tree a few weeks ago. I mean, just the idea of them eating whole hot dog bun. Chandler Whittington wants to know, "How do they not get poisoned when they eat mushrooms? Do they ever get high? How do they know? I can't, I can't forage for mushrooms. And I have a computer in my pocket."

• 1:18:34Speaker 01

  So they do eat mushrooms that would be poisonous to us. So they clearly have a different digestive system, processing system than we do. And they probably do have occasionally had psychedelic mushrooms. I have seen videos of squirrels drunk after they've eaten pumpkins or apples or things like that that have fermented and have alcohol in them and really can't climb up a tree very well. They kind of keep falling off and falling over and lack of coordination.

• 1:19:01Alie Ward?

  Do you think they're having fun? Or do you think they're like, what the fuck? Why is the tree moving? Like, why is the tree spinning? Probably both. Sometimes it's a fermented pumpkin. Sometimes it's a fizzy crab apple. And sometimes it's standing under a keg like a rainforest shower, reported by Buzz60.

• 1:19:16Speaker 04

  Operators at the Honeyborne Railway Club say when they opened up, they found beer spilled all over the floor, glasses knocked off the shelves, and bottles scattered everywhere. Employees thought they'd been burgled, but then the culprit staggered into view. A slow-moving squirrel, still apparently intoxicated from lapping up the fruits of his destroyed

• 1:19:35Alie Ward?

  destructive rampage. So it happens. And this is why squirrels don't have driver's licenses. Sad. Jess Donald wants to know, how many nuts can they fit in their mouth? And also apologies if that sounds inappropriate. How big are their face purses? When it comes to their ludicrously capacious face, how much can they fit in there? Or do chipmunks really have that down?

• 1:19:59Speaker 01

  Chipmunks really have that down. Squirrels still have pouches and they can pack some good food in there. But chipmunks are the ones really who kind of like, right, have that like big expanding piece. And like, I do catch chipmunks in our traps. And my favorite thing is when you grab them, the first thing they do is just kind of regurgitate all of that that's in their mouth. And just kind of all just like, just falls out. Like, I am so sorry. You can have this later. I won't take it. You can come back for it. I'll leave it right here. Or better yet, or worse yet, it depends on how you think about it. Cause they use peanut butter typically to trap. They will have their cheeks stuffed with peanut butter. And so then it's like the Play-Doh factory, this peanut butter kind of being squished out. So.

• 1:20:31Alie Ward?

  They're like, just take it. Just take it.

• 1:20:34Speaker 01

  I don't want this.

• 1:20:35Alie Ward?

  Nick Makash wants to know, did squirrels invent maple syrup?

• 1:20:39Speaker 01

  Have you heard this? No.

• 1:20:41Alie Ward?

  I don't know.

• 1:20:42Speaker 01

  I mean, certainly they will eat sap. Certainly they will pull the outer bark off and eat that inner cammium and, and things like that. Particularly when there's not a lot of food to eat. And so maybe you could say that they, you know, have long time taken advantage of that resource.

• 1:20:56Alie Ward?

  What? It's true. According to the Journal of Mamalogy paper, Maple Sugaring by Red Squirrels, in which Dr. Bernd Heinrich writes, red squirrels make a tap via a single pair of chisel-like grooves from one bite into the sappy xylem layer of maple trees. But they write, quote, "The dripping dilute sap was not harvested. Instead, the squirrels came back later and selectively visited the trees that had been punctured after most of the water from the sap had evaporated." Yes. So they found this all over Vermont and Maine. And the Hodenoshoni legend credits squirrels with teaching indigenous folks how to tap and evaporate maple sap.

• 1:21:40Alie Ward?

  So waffles brought to you by squirrels. Oh, speaking of food and water, patron Iris Hutchings had a question about what happens when squirrels get thirsty. Where are they drinking water from, actually? Do they get it from the plants they eat?

• 1:21:54Speaker 01

  From everything that they eat.

• 1:21:55Alie Ward?

  Yeah. Is it good to set up like a little water feature fountain?

• 1:21:59Speaker 01

  You can. They usually won't drink from it, though. It's not something they won't.

• 1:22:02Alie Ward?

  So don't get your feelings hurt if they don't.

• 1:22:04Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:22:05Alie Ward?

  And this one about squirrel memory was on the minds of Popita, Diana Teter, Alexandra Katul, Anke Lausch, Lorene Evans, Taylor Faulkner, Jeff Berg, and Alex Keely. A ton of people want to know, how do they remember where they hid their food? Do they have that kind of memory year after year?

• 1:22:24Speaker 01

  Probably not year after year, because most of the resources are probably gone within a year. We do know that the size of their hippocampus, which we know is used in spatial memory, does increase in the fall when acorns are present. There's research that clearly shows that. I was part of that as an undergrad as well. The size of the hippocampus in spring versus fall, it's much larger in fall for them to try and remember that. But that's a great question. It's one of the things that my lab has just started to try and take on. I have some hypotheses that say that some species of squirrels are probably, I don't want to say that they are better at remembering, but probably better at relocating scatter hordes of acorns, things like that.

• 1:23:03Alie Ward?

  Also, in case you think scatter hoarder is an unnecessary insult, it's not just a way to say that you're a mess, squirrels. It's just a mammalogy, scrotiology term for hiding your shit in a few different places, which is a thing that you might do with lip balms or money, except it's lunch and it's in the dirt. A few people, including Amanda and Chase Panics, want to know. By the way, I just want to say, never in 350 episodes of this podcast have I gotten so many questions that start with a story. And that is the best. Amanda says, I have a squirrel that comes to my window and waits patiently until I give it nuts. It looks like she gets excited when she sees me and recognizes me.

• 1:23:45Alie Ward?

  Can squirrels recognize individual humans like pros can? And Chase and others want to know, like, do they remember friendly faces? Or are you of any machine?

• 1:23:55Speaker 01

  But I don't think so, but I'm willing to bet that her behavior is the same every time. And so she recognizes the same behavior.

• 1:24:01Alie Ward?

  Madison Hunter and some other people. Also, Wild Pack of Dogs, Nicole DJ Dave, DBR Maker, and. First question asker, Julia Soumella, wants to know if you've seen Mark Rober's squirrel obstacle course videos. So the first challenge is the bridge of instability. Now, this may look easy, but the trick is it attaches at a single point on each end. And from a physics standpoint, that makes it no different than trying to crawl across a tightrope. So these videos went up during the early pandemic and they feature a backyard squirrel, well, several, going through what is described as an American ninja warrior course to reach a bird feeder. These videos have racked up hundreds of millions of views. How do you feel about them?

• 1:24:43Speaker 01

  I mean, it's awesome. And I love that. I love it when people ask me about, you know, they'll describe their entire setup of bird feeders and things like that. This is so great. And it just shows really how smart they are and, you know, spatially conscious. And then he has the whole piece about like when they get launched, that they always do land correctly. And you can really easily watch how they use that tail as a rudder in there and everything. And so it's, it's just perfect. It's great. But people do this all the time. They'll be like, I have this spring and then I use vaseline and grease this. And this is far from here and they have to do this and they have to go here. And like, yep, it's amazing.

• 1:25:18Alie Ward?

  Everyone, I guess, with a backyard. Looking at you, Katie Courtois, Anne Ebbie, Sage Scarborough, Grace Ruby Show, Katie Armstrong. Wants to know, how do we keep the bird feed safe? Jenny Lowroad wanted to know, why do they eat all the bird seed, with capital A? And Rainy Emily asked this question. So my grandfather is constantly at war with squirrels because they eat his bird seed. And their question was, is it bad for squirrels to eat bird seed? Or just some beef that my grandfather has with the squirrels? And I was like, Emily, I hate to tell you that. I think your grandpa's just team bird here. But is there anything bad about bird seed? Or is it just that they're taking from birds?

• 1:25:56Speaker 01

  No, it's just that, yeah, no, there's nothing bad about bird seed or things like that. And my answer, my best answer, so listen up, is hot pepper bird seed. Go someplace that sells specialty bird seed. Get the hot pepper bird seed. It'll stop the squirrels from eating it. It'll stop the deer from eating it. It'll stop the raccoons from eating it. And then once you've, you know, dissuaded them that the bird feeder is not where they want to be, then you can kind of mix 50/50 hot pepper bird seed and regular bird seed. And maybe even go back to just regular bird seed until they figure it back out again. And then you have to go back to the hot pepper bird seed. But that is my, that is my only, it's my best advice.

• 1:26:31Alie Ward?

  And that's nature. That's just, birds can't taste it. So.

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:26:36Alie Ward?

  We did a chickens episode recently about putting red pepper flakes in your chicken feed. Not only are the squirrels like, hell no, but also you get really beautiful orange yolks.

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:26:45Alie Ward?

  But it does bring me to a question. A lot of people want to know. Such as Cynthia Connor, Catherine Finney, Megan Guthrie, Maya, Jerry Webb, Pascal Perrin, and Jackie Ross. How does one protect their gardens as much as they love them? Allison P., first time question asker, how do I get squirrels to stop stealing my sunflowers? Catherine, apparently squirrels are digging up their vegetable garden. Heather Heater did call them furry terrorists. Jackie Ross, is there any real way to stop them from eating your plants?

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  Nope. World domination for sure.

• 1:27:18Alie Ward?

  What about a net? Get a net?

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  I mean, sure, you can, you can try and net and keep them and the birds out. But sometimes, I mean, they're, they're pretty smart and they can kind of get, usually get between the fence and the net. Unlike the birds who just kind of go from the top. And so it's hard, especially if you live someplace that has ground squirrels or groundhogs or woodchucks. Like you're, you're in trouble.

• 1:27:39Alie Ward?

  Well, they got some judgment from some people who wanted to know why they taunt us by not eating the whole thing. Camille Charlebois, R.I.P. to your half eaten tomatoes. And. Nina Giacobe says, why do they taunt me by leaving half eaten strawberries on the edge of my garden? Apparently, Marika says, why do squirrels leave treats and leftovers on my window sills? Why do they not finish?

• 1:28:06Speaker 01

  I have complained about this too. They will eat one bite out of the tomato and then put it down and then reach the next one, eat the next bite of the tomato. And so it's not like they respect me either. I, I think it comes from that natural behavior to not eat the whole acorn, not eat the whole seed, right? So like, they'll eat the top half of the acorn because it has less tannins. So it means more protein for them and then drop it and move on to the next one. And because it is so abundant, you know, we could use our marginal value theorem, talk about optimal foraging, that it's just better to take the best bite and move on.

• 1:28:38Alie Ward?

  Take the best bite and move on, people. Horrible strategy for humans, works good for squirrels. Who can be so frustrated with them? I mean, who doesn't, I guess, want to just go to a smorgasbord, try a little nibble of everything, I suppose?

• 1:28:53Speaker 01

  Eat the best part of the strawberry and just, you know, up the rest of it.

• 1:28:56Alie Ward?

  Stephanie Coombs wants tips on keeping them out of my shed. Aside from rebuilding it, if they trap them, will they come back? And again, a great story, but in terms of hiding mushrooms, apparently Stephanie's rubber boots were filled this year with mushrooms, which is so cute. But if you wanted to keep them out of a structure. Such as attic squirrel having Hannah Nolan and James Nance, and Ness and Sydney I, and Abby Grebe, who struggles with garage squirrels.

• 1:29:27Speaker 01

  You need to make sure that there's no way they can get in. Usually we have to make sure you block up any holes or entrances or things like that. Because if you don't take them very far away, they will most likely come back.

• 1:29:37Alie Ward?

  Um, Art by DJ has a weird one. They say, a neighbor had a squirrel, one by one, steal all the bulbs off her string of deck lights, chewing them off at the cord and then just running away with them? Have you ever heard of this?

• 1:29:51Speaker 01

  Yes, and I don't know why. So their incisors continue to grow. So they have that need to continue to gnaw for their entire lives. They keep their tooth wear down. And there definitely are some plastics that seem to be more favorite than others. And so I don't know what the component of the plastic is. I can tell you, on our campus, they bought some of the recycled plastic picnic tables that are supposedly made from corn cobs. Oh, apparently those are very tasty.

• 1:30:17Alie Ward?

  Oh.

• 1:30:18Speaker 01

  Any like hole or break or anything, squirrels are just in there gnawing and chewing. And I don't know if it's because it's just ever such a slightly softer plastic or if there is actually something tasty remain leftover in that corn plastic.

• 1:30:33Alie Ward?

  Well, I gotta say, I had a Prius, horn stopped working out of nowhere. I took it and I said, what's up with the horn? I said. Let me know if you find any dead raccoons in there lololol. They call me back. They're like, you got a nest in your car. They cracked open my hood, half an orange, a bunch of snail shells, and apparently the wire harness in Toyota Priuses is lubed with soybean oil. And it is scrumptious. You've heard, I'm sure you've heard this a lot, right?

• 1:31:03Speaker 01

  Yep. That's soy plastic, so.

• 1:31:06Alie Ward?

  Oh, it was so cute, but there was also so much poo. And I was like, nice.

• 1:31:11Speaker 01

  That almost sounds like, um.

• 1:31:12Alie Ward?

  He was raps.

• 1:31:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:31:14Alie Ward?

  Yeah, it's probably raps. Okay, squirrels, you're off the hook. Another reason why I love Patreon questions is because this I did not know. Um, a lot of people, James Hales, Ama Craig, Sidoni S., and Iris Hutchings words asked, is it true that red squirrels will chew off the gonads of gray squirrels to decimate the gray squirrel's population? Is that true that they castrate each other with their mouths?

• 1:31:39Speaker 01

  Never.

• 1:31:39Alie Ward?

  Never?

• 1:31:41Speaker 01

  No. Red squirrels are definitely far more aggressive than gray squirrels or fox squirrels. I, I generally say my rule of thumb is the smaller the squirrel, the more aggressive, or the larger the squirrel, the more dopey it is. But no, there's none of that happening. So if there are red squirrels around, they will typically chase off the gray squirrels and fox squirrels. But there's no interaction like that.

• 1:32:03Alie Ward?

  Oh, flim flam busted.

• 1:32:04Speaker 01

  So I, I think sometimes people kind of misjudge that because when males are sexually active, you can clearly see their testes, they're rather large.

• 1:32:12Speaker 03

  You've got a set of balls.

• 1:32:13Speaker 01

  Um, but when they're not sexually active, those testes regress back up into the body cavity. And so then you don't see them.

• 1:32:20Alie Ward?

  Oh, so they put them into retirement?

• 1:32:23Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:32:23Alie Ward?

  Okay. Well, that's good because I was about to, that blew my whole mind, but as long as you're busting flim flam, let's talk TikTok. Amanda Lask, first time questioner, and a bunch of other people. Matthew Whitman, Lenny Olseth, Laurel, Jen Squirrel Alvarez, Amy Ducrey, Stephen Shelley, and Danielle Zonis, all asked about TikTok user Andy Witch's February 2023 video that apparently demonstrated some kind of squirrel mind control by undulating an outstretched arm toward a squirrel on this suburban street. Andy Witch, how literal is that last name? Because I love it. Also, what and why? How? What the hell is up with the wave hand motion thing that's supposedly mind controlling squirrels? Do you know what I'm talking about?

• 1:33:09Speaker 01

  I know completely what you're talking about.

• 1:33:10Speaker 04

  Learn a cool life hack of controlling squirrels. You could actually control squirrels by using your hand in a wave motion. And you could see that the squirrel comes towards me. I learned this from a friend who was in the squirrel club. So now the squirrel's super close to me. You could do this on all squirrels. Be careful.

• 1:33:29Speaker 01

  I had to try it because I was like, I've never seen this. I have no idea. I've had zero luck. So I don't know what this is. The only thing I can think of is that it kind of mimics like the giving of food. And so maybe squirrels who are in urban parks, who are used to being fed by humans, recognize that kind of up and down motion. But I don't, I don't have another explanation.

• 1:33:49Alie Ward?

  Well, as long as we're communicating with appendages, Chris Whitman, Jeanette Moss McCurdy, Megan Guthrie, they want to know, in Chris's words, what does the fast tail twitching mean? What are they communicating with their tails?

• 1:34:01Speaker 01

  Typically, when it's kind of flipping back and forth, that's a kind of a predator alarm call. It's a visual predator alarm call.

• 1:34:06Alie Ward?

  Okay. If they're twitching and screaming at you, they're like, you're going to kill me. Get out of here. I hate you.

• 1:34:14Speaker 01

  I'm telling everybody around me that there's a predator here.

• 1:34:17Alie Ward?

  Wow, they're trying to cancel you is what they're doing.

• 1:34:19Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:34:19Alie Ward?

  Because we could kill them. And.

• 1:34:21Speaker 01

  I see you.

• 1:34:22Alie Ward?

  Yeah, we are predators. Squirrel hunters are out there. Have you ever eaten squirrel?

• 1:34:25Speaker 01

  Not knowingly. I feel like that's a line you can, you can't cross, right? Like, I'm sure that somebody has fed it to me at some point, but not knowingly. Do you have any enemies? Do you think anyone's done it just for, just to spite you? No, not that I know of, but I'm sure somebody, you know, would think that that would be a welcoming kind of thing.

• 1:34:46Alie Ward?

  And if your toes curled and your throat seized hearing that, I do have some historical news. So a lot of humans have been eating a lot of squirrel for a long time. And squirrels have been called the chicken of the trees. And in some cultures, squirrels are considered kids' food. Truly the chicken nuggets of the woods. And there are 1.5 million registered squirrel hunters in the US. Many ecologists and chefs praise squirrel hunting as more humane and less ecologically devastating than factory farmed meat and a potential control of invasive species of squirrel. It's also, from a taste perspective, said to have a nutty, gamey quality that can be swapped out for rabbit in some recipes.

• 1:35:29Alie Ward?

  You know, President James Garfield, he liked this protein source so much that the 1887 White House Cookbook features a recipe for squirrel soup, and that involves lima beans, potatoes, tomatoes, corn, butter, celery, parsley, and the use of a coarse colander, quote, "so as to get rid of the squirrel's troublesome little bones." Well, the recipe concludes with a self-review. Very good.

• 1:35:55Speaker 01

  Squirrel hunting is a million dollar a year business in Mississippi. Like, it is a hugely popular pastime. So it is a reason for management of squirrel populations to keep numbers high so that people do have access to them. The squirrel that was introduced on Mount Graham was introduced purely for hunting purposes, so that people would have a squirrel to hunt.

• 1:36:15Alie Ward?

  Oh, wow. Until we did a mountain goat episode, I didn't realize exactly how much, obviously, conservation effort is also like, we got to crunch the numbers so we can figure out how many it's cool to kill, which is better than not crunching the numbers. But, you know, historically, a lot of conservation is also paid for by hunting licenses too, so it goes back and forth. I think that there maybe might be a notion that like, if you hunt this animal, you don't care about their well-being, but it's way more complicated. We covered this in the deer episode too, but I feel like there's a very urban and rural divide where it's like, if you go out and hunt any animal, you are a sociopath, but it's absolutely fine to have bacon at a diner in the city, you know?

• 1:36:54Speaker 01

  Right, right. I, I get asked questions all the time by squirrel hunters. They want to know, you know, better ways to find squirrels, catch squirrels, things like that. I also get asked by fishermen about squirrels because squirrel fur is used in a lot of fishing lures. So fly fishing lures and so.

• 1:37:09Alie Ward?

  What about Jacqueline Wieland and Kate Armstrong and Viditri Kali? Want to know, and Katie Verds, is it true those squirrel has a range of about 10 miles? And it can find its way home if you drive it 10 miles away and drop it off?

• 1:37:23Speaker 01

  Probably 10 miles is a little far, but not crazy far. Yeah.

• 1:37:27Alie Ward?

  Really?

• 1:37:28Speaker 01

  I'm definitely thinking squirrels five miles and had them reliably come back. So particularly during mating season and things like that, they, males will go pretty far.

• 1:37:37Alie Ward?

  How are they doing that?

• 1:37:39Speaker 01

  World domination.

• 1:37:42Speaker 01

  No, I mean, they, they spatially have a good recognition. Clearly, they have some kind of, I don't want to say homing, but they, they clearly have some kind of spatial recognition where they can come back.

• 1:37:51Alie Ward?

  That's amazing. I wonder if we'll ever find out they have like pigeon magnets in their head, you know?

• 1:37:55Speaker 01

  Some kind of, yeah, some kind of compass, you know?

• 1:37:57Alie Ward?

  Yeah. And that compass might be the hama campus, which not only helps squirrels with their spatial memory to recall all that scatter hoarding, it could be at play when it comes to squirrels making their way back home, which can definitely happen when people trap like an attic squirrel and then drive five or 10 miles away and release it in a new part of town. And they're like, phew, glad that's over. And then a few days later, it's like back at your window being like, wow, ghosted, brutal. And then you have to atone to their furry little faces, which you maybe never wanted to see again. I don't know, blame their brains. World domination. Megan Lynch, who was a caribologist who studies carib trees in Davis, left a question about

• 1:38:37Alie Ward?

  an introduced species learning to break into these tough rock pods of another introduced tree. Does one pioneer squirrel learn something and do they teach each other? Like, how much of that kind of communal living and squirrel drees is teaching each other things?

• 1:38:56Speaker 01

  So I mean, we don't really know about social learning in terms of like feeding an acorn or things like that. But a lot of their food has kind of that harder outer shell. So acorns, buckeyes, walnuts, like all those kinds of things have that really hard carapace that they have to get through and kind of de-shell. And so the carapod, to me, probably isn't all that much different than a buckeye or something like that, where they really kind of have to break off that outer husk to get to the inside piece. And those teeth are sharp and they have a lot of pressure. They can, they can crush a lot of things.

• 1:39:28Alie Ward?

  For more on carib than not chocolate tree with a bonkers history that might be growing on your street, we'll link that episode in the show notes. And last listener question. I could literally talk to you for like 10 hours. You are so lucky that you did not get seated next to me on a flight to New Zealand because I would be, you'd be like, I need to sleep. A good question that I didn't even think of. So many people. Brittany Kaufman, MN9, and of course, Camille in. Camille Charlebois's words. What's up with squirrel poop? I have never seen it. Does it exist? Where is it?

• 1:40:01Speaker 01

  In the grass, it's in the ground. I mean, it's kind of like Tic Tacs, like deli beans, like.

• 1:40:06Alie Ward?

  Do they poo in their nest or is that a no?

• 1:40:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, typically there is kind of an area where they'll collect and things like that. But, you know, if possible, they'll go outside.

• 1:40:14Alie Ward?

  Other than podcast hosts, what's the worst thing about your job? Other than me asking you questions forever? Because you're the best.

• 1:40:22Speaker 01

  But that's, as I said, there's not, that's not a bad part of my job, right? Like, when I realized I could kind of mix the genetics and wildlife piece to be helpful, you could think about charismatic megafauna and how cool it would be to work on, you know, mountain lions and things like that. And then it was like, no, I could have this charismatic minor fauna. I don't want to say micro because they're definitely not that small and they're not really mezo because they're not kind of medium, like skunks and raccoons. But, you know, everybody knows them and pretty much everybody has a story, has a love hate relationship with them. Those are the things that make the best stories and, and really allow you to kind of connect with somebody and have them learn a bit about ecology and the world and talk about things like climate change and forests

• 1:41:03Speaker 01

  and hook somebody and make them passionate and make a, just a genuine human connection and really see each other and pass all the other stuff. And so it's, it's kind of nice. And so there really isn't a bad part.

• 1:41:15Alie Ward?

  But what does suck about it though? Get real with us.

• 1:41:20Speaker 01

  Um, when I was in Arizona and trapping at 110 degrees or on top of Mount Graham and, you know, in 10 feet of snow in snowshoes, trying to find the one squirrel nest and determine if there is a squirrel. It's not always the most fun, so I was the most comfortable.

• 1:41:38Alie Ward?

  What about? Have you ever had a favorite moment on the job?

• 1:41:42Speaker 01

  I do. So when I started here at Baldwin Wallace, they were very concerned that people would be worried that I was harming squirrels and that PETA would be protesting and, and things like that. And I was like, I invite anybody who has any questions to come with me, come, you know, come trap with me, watch the squirrels, watch what I do. You will see that I am not inflicting pain, that they are happy to be there. They're happy to have their peanut butter treat. And, you know, we try to minimize any kind of discomfort and the time that they're with us and things like that. And so I have a, a film crew from a news station with me. I have university relations with me and I have two students and we're catching squirrels and going through. And at some point, a summer camp realizes that there is a kind of a, something

• 1:42:27Speaker 01

  going on over here and we want to, want to see what's going on. And so at some point, I kind of look up from measuring shin bone lengths and things like that. And I am surrounded by probably 30, 30 kids, you know, every color, size, shape, every kind of background. And they're all just watching me just completely fascinated. And they don't know what's in the giant pastry bag, you know, and they're trying to figure that out. And they're asking me questions and my students are, you know, trying to be calm and answer questions. And the news is fascinating, you know, so they're showing the kids, showing me, and showing the kids. And, and it just was at that moment that you realize like, this is what you want as a scientist. Like this is what you want. You want to ask questions,

• 1:43:11Speaker 01

  get answers, and then have that information put out into the world. And so there's a picture of me and it's me and I have a squirrel kind of sitting on my leg and there's a squirrel on the ground. And my two students are doing things and you can just see these legs, these legs of the students in the back of the, of the picture. And that's probably one of my favorite, favorite moments.

• 1:43:31Alie Ward?

  This has been just such a joy. I, I cannot tell you the emotions I had when I clicked on your Instagram and saw like the follow back. I was like, Karen Munroe knows.

• 1:43:47Speaker 01

  See, and I had just the opposite. I had the complete imposter, like, like, why does she want to talk to me?

• 1:43:52Alie Ward?

  No, trust. I, I looked at your research and I was like, this is the squirrel expert for me. I would accept no others. So don't be scared to ask smart people squirrely questions and then just scatter hoard that information for your next dinner party. Now you can follow Dr. Karen Munroe at squirrel doc, which is linked in the show notes. We also link to the two causes we donated to in her name. Thank you hugely to Erin Talbert, who admins the Ologies Podcast Facebook group. Aveline Malik makes our professional transcripts. Kelly Ardwire does the website. Our scheduling producer is Noelle Dilworth. Susan Hale is our managing director, who does it all.

• 1:44:34Alie Ward?

  Jake Chaffee is an editor. Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio is our lead editor. Nick Thorburn squeaked out the theme music. And if you stick around to the very, very end, I tell you a secret. And this is 2026, Ally. Here is the 2023 secret that I told you way back then, July, three years ago, almost to the date. And if you stick around to the end of the episode, I tell you a secret. And this week it's that I am still sick with pneumonia. I'm recording this in bed where I've been for the last 12 days. And I keep getting a lot of messages being like, don't work, don't work, don't work. And I'm like, how do I not? But also I love this job. And let's be honest, I'd probably be researching squirrel brains anyway, but I'm on the mend and that's good.

• 1:45:19Alie Ward?

  Okay, back to present me 2026. Listener, I was not on the mend. In the weeks that followed that episode, I went back to the hospital. I was admitted for three days and then I had to take six weeks off on a vacation that was really more like, like some anxiety rehab, if I'm being honest. It was forced on me by my doctors and my closest friends. So let this be a lesson. Don't run yourself ragged. And sometimes you need a little more

• 1:46:00Alie Ward?

  R and R than you think. Also, it made me feel very good about putting this up as an encore three years later, because that means I have learned my lesson at least a little bit. And I have been run a little ragged lately. And this week I was just like, you know what? I need a little more shut eye. So look at me, learning lessons, y'all. Okay. Say hi to the squirrels out there. God, I love them. Oh, I love squirrels. All right. Have fun. Bye bye.

• 1:46:47Speaker 04

  She had actual squirrels in her pants.

• 1:46:51Speaker 04

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• 1:47:21Alie Ward?

  Home is for impressing, but also resting and entertaining guests in and festing and feasting and sleeping and greeting and rising and baking and making space for friends in, burning some sage and decorating and staging. This season, visit HomeSense to get all the things that make your home, home. HomeSense, abundantly affordable.