But have you ever thought about how effective the squirrel's outdoor food storage room project is? After trying their best to hide their winter treasure, how did the squirrel find the buried treasure when it was most needed? "First of all, let's review it a little bit, because the way squirrels bury food will produce some interesting clues. Animals that store food for winter are not just random: they usually use one of two strategies. They either hoard food-which means they store all their food in one place-or store it scattered-which means they divide their food in half and hide it in many different places. [The biggest 12' small' mysteries in autumn-solved! ]
Most squirrels are scattered hoarders, so their characteristics affect different buried food piles. "This way of storing food may be because it reduces the risk of major losses," said Mikel Maria delgado, a postdoctoral researcher at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis. . In other words, the more dispersed the food is, the more likely it is that hungry competitors will find all the supplies of squirrels and destroy them immediately.
In a recent study published in Open Science of the Royal Society, delgado showed that squirrels arrange and bury their collections according to certain characteristics, such as the type of nuts. This behavior is called compartmentalization. Studies have shown that in other species, this behavior allows animals to organize their storage psychologically, which may help them remember the storage location.
I ruled out the idea that squirrels throw food from holes in the ground at will, just hoping to find it by accident in the future. I think the research on how squirrels handle and bury food clearly shows that their behavior is not random. On the contrary, there seems to be an elaborate strategy behind the way they store food.
How does it translate into how they find a clever hiding place? Studies have shown that squirrels can usually retrieve as much as 95% of buried food, depending on the type of squirrel and the type of nut. So, obviously, there is more than chance behind this process.
It has long been thought that squirrels only rely on their sense of smell to find food. However, when the sense of smell absolutely enters it, more and more studies show that memory plays a more important role. The "KDSP", "KDSP", "KDSP" and "KDSP" in the research paper 199 1 published in the journal Animal Behavior show that even when several gray squirrels bury their sediments closely together, individuals of this species will remember and return to the exact location of their personal hiding place. Many other studies have also confirmed this. These studies show that spatial memory of squirrels can help them describe the surrounding areas to find food. In some cases, such as nuts buried in snow, the sense of smell may not help them find food. Therefore, it makes sense that squirrels can rely on other clues. [Why do squirrels chase each other? ]
Although scattered squirrels may also use their sense of smell to locate their storage places, they do remember their storage places. "We don't know the exact mechanism, but it may include spatial clues in the environment," delgado told Life Science. Zhou Jiayi, a postdoctoral researcher studying squirrel cognition at Hokkaido University, agrees. According to my own observation, I think they are the landmarks of your singing. They recognize these trees and are measuring the distance between themselves, the trees and their nests, "she said.
Delgado first discovered the behavior of tissue blocks in squirrels, which may also provide unforgettable clues for their buried food. Delgado wrote in an open scientific research report of the Royal Society that this strategy can "reduce the memory load" and help squirrels remember where to put it. She said, "No one has directly tested the potential benefits of too many blocks to squirrels, but we expect that it may be helpful to retrieve the cache in the future.
The researchers observed that when squirrels are scattered in a limited area, they seem to be able to remember each other's positions, which shows that they have established a detailed psychological map showing where their food is.
Other research on squirrel behavior adds an idea that memory is the basis of squirrel nut retrieval skills. In Vivian Chow's research on squirrels published in Animal Cognition (20 17), she showed that the impressive memory span can enable squirrels to successfully recall the method of solving difficult tasks (manipulating the lever to open the door and release precious hazelnuts) more than two years after learning squirrels for the first time. "They always try to do what they want to do," Zhou told Field Science. They are so dedicated! This also shows that long-term memory is part of the reason why squirrels can recall the location of their crazy bounty so specially.
For decades, a large number of studies have shown that squirrels have much more memories than their eyes can see. For example, researchers believe that squirrels can even control the quality of their bounty. It has been observed that these animals will grab nuts and seeds with their paws for a long time before burying their storage-this may help them choose the nuts with the highest nutritional content and those that are least likely to die underground.
Squirrels usually carefully rearrange their leaves on disturbed soil to hide their burial places. Usually, when other squirrels are watching, they also pretend to bury nuts and then rush to a secret place, where they actually hide their food treasures.
Essentially, squirrels may hide their nuts, but there is nothing crazy about this behavior. Zhou said: "We think these little animals may be much smarter than we thought."
Why don't we remember that we are babies? Why can't Germans say "squirrel"? How do peanuts grow? Originally published in Life Science. "