Rick Sanchez from Rick & Morty had it right. Don't mess with the squirrels. Although they may look cute and cuddly, they can be vicious little things. Take this recent case for example. Scientists were shocked to find a group of carnivorous squirrels eating voles in California. Up until this point, squirrels have mainly been practicing a diet of nuts and other things.
A study published in the Journal Of Ethology highlighted the shocking discovery.
"We had never seen this behavior before," exclaimed head author Jennifer E. Smith, an associate professor of biology at UW-Eau Claire. The school conducted the study in collaboration with UC Davis.
Scientists observed the squirrels at Briones Regional Park in Martinez California. During 74 interactions between the two species, squirrels hunted voles 42% of the time. It appears they've developed a taste for the animal with multiple hunting down and consuming voles.
UC Davis researcher Sonja Wild was shocked by the discovery.
"I could barely believe my eyes," said Wild. "From then, we saw that behavior almost every day. Once we started looking, we saw it everywhere." Up until this point, scientists believed squirrels to be granivorous, eating a diet of grain. It's the first time that scientists have observed the creatures in a predator role.
Squirrels Hunt Voles
"In our twelve years of conducting observations on hundreds of squirrels, we had never observed any incidents of vole hunting before this summer," Wild told Popular Science. "It is therefore plausible that hunting is innate in these squirrels to an extent."
According to scientists, the animals went on a vole-killing frenzy in July. Coincidentally, this is also when the population of vole was at an all-time high as well. Scientists believe the high number of voles may have caused the killings.
Related Content
"The fact that California ground squirrels are behaviorally flexible and can respond to changes in food availability might help them persist in environments rapidly changing due to the presence of humans," Wild said.
What these findings hold for the future remains to be seen.
"Squirrels are one of the most familiar animals to people," said Smith. "We see them right outside our windows; we interact with them regularly. Yet here's this never-before-encountered-in-science behavior that sheds light on the fact that there's so much more to learn about the natural history of the world around us."
