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!

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!

Link

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

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.

Link

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.

Link via Great White Snark

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

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)

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.

Link

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!

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

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.”

Link

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.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.

(Links open in a new browser window/tab)

	When Squirrel Attacks This short video clip confirmed my worst nightmare: that squirrels are highly trained in military maneuvers. Watch as one distracts and another one attacks ... Link
	Auto-Tune the News How do you make the news more interesting to the rest of us? Set it to music! 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
	Smoochie Girl Y'all know that Paris Hilton has the same facial expression in every photo, but she isn't the only woman in the world that does this. Behold the smoochie girl - and yes, she made the exact same smoochie face in every photo: Link
	The Weirdest Japanese Commercial Ever I have to say, I agree with the VideoSift title. It is indeed the weirdest Japanese commercial ever. Not going to describe it: you have to see it for yourself. Link
	Magnet Falling Down a Copper Tube All right, let's end this on a scientific note. Here's what happened when you drop a magnet down a copper tube. The video is not slowed down, the movement of the falling magnet creates an eddy current that exerts a damping force on the magnet. Link

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.

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.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Jake.

I don’t post a lot of links to eBay auctions (the links expire too quickly) but this one by jdwildlifeartistry is too weird to pass up. Behold a gray squirrel soldier holding a rifle, mounted on a plaque!

Link | the eBay Auction

More weird eBay auctions at Urlesque’s Today in eBay feature.

Teachers and pupils at Meoncross School in Stubbington, Hants, were amazed when they saw the creature through the window during a lesson.

Since the squirrel, now nicknamed Pete, was first seen, it has become a regular fixture at the school but no one has been able to say whether the animal has fallen into purple paint, had a run-in with some purple dye, or whether there is another explanation.

Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: Solent News and Photo Agency)

Update: Loooks like it might be printer ink. -Thanks, Kyyria!

"I’m used to seeing so many acorns around and out in the field, it’s something I just didn’t believe," he said. "But this is not just not a good year for oaks. It’s a zero year. There’s zero production. I’ve never seen anything like this before."

The absence of acorns could have something to do with the weather, Simmons thought. But he hoped it wasn’t a climatic event. "Let’s hope it’s not something ghastly going on with the natural world."

To find out, Simmons and Arlington naturalists began calling around. A naturalist in Maryland found no acorns on an Audubon nature walk there. Ditto for Fairfax, Falls Church, Charles County, even as far away as Pennsylvania. There are no acorns falling from the majestic oaks in Arlington National Cemetery.

"Once I started paying attention, I couldn’t find any acorns anywhere. Not from white oaks, red oaks or black oaks, and this was supposed to be their big year," said Greg Zell, a naturalist at Long Branch Nature Center in Arlington. "We’re talking zero. Not a single acorn. It’s really bizarre."

Link

Jeb Corliss has leaped from buildings and other places in a single bound. Now, he plans to do it without the aid of a parachute.

Corliss, who is a base jumper, has made jumps in 16 countries and five contents, more than 1,000 in all, from the likes of the Eiffel Tower and Golden Gate Bridge.

His latest venture is trying to jump from a helicopter and land without using a parachute.

Corliss says he’ll wear a wing suit, which makes him look like a flying squirrel. He plans to landing on a specially designed runway he designed. It will cost up to $2 million. Once he gets the funding for his project, he says it could take up to four months to actually pull off.

He added, “A wing suit, basically, is fabric that goes between your arms and between your legs and it changes the shape of your body. So you become, in essence, a flying squirrel.

He explains that he plans to land on his belly, suggesting, “Imagine an aircraft — aircraft don’t land on their tails, they land on their bellies. That’s exactly what I’m gonna become. I’m gonna become an aircraft’ I’m gonna be landing on my belly.

Why in the world would Corliss try this?

“I wouldn’t I’m doing this because I’m a thrill-seeker. I’m a person who has dreams and my life is based on making those dreams come true. And that’s what I focus on.”

Source: CBS News
Video: Breitbart