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If you leave your kitchen window open, you must expect to have encounters like this every so often. Maybe next time you buy Tupperware, you should check the label to make sure the seal is squirrel-resistant. -via Arbroath
Bryan Harley should be careful about arming backyard wildlife. Too bad he didn’t have two little light sabers! -Thanks, Bryan!
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You
may think that retired postwoman Kathy Pruyn's backyard hobby of coaxing
squirrels to pose for photographs cute, but it's actually animal cruelty,
I say.
I mean, imagine all the teasing these naive squirrels will get when their photos playing the piano, singing, pushing a wheelchair, and playing on a skateboard go viral on the Interweb. Won't someone think of the squirrels?
Mrs Pruyn said: 'I fed the squirrels after they had fallen out of a nest and when I released them they still came back to my garden for food.
'One day I was going through the old toys that needed throwing out and I just thought it would be funny to see the squirrels with them.
'I thought the idea of seeing what the squirrels might do with the Barbie hand-me-downs, scented with peanut butter, might be kind of interesting.'
Interesting, indeed. Get me PETA on the phone! Just kidding - they're fantastic photos. The Daily Mail has the photos: Link (Photo: Kathy Pruyn)
A peanut butter jar! You can eat from it, roll around in it, and even sleep in it! -via I Have Seen The Whole Of The Internet
A series of thefts has been solved at the Toledo Police Memorial Garden. Officers had noticed small flags went missing over several days, but found no clue as to the identity of the perpetrator. On Wednesday, two policemen saw who was doing it. One of them snapped a picture of a squirrel in the act of grabbing a flag and a pink flower from the garden! The squirrel fled the scene and took the loot to his nest, which was discovered to be already festooned with stolen flags. No arrest were made, and the suspect is still at large. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: Toledo Police Lieutenant James Brown)
Squirrel With Mixed Nuts 3D Magnets – $14.95
Are you nuts about squirrels? Behold the Squirrel With Mixed Nuts 3D Magnets from the NeatoShop. With this well endowed 7-piece magnet set you can finally honor your bushy tailed friend. The set includes one very proud squirrel with detachable tail and 5 pairs of life-sized nuts. Get nutty, mix’em up, and create your own Squirrel With Mixed Nuts today.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Refrigerator Magnets!
Comments Off Sheriff’s deputies in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma noticed damaged wiring in their cruisers for weeks before finding out who the perpetrator is. Spokesman Mark Myer said the culprit is a squirrel who approaches the vehicles by a tree that hangs over the parked cars. Animal control officers have set traps, but so far the suspect has not been captured. Link -via Arbroath
A quiet neighborhood in Vermont is on alert today. They are on the lookout for a vicious attacker. Witnesses say he has gray hair and pointy teeth.
According to Kevin McDonald the gray squirrel in his yard jumped him for no reason.
“It kind of startled me and I whirled around to look and saw this furry thing on my back and it was a gray squirrel,” McDonald said.
While McDonald cleared snow from his front yard a gray squirrel jumped onto his back three separate times.
“It jumped at me again and got on my upper arm and started to claw and scratch and I threw it off again and it jumped at me again,” he said with a laugh.
Since the initial attack the Squirrel has gone after two of McDonald’s neighbors.
A photo gallery in the Lexington Herald-Leader documents how a lucky squirrel retrieved an entire fast-food meal in a trash can at a city park.
The squirrel climbed inside the can and came out with a french fry. After eating the fry, it went back in the can and came out with the remains of a fish sandwich. Local parks were crowded this afternoon as temperatures neared 70.
The story was featured on the front page of the paper, prompting debate on its newsworthiness. It may be filler for a newspaper, but it’s just right for Neatorama. Link -via Fark
(Image credit: Charles Bertram/Lexington Herald-Leader)
eBay user ni0vek offers this taxidermic squirrel changing into his superhero outfit. He sells other interesting items in his store, such as three moles playing poker.
Got an odd glove? Make it into a cute little squirrel, with directions from Tokyo crafter Miyako Kanamori reprinted from her book Happy Gloves! Link -via Nag on the Lake
Kenneth Feldman and Michelle Dortignac saw a squirrel build a nest against the outside of a window in their apartment. Through the glass, they were able to watch every move the squirrel made as she gave birth and cared for the babies. Better yet, they took photographs and video to share with the rest of us! The squirrel mother is now raising her third litter in the window. Read the story, and see lots more pictures at The Squirrel in our Window. Link -via Metafilter
Tipsy Squirrel Water Bottle – $11.95
Impress your friends and traumatize your mother by drinking from the Tipsy Squirrel Water Bottle from the NeatoShop. The coated aluminum water bottle is not only environmentally friendly, it also holds 17 oz (500 ml) of the good stuff (water, we hope).
Link | More Fun and Unusual Drinkware
Have you ever seen a squirrel like this? You might, in the forests of India. This is Ratufa indica, or the Malabar Giant Squirrel. They grow up to 16 inches long, and that doesn’t count the tail! Learn more about the Malabar Giant Squirrel at The Ark in Space. Link
(Image credit: Wikimedia user Bishancm)
What do you get when you leave a yummy corn on the cob to a backyard full of fat squirrels?
Mark Svoboda of Richmond, Virginia shot what is surely one of the funnest squirrel videos you’ll see today!
Squirrels + Corn = Video Opportunity. Watch this marvellous time lapse video of a bunch of squirrels (can’t just be the same one, surely?) attacking their favorite food of the winter – good and healthy corn straight off the cob! And boy, do they tuck in!
The time lapse technique is used wonderfully here and it is fun watching the cob spin around as the squirrels devour it (hence the brilliant name for the piece I guess!). One to watch again and again!
Ark in Space has the clip: Link
During
the hot summer heatwave, while the rest of us are thinking of swimming
pools and ice cream, Brian Palmer of Slate is thinking of squirrels. More
specifically, do squirrels and pigeons get sweaty? How do animals
beat the heat?
While most animals don't sweat very much, many species rely on the principle behind sweating to keep cool: Moisture on the skin absorbs heat and evaporates, carrying away unwanted warmth. Animals that lack sweat glands just have to find a different way to bring air into contact with moist skin. Many creatures pant, drawing air across their damp tongue. Pigeons employ a variation called gular fluttering, vibrating their throats. Birds and rodents spend a lot of time licking themselves. Squirrels tend to focus the saliva bath on the forearms, where the fur is thin and the blood flow is higher. Some birds even urinate on their legs to evaporate the heat away.
How about squirrels?
Squirrels also use their tails for thermoregulation. Ambient air chills the blood in the thin tail quickly. In the summer, the squirrel pumps the cooled blood directly back into the torso to lower its internal temperature. In the winter, the circulatory route changes slightly, so that the chilled blood coming back from the tail is heated by the warmer outbound blood before contacting the squirrel's organs. (The tail also serves as a pretty good blanket on a frigid night.) You may see squirrels running around with their tails flipped up over their bodies in the summer. This is because the lighter-colored underside of the tail absorbs less heat from the sun than the darker dorsal side, and it shades their bodies like a parasol.
One of our favorite illustrators and fellow Neatoramanaut Adam "Ape Lad" Koford has just scored a huge win: his cartoon creation of a squirrel named Pearl has just been picked as New York City Parks and Recreation as its first official mascot. W00t!
Though Pearl’s official biography claims that she was born in Van Cortlandt Park, she was actually conceived and executed by Adam Koford, an illustrator and cartoonist who lives in Utah and works for Disney Interactive there. She began life as Curtis the Squirrel, but switched genders at the suggestion of, depending on whom you ask, either parks staff members or Mr. Koford’s 8-year-old son, Damon.
Mr. Koford, noting Pearl’s open stance and perky tail, said she was “designed to be sort of a welcoming presence -– something that conveys the fact that the parks are a fun environment.” [...]
Mr. Koford credited his children with Pearl’s existence (he had three children at the time, and has added one more).
“It was the kids’ decision to do a squirrel,” he said. “We almost went with an owl, or one of the hawks that live alongside Central Park, but the squirrel was a bit funner to draw.”
Congrats! Link – Thanks Amy Koford!
Photo: Nina Leen/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
If you haven’t seen it before, LIFE has a pretty nifty set of galleries to feature some of the most interesting photos from their vast archives. Sure there are photo galleries on such serious topics like World War II, notorious assassinations, and the Haiti Earthquake devastation, but this is Neatorama and I’m particularly drawn to one about dressing up squirrels:
Tommy Tucker was a squirrel adopted by a woman in Washington, DC, in the early 1940s after she found the critter orphaned in a tree. He soon became part of the family, as it were — accompanying the lady of the house on shopping trips, for instance. She also, it turned out, enjoyed dressing him up in specially made outfits. And so it begins …
Link: A Squirrel’s Guide to Fashion | LIFE Photo Gallery Archives
If you like Babies With Laser Eyes (via Boing Boing), you’ll like OMG Laser Guns Pew Pew Pew. Or not.
This is called anthropomorphic taxidermy art. It is a real squirrel dressed as Queen Victoria mounted in a shadow box perfect for hanging on your wall. Crafted by Etsy seller lovedtodeath, this could be yours for only $495.00. Link -via Everlasting Blort
You may be familiar with Scrat, the “saber-toothed squirrel” from the Ice Age movies, but a real one lives in Niagara Falls, New York. This squirrel has an unusual tusk growing out of its lower jaw! Mary Jo Sutter has been feeding the squirrel since it was young. Watch the video of the squirrel who has no fear of humans or cats. Link
The "cheeky squirrel," originally posted at National Geographic and made famous by Neatorama’s own Upcoming Queue, has now gone viral on the internet.
Hundreds of photos, including many famous ones, have been modified by adding the ground squirrel. Now you can do so with your own photo or one of your favorites from the web.
The simplest generator I’ve encountered is "The Squirrelizer." You cannot, however, upload an image from your computer; you will need to
use one that has a url (stored somewhere on a blog or in an
image library such as Imageshack).
After that, the generator is intuitive. If you don’t have an online account where you can store the image, just take a screen shot of your creation.
Link – via lutralutra
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by Minnesotastan.
Scientists interested in the ability of gray squirrels learn from watching other squirrels have come up with an ingenious (albeit a bit iffy from a moral perspective) study: teaching ‘em to steal!
The study suggests that squirrels are primed to recognise other squirrels as potential food thieves. It also shows that they learn more quickly from real life observations.
Corresponding author Dr Lisa Leaver of the University of Exeter, said: “Our study is significant because it is the first to show that grey squirrels learn from observing others. It adds to growing evidence that all kinds of animals, from humans and other primates to many species of birds, learn from observation and that they have evolved to learn quickly about those things that are most important to their lives – in the case of grey squirrels, gathering and storing nuts.”
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by coconutnut.
You have probably seen the grey, no doubt you have heard of or read about the red. But have you ever heard of a black squirriel? The subgroup is on the rise. If an animal was a meme, this would probably be it. A real one, that is. The Black Squirrel, coming to a back garden near you soon(ish)…. and it may have dandruff.
This is the black squirrel. Out of the squirrel population of the United States and Canada perhaps only one in ten thousand is black. However, this is not a separate species in itself. It is in fact a sub-group of the grey squirrel and, little by little their numbers are growing. In fact in some areas they outnumber the greys. However, this black coloring is not a recent trend among the squirrel community – research indicates that in the days before the European settlement of the America the black squirrel was probably much more numerous than the grey.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.
(Links open in a new browser window/tab)
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When Squirrel Attacks |
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Auto-Tune the News Here's a clip from Sarah Fullen Gregory (excellent singer, actually) and The Gregory Brothers making the nightly news much, much more interesting. Link | If you like that, here's the second one in the Auto-Tune series | The Gay Marriage Debate, Auto-Tuned | more from YouTube schmoyoho |
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Smoochie Girl Behold the smoochie girl - and yes, she made the exact same smoochie face in every photo: Link |
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The Weirdest Japanese Commercial Ever Not going to describe it: you have to see it for yourself. |
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Magnet Falling Down a Copper Tube |
For more the web's most interesting videos, check out: VideoSift.
Whether they’re on an obstacle course, drunk off fermented pumpkin or just being cute, squirrel videos will get you through a Wednesday.
– via urlesque
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by thatguy455.
As reader Casie reminded me, it’s about time for another Things You Probably Don’t Need. Now, this thing is an Archie McPhee product, and you could make a very convincing argument that you don’t actually need anything at Archie McPhee. But you really don’t need this, especially not for $9.50:
I mean, come on: gerbil underpants, sure. Chipmunk underpants, definitely. But squirrel underpants? That’s just ridiculous.
Link (The video is quite funny)
They often say a mother’s love has no boundaries, and this series of photos shows the length the squirrel mother will go to to keep her baby safe.
When the dog corners the frightened young one she leaps in for the attack and lets it get to safety so quickly the bemused dog is left wondering what happened, as they both scamper safely up a tree
A true tale of valiance from the animal kingdom.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Jake.
