These Squirrels are Nuts!

and squirrel man Adam Ganzer. Okay, I'm proud of all those titles, every one of those titles. Yeah, Squirrelman, Yeah right, My Twitter are teasingal Squirrelman. Yeah yeah. I mean, I just thought we should probably have an episode on squirrels, and here it is. I could not dis agree harder I could. I agree fully with you on this, right right, Usually I've tried to tailor the episode to sort of my guests likes dislikes. Um, this time, I just kind

of made the executive decision for it to just be squirrels. Yeah, it doesn't matter how you feel about it, squirrel, but this one's full nut right at you, right, full nut, full frontal squirrel nut. I mean actually literally one of the photos in the photo doc. But uh, yeah, No, we're talking about squirrels. I think that people have a certain concept of the titular squirrel, of little little thing.

Maybe it's gray, maybe it's sort of a reddish color, and it's got that fluffy tail, and it's kind of hunched over a nut and it's chewing on an acorn with little pause. You know, the little squirrel thingthing. Damn, that's how you see him. Yeah, that's how I see him. That's the squirrel, you know, the little little squirrel thing they do you're sitting there with They're not going iron. But there are in fact squirrels out there that'll blow your damn mind. I mean yeah, looking at some of them,

I already shocked by a minimum three are shocking. Yes, So we are first going to talk about the squirrels of the world that will blow your mind that they exist. I certainly some of these in my research. I just found it existed, and my ding ding mind is blown. One could say my own nut is uh is blown

because these squirrels are I can't believe it. Uh. And then at the end we will come back home to the gray squirrels, which I think we're all familiar with, but look at them and how amazing they can be as well. So you know that is that's the squirrels. Squirrel sod in a nutshell, you know. Yeah, I mean it's a it's a lovely show. I'm I can't wait to experience it. Yeah, well, hey, what are we waiting for. Let's talk squirrels. Now, let's do it. So cat sized

flying squirrels discovered and the Himalayas. Right, that's uh, that's not cute, that's terrifying, right, because like squirrels are one of the only animals they get close enough to you that they're not that cute, you know what I mean? Like face, Yeah, it's like they're cute for from a distance, but like you get you get real close to them, it's close and you start to see those big teeth. Yeah, you see, she went on nuts and something else, if you know what I mean. Yeah, you wonder if some

of them have ever thought how does blood taste? You know what I mean? I feel like some of them thought that. Yeah, certainly I've seen squirrels chewing on like a chicken bone, your opportunistic yeah, they will. They will eat anything by the way that they keep KFC tomorrow your bones. I could see a squirrel having a bumper sticker on its squirrel car that yeah. Yeah. Could they tree nuts tomorrow your nuts? Yeah yeah. They give you a look just like that too, with their black eyes. Yeah,

like a doll's eyes. Yeah yeah. Yeah, so a big one. Uh. Some people like Adam are afraid of the big squirrels, but indeed the big squirrels do exist. So we're talking about the wooly flying squirrel. And before we talk about the recent discovery of these giants flying squirrels, we gotta go into the history of the wooly flying squirrel because we used to think they were extinct until they were rediscovered in the ninety nineties. So the wooly flying squirrel

is a big honking squirrel. It's five pounds and around three ft long. In fact, they can actually reach up to four be long from the snoot to the butt. They're about twenty four or two ft or sixty centimeters long, and their tails add from a foot to almost two ft of extra length or forty three to fifty four centimeters about that's crazy. That's that's like like the rats you hear about in the New York like sewer system

the New York Post. Like giant rat comes out of toilets and bites man's butt off, eats entire pizza, eats entire pizza and a butt right, yeah, no, yeah no, these these are their massive It's like it's like running squirrel operating system on Bear hardware. You know, that's what it looks like. Did I stutter when I said it is the wooly flying squirrel Because this big old thing it flies. It's like I feel like that should have been reserved for like monkeys or something. Right, But no, no,

too bad, there's no flying monkeys, only plans. Yeah, no, they fly now, remember that? Remember that. I know, I just I just wish they did, you know, like I just wish they did. We're gonna pretend like I didn't just say they were flying monkeys. Well there's not, there's not, but but remember from the Star Wars Star War movie what they're like, They're like, they fly now. But these squirrels they fly now. Well they have probably for millions

of years too. But the point is this giant honking squirrel does fly or if you're being technical about it. It's gliding, not really flying, but whatever, the fact that the thing is airborne I think is pretty impressive. Uh. If I saw a thing of this size gliding by, I don't care if I'm not going to dispute with it whether it's flying or gliding. I'll give it whatever word it wants to use to describe its movement. Make the rules. Giant flying wooly squirrel foot three ft giant

furry bat. Yeah, absolutely, you make the rules. Now I don't make the rules anymore. It is one of the world's largest gliding mammals. Unsurprisingly. Actually, I can't think of a bigger one unless them. I mean, flying foxes have a very impressive wingspan. Those are mega bat but they fly so like they genuinely fly. So I feel like this might actually be the largest gliding mammal. I can't think of one that's bigger. But if I'm wrong, you know,

yell at me on Twitter. Like other gliders, it's got a flap of skin that runs from its wrists to its ankles, called pagetum, which it uses to glide gracefully through the air. Probably not that gracefully though, honestly, over what distance, Like how far are these things traveling? I think I read some guy saw it, like, go, I think fifty feet? So yeah, okay, that's not that's not I'm less scared of a fifty Like it's like fifty feet. They're not you know, they're not clearing a football field.

Maybe it was fifty meters. Hang on, Okay, yeah, I wanna gotta, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta double check check how because that makes a difference. Stuff. It makes a huge difference. It's like either this thing has kind of a long, floaty jump or it's like we're going full breath of the wild and this thing's as a glider, you know, like that's a that's scary. Oh it's fifty meters not feet. Okay, that's meters two feet Google, it's like four that's a hundred and sixty four ft. Yeah,

classic classic metric to imperial mistake. There, I'm sorry, did I say fifty ft? I mean one hundred and sixty four ft of gliding capacity these bad boys got, that's yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Like do they when they get in a group, did they swarm their murmurations of flying woolen squirrels? No? Yeah, they don't go yeah, as far as I know, but

you know, we know not that much about them. We thought they were extinct until they were rediscovered in We thought they'd been like extinct for hundreds of years, and then someone just went up there. It was like, no, they're still here, right? How did it? So? Like they're just in that one area the Himalayas, I assume like way high up well kind of, but there's a larger ore at play there. So the Himalayas are a huge

mountain range. Uh. These ones are found in northern Pakistan, and that's I think where they were originally rediscovered as still being alive and not extinct. But there's actually a recent discovery that found there is not just one species of these wuly flying squirrels, but two species. And they're basing this discovery actually on already existing museum specimens where

they ran some tests on. They looked at their skulls, their coat coloration, their genetic differences, and that indicates are actually two species of flying squirrels. There are the Tibetan woolye flying squirrels and the Union wullly Union wooly flying squirrels, both live in the Himalayas, but they live thousands of miles apart. So, just as a reminder, the Himalayas are an absolutely massive mountain range that spans across Asia and

many many countries. So you can have these two species of wooly squirrel who look almost exactly the same, live in very similar environments, but they have basically been separated by thousands of miles for possibly millions of years and have become two distinct species. Interesting. Interesting. I still can't understand, like in an energy conservation way, why a mammal of this side needs sized needs to glide. I don't like,

why why does that need to happen? I mean, in general, gliding mammals are filling some kind of evolutionary niche where they if if it if resources are scarce, having the ability to glide not only gives them an escape from predators, and I'm sure they've got some some pretty deft flying predators up in the Himalayas, probably some owls, but it also probably allows them to find food and travel more easily. It may even allow some of these gliding mammals to

uh find insects and eat insects. Is in addition to their other diet. I'm not exactly sure what the diet of this thing is. I don't even know. Oh wait, no, I do know. I'm sorry, I take that back. I know exactly what their diet is because they have analyze their poop and they have found that these guys, specifically the wooly flying squirrel, has a diet of mainly pine needles. So it's got teeth that are super weird. They actually

don't resemble squirrel teeth. I can't imagine the size of the owl that would take to take down the squirrel, like we're talking about. Yeah, we're talking about like a like some kind of primitive deity sized owl, the mega owl. I think, yeah, I think that there is an owl. No, no, that's a different owl. They call it the prime owl, the prime for owl. So their teeth are unlike those

of rodent or of squirrels. It's actually their teeth are very similar to an ungulate, like a cow or a deer, because they chew on this really tough vegetation, pine needles. I don't know if you've ever chewed on a pine needle, But it's not tender, you know, it's not melt in

your mouth. So they need really tough grinding teeth to be able to chew up these pine needles, and gliding probably helps them easily go from from you know, pine tree to pine tree and get get that food that that highat food and evade predators they probably don't want to just kind of like wattle on the ground like a tasty little treat. So so yeah, that's that's probably

why they're also very fluffy. They Yeah, they almost look like they have kind of like chinchilla for long, very soft looking, kind of a bluish gray, and that helps protect them from the cold in the snow because they are Yeah, they're in the himmle is uh where it gets cold and it gets snowy and all they got to eat is pine needles and they're they're big boys who got to jump around and glide away from vicious predators. What a defiant creature. This creature is like every all

of its conditions are seeing the unfit for what it is. Yeah, it's like you say, I can't live here, Screw you. I'm gonna eat pine needles. I love these pine needles. They're delicious. Crunch, crunch, crunch. This could be your skull if I decided, but I'm not gonna you know, you know what it looks at your hair? It's like those

are some soft pine needles. Speaking of scary, Even though most of their vocalizations are gentle like little grunt swords, sirrups sort of, if they are threatened, they will let out a blood curdling scream that some people describe as yetti. Like, first of all, what the Yetie's that a thing? Is it? Right? What do they mean by that? You know, it's a streame. It sounds like a banshee. You know how banshee sound. Now, man, Well, well, what would you imagine in yetti to sound like? Now

that's what it sounds like. Fair enough. ASIA Program for the Wildlife Conservation Society Director Peter Zaler describes it thus lee quote. The way it was described to me was of a chain smoking child falling off a clip. It's quite unnerving and an extremely delightful image. Like what a delightful image? I like the specificity any of it. Shane smoking child falling off a clip. It's a four year old in a top hat, you know, like some like

he's been working over all week. Yeah, rolled up sleeves, hard living hard to child like, you wouldn't believe Thomas the Tanking Me and Thomas the Tanking jin would talk and over over fruit cups, and I was telling Thomas, you know those muppets. You know what they get up to, don't you. I do, pass me a camel light. I'll describe the whole thing for you. Piggy Fitness Piggies out of Third Divorce. By the way, children probably don't watch any of that anymore, Like like, I have no idea

what children are watching now. It's none of those things. The children, the zoomers. What are the children called now? Are they all zoomers or is there even younger generation? Is zoom closed off as the back end of that close has has the doors closed on zoomers yet? But yeah, they're just like you know, no on tiktokrons. I don't know why my child voice is the same as my squirrel voice, because they're coming for us. Zs are coming

for us, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. In the squirrels, the zs and the squirrels were unionized, coming for you, union for your nuts and your TikTok's and your juice boxes. Juice boxes, I'd say, give them to them. Just let him happy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean that can end this. Yeah.

So you know the wooly flying squirrel, a cat's sized squirrel that glides in the mountains of the Himalayas, that screams like a chain smoking child and apparently they're dried urine and poop is considered an aphrodisiac by some by who I I'm not, I'm not gonna say me. Let me just put it to you this way, some person in or later decided I'm going to take this feces and or urine, eat it, and then I'm going to

have sex with somebody. Somebody like this isn't like a person who I imagine is just you know, sick with the vapors or something. This is a person who listened to Kirk Colbain at some point in their life, like I'm gonna eat this and then I'm going to have sex with a person. You know. I admire the kind of the creativity of you. You find an animal and you find find their pea and their pooh, and you're like, you know what I'm feeling it? Yeah, this looks like

this is this is These are good vibes. These are vibing with me. This looks like it's gonna take things up a nutch. Yeah, sexually, honey. I know you said you wanted to spice things up in the bedroom. Well eat this. I was in the forest just chowing down on squirrel turns and it screamed like a dying child falling from a cliff, and I thought, let's eat it and then set so you could say I'm pretty horny. You can see how I got directly to hear from there, you can say, you can see you can see why

I am in an amorous mood. Yeah, well, what effect to know? There's nothing cute about this animal? Well not even the picture of it is cute. It's like, yeah, and promise cute, I promise squirrel. It's a lot of squirrel. I think some people instinctively think that squirrels are cute,

and I'm like, this, this is not that. It's not that. Yeah. Well, you know, all I promised was squirrel content, you know, And so I'm not liable for any kind of squirrel related like deaths of people trying to eat squirrel poop and beeting getting their hair chewed off by one of these pine needle eating giant cat sized flying wooly squirrels. Is anybody selling their feces a your Probably I'm gonna say this is like it's a rule. If there's some kind of animal poop out there, I'm gonna go with

probably someone selling it. You can buy it, Yeah, you can buy Yeah, there's like that that that civit cat poop, that like that palm civet poop that gets sold as expensive coffee. So I'm gonna say, yes, absolutely, probably someone selling it on Etsy for killing oh my god, some Etsy person. All right, well that's what I'll be googling after this. I'm gonna have to look at that. So I know I front loaded it with a big squirrel.

But the thing is, I really keep talking about big squirrels because apparently there's actually a good number of large squirrels in the world. I mean, this one, it's impossible to tell its dimensions from a picture, but it does look like an unhappy middle aged man. This is why I love it. It has a look on its face of extreme grumpiness. Now I should actually say what we're looking at. We are looking at the Indian giant flying squirrel. Another big one, another one that insists on being airborne.

But he's not happy about it based on his expression. And it's like, you know, we've got two separate pictures of two separate individuals, and they both have that look. They're both extremely suspicious of your happiness, like they're they're not they're not happy for you. Uh So wait, just briefly, this Indian giant flying squirrel is not the species opposite or or divergence from the previous one, is it? Because that was in Pakistan in the Himalayas? Is this? Yeah,

so this is a different species. I don't know how related they are. To be honest with you, I think so to be to be clear, they are in this family uh called scared day. Yeah. I mean you could have said square a day, right, You could have said square a day and we would all believed it, right. Yeah, I'm gonna believe any pronunciation you give. Yeah, because I'm like,

is this is this scurri day? Because like it'd be too too much if it was like scur a day, Like they're scurring, So we call them scre a day. That might actually be how you pronounce it. The second picture of the giant squirrel looks like overweight man try to be Batman, yeah. Yeah, it's very funny. Yeah yeah, and the batman and look at me, fear me. No, I don't need it again. But I don't need it. I can scare you in you're giving a gun crime with those black claws. Look at those dark look at

those claws. My parents, My parents were killed and they left behind me millions of nuts. Actually just probably eat eat more like a tree fruit. Um. But yeah, let me, let me, let me tell you a little bit about this guy. Another large gliding squirrel similar to the uh wooly flying squirrel. Um, but you know, they are a little a little bit smaller actually. Um. They're fluffy, ash

brown with a perpetually grumpy little face. They have like a little button nose, which should make them cute, but they seem extremely unhappy about the fact that they're cute, Like they just don't they're not having it. They're about seventeen inches or forty three cimeters from snoot to butt, and they have a tail of about nineteen inches or fifty centimeters, so a little smaller than the wooly flying squirrel. Uh. They live in high out to forests in our our

boreal so they live in trees. They eat fruits in in all sorts of business that they can find in the trees. I think one of the best things about these guys, other than their perpetually frustrated expression, is that they have a call that is easily mistaken for an owl call uh, specifically the spot bellied eagle owl call uh, which honestly, I should probably talk about the spot bellied eagle owl on another episode. Because they are also ridonculous looking.

They have huge head tufts that look like giant bunny ears, but they're just feather tufts. Uh. So I get like, I don't know. It's every time I do research for it, there's always like ten other ridiculous animals are like, and I exist too. Look at me like they're all trying to impress you like a carnival, right right, gays a

on my head, dongles. Yeah, let me play you the sound of I could not find a recording of the call of the giant Indian flying squirrel, but I could find a recording of the call of this spot bellied eagle owl, whom the squirrel is purported to sound like. So you know, here we go. So I just want you to imagine, you know, let's go, let's take a trip to imagination station. Feel like we haven't been to imagination station in a while, but let's let's go back there.

Imagine you're in the forest at night, in one of these forests in India, and and it's nighttime, and you hear the haunting cry and you look above you expecting to maybe see a bird ward and you just see this big fluffy thing, I mean, just a kite made out of fur, and and it's scowls at you, uh as it's flying overhead, and it's like it looks like the Batman, but with fur. I'm pretty sure that's the

exact plot of Blair Witch. Like they get lost in there here in that screen with squirrels the whole time, giant squirrels the whole time. We was a witch, but we was squirrels the whole time. We was always the witch. We told you, we told you we'd get you for not sharing your your bagel with us. I kind of enjoyed enjoying the idea of like the medieval town version of these squirrels, like just getting together and like having an irate conversation. I'm enjoying that. Yeah, if you put

a hat on these squirrels a cabby hat. And I'm not belittling them. I'm just saying if you did, they would feel right at home Thanksgiving. Just dare you? Dare you you put anti squirre technology and your But what's going on in the treats? Anybody want to hear what's going on in the trees. They're not great in all these nuts. It's not easy. Do they eat nuts? What are they eating? These ones probably eat more like tree fruits and they're they're probably also like nuts and stuff,

not not acorns. Um, I don't imagine there are acorns and these kinds of horse but yeah, like tree, tree fruits, tree nuts, that that kind of that kind of business. Um. But you know, in case you were worried there weren't enough huge flying squirrels to contend with, there's another one. They fly out. Uh yeah, if you cross a fox with a squirrel with a bird, you get the red jo flying squirrel. Found in Southeast Asia and China again near the Himalayas. So they like they like this region

sort of near the Himalayas. Um it's they are like bright brick red, almost orange, and quite large. They have a long, thin tail. And they're less fluffy than their other than like the wooly flying squirrel. Uh, they kind of have this like smooth fur which is a little bit eerie. And yeah, they just barely look like squirrels, but they they are quite quite strange, like when when

they're flying, they're just basically a rectangle of fur. And then this weird little squirrel fox body looking down at you with its balls kind of yeah, yeah, it's it's definitely flying balls first at you. Yeah, it looks like a Yeah. Also, this is one of the rare times where I'm like, did we need the menacing eyeshadow? Like these things have like these these again batman asque the dark paints around their eyes, you know, yeah, yeah, it's it's just it's crazy to me that there are so

many not just giant squirrels, but giant flying squirrels. Like it. They seem to be okay with being huge and in the air, which I think it's quite something like when we think about flying squirrels, they're the little they fit in your pocket, you know, they're cute, they're adorable, little tiny things, and you're like, yeah, that makes sense. You could be airborne because you're so small, but these are

these are big and coming right at you. In fact, there's another one called the red and white giant flying squirrels, another species very similar to the red giant flying squirrel, but they have like a little white mask that they wear on their furs. They don't really wear it. It's, you know, biologically a part of them. It's just the way they're furze colored. But it's kind of like a bit of like a reverse red panda coloration. A little bit going on here. But you know, it's a look,

it's a statement. This is in Africa? Is that what these are? Is that what I heard? No, I'm wrong. I think they're still in India and Asia. So all the cool flying squirrels are in kind of a centralized region. It seems like. Yeah, they seem to like to be in and around the Himalayas, which I think is interesting. But yeah, I know that the red and white giant flying squirrel is found in China, um mainland China and maybe South Asia. So okay, yeah, okay, but not with

the flying squirrels. Tired of them, you know, I'm tired of They're too big for their bridges. They're like, oh, look at me, you know, I'm in the air and I'm so big. It's like, you know what, I'm tired of that. It's gimmicky. I mean, especially when they're clearly trying to tea bag you from the sky. Yeah, what's

up with that? They're like, you know, these nuts and it's like, you know, hello, twenty or jokes, thanks for that, But yeah, I want to talk about a big old squirrel who doesn't like to put on airs and pretend like it's a bird, the Indian giant squirrel. It's a huge squirrel, but it doesn't fuss with flying, thank god. Finally, just like an honest squirrel. He's like, you know what, I'm gonna be a big squirrel, but not you know,

just go like, oh, well look at me. Maybe I'm maybe I'm half bird, maybe I'm batman, you know what I mean. I'm just I'm big and I'm colorful. Uh. It is a amazing looking squirrel, one of the most beautiful squirls I think in the world. I actually mentioned this guy briefly on a Listener Question episode, but they definitely deserve more attention. They live in tropical forests in India and eat a lot of fruits, and tree nuts, and they helped the forest with seed disperse so with

their poop. So they're helpful, beautiful and helpful. God who knew squirrel poop with such a valuable commodity. I mean, I'm glad I invested in it though. Yeah, that's that's the doche coin of nature, right, Like, why is your house covered in squirrel poop? And it's like, little do you know, I'm sitting on millions squirrel It's gonna explode, just like Crypto, right right right to the moon. They're a bit smaller than the giant flying squirrels we've been

talking about. They're only about a foot long from nose to butt and a foot long at the tail, so about two ft total. But still that is, you know, like sixty centimeters of squirrel. That's a lot of squirrels still. But what really sets them apart is their truly spectacular coat. They have a brownish like almost blue, bluish black purply color on their tails and their backs. They have a band across their backs also that's like I'm a rune,

purply color like a mauve. And then they have gold fur on their bellies and their faces, and there they have a little on top of their heads. They have more of that like mav color. Uh, and they're just absolutely gorgeous. They also have this like stripe of yellow that runs down the underside of their tail. Just the

most colorful squirrel I've ever seen. Yeah, they look like a lot of like uh, recent baseball and football jerseys in like Arizona, you know, I mean like those like warm, those warm, cool, interesting colors you don't see any other place. You're like, all right, yeah, the squirrels where they are, Yeah, they're going there definitely. It is like you would find a Pinterest board with like these color combos as like

as an aesthetic. Yeah, you put you put a d Bax's hat on this thing, and it's you know, it's right at home. H that they're black. By the way, I don't think I've ever seen that in nature before. Yeah, Like it's a really unusual color, it is. And it's interesting because mammals are somewhat limited in terms of our color palettes. Really, we don't have that many bright colors.

Just that's it's based on you know, the structure of fur and with things like birds, their their wings structure, the structure of their their feathers can actually refract light in a certain way and create much more vibrant colors than the mammals generally are capable of. So it is quite astounding when you get for that's just like you know what we're going with, like purply blue and maroon. It's I would love an eyeshadow palette and these colors only.

I think a lot of people could use it. Uh, absolutely, a lot of people could use it. You know, if it was two thousand five, I wouldn't have minded it. You know back when, back when Guyline there was doing what was happening? Yeah, you know, we got to bring back guyliner. Sure, you know what if squirrel, if this squirrel could bring back Guyliner, I think our world would

be better off for it. I agree, if you could just get Franz Ferdinand to release another record and uh get Guyliner back in Back in Vogue, two thousand five will be here again. We're actually going to take a quick break. But speaking of two thousand five, actually probably even earlier. When we get back, we're going to talk about goth squirrels. So the squirrels are going goth, you know, like nineteen five to two thousand and nine called Our God's Still Around. That was an arbitrary a little bit

set up dates a little bit, you know. Yeah, I think it's it's more I mean, I haven't been goth, but I think it's like contained a certain musical tastes or bands. Now know, when was Hot Topic? Oh, founded, So I don't know, probably ninety five, I'm guessing I'm gonna google it. But night nine, Hey, I was born. Yeah, founded in nine nine, So I guess that's when goth started, right, I'm going to get people are gonna be so mad. I don't think so. I think Hot Topic was actually

more of a cell stuff to suburban versions of goths. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely and all that. Yeah, but it definitely peaked in late nineties. That's when I remember, you know, that's when I remember people going to school as goth and it being like that's the thing everyone's doing now, right, Yeah, yeah,

I know. Even when I was in high school, I felt like there was still a good contingent of goths, you know, going around out with the boots that were like big, chunky, like so much so much hell, you got to really commit five extra inches, yeah, so many laces. Yeah, you can't step lately anywhere if you're a yeah you got a clunk around, Yeah, yeah, you're never sneaking in anywhere, Like that's not happened. No, you know, I've never heard of a sneaky goth. You know that runs contrary to

the goth kind of manifesto. I believe that I can accept that having no idea. Yeah, I'm just gonna say things, What are gonna do get me? With their sad powers, they might be like, hang on, I'm gonna put on these boots and got it. I'm gonna come get you. But you know it's going to take a while because I've got so many laces scared of you. You've got too many laces. We're gonna bring back email. That's what we're gonna do, you know, Well, lest the show become

just go joke our you know. No, the squirrels. The squirrels are golf now. They're golf now, So provosts squirrel, which again I think is actually already kind of a goff name because they like that that kind of stuff, like provost or my name is Illiquium and your name is Provost. And we are drinking, uh tomato juice but maybe it's blood. We don't know. But the prevoce squirrel is also known as the Asian tricolored squirrel. And they are black, white, and red. Some are just black and

red and some are black and orange. So they are really really dressing Halloween all year long. I mean they look incredible. Yeah, they look they look incredible. The orange like the blood stained centerpiece here, like the breastplate of blood or I guess sort of rust. But you know, one could imagine pretty blood red for some of them. Yeah, one could imagine Prevost just like drinking out of a chalice like he was Gangrell and WF. For sure, you

can see it. I like these squirrels that my style Prevost. My name is Prevost, and these squirrels I like them. They're over the top, just like me. Yeah. They're found in Sumatra, Borneo and the time Malay Peninsula in forests and they yeah, they because their habitats have been kind of disrupted by human activity. They like to visit your garden if you live in those areas, which you know what, I love a goth squirrel garden party, you know it

for sure. You know they're just like, I mean, the one thing you have to give goths and goth squirrels is they're mostly pretty chilled out. Yeah, you know, like this squirrel doesn't look like it's causing a problem or like screaming at you. They're exhausted from getting that cut crease on their eyeliner, you know what I mean. Like they are two, they have spent five hours on their makeup,

so they're not going to start a fight. No, just pop on the Joy Division record and we'll all chill out, man. But yeah, no, these are like I feel like, actually, this one's sort of like the SF Giants coloration, like orange, white and black. Um, this one's just this one straight up just like blood red and black, like blood red on its tummy and black on its back. That's that's hardcore. Yeah, it's like the Black Widow of squirrels. Yeah, yeah, no,

it's absolutely. Yeah, it's pretty that's pretty melodramatic for a squirrel, yes, right, Like, and I'm not I'm not saying that that's wrong. I'm just saying like, hey man, why you know, like what's wrong, like what's up? You need to talk or anything that's not kind of like middle school golfs where they're basically little babies. They've drawn like black eyeliner that like runs down their face and it's like, oh, but you're like ten years old, Like you're not even old enough to

like disintegration or something. You know. Uh, you just like the makeup, yeah, which, hey, it is great, Which is great. No, I'm not No, you can get like the squirrel too. It's like, you know, what if you want to be a cute little squirrel. And this is like, to be clear, these are like just standard squirrel shaped, like they look like little squirrels. It's just it's like you took a squirrel and you know, just put on some golf makeup on just a normal squirrel. I mean, I do enjoy

this bit. It kind of looks like it was painted almost, Like that's what's so crazy, is it. It's like that's another weird color of black, not not not quite as as unusual as the other one, but like a pretty dark color of black. And then the red is like night and day different, like it's so saturated bright. Uh, it's pretty. It's pretty wild. Yeah, yeah, they don't. They look like they've they've got some kind of filter on these squirrels. But I don't think so and this is

just the straight up squirrel truth. Yeah, and these kinds of colors are very rarely seen in mammals, that bright blood red, especially contrasted with the black. Yeah, I mean you you hit the nail on the head with like they are black widow coloration, which is crazy. Probably owl poison and I'll eats one of those, and it's just you know what I mean, like it dies gurgling as

soon as it eats one of these. I thought you were kind of like saying, like a band of owls that like Poison the band, but made up of owls, Like, yeah, but that would be a parliament of owls, wouldn't it. Right right now? That's true, But I mean because I was gonna say, like I think Poison is glam metal, it's not really gone. No, Poison is not goth. That

is accurate. It's the wrong, wrong aesthetic and vibe. I mean, when I think of God, it's basically the Cure and joint Division, Like those are the bands that are like, like, you can't go wrong with either of those. Yeah, but yeah, other squirrels are deciding to go goth as well. I'm sure you are familiar with the Eastern gray squirrel. Even if you don't live in the east of the US, they are still in the west of the US because

they are good at spread and around. But yeah, the if you live in basically anywhere in the US, and even in I think Canada and all over North America, the eastern gray squirrel is finds its way around. Um, especially around college campuses. I'm sure you've seen them. And they have this thing that happens in mutation of their coat, which creates melanistic squirrels. So melanistic squirrels are black instead

of gray. And you know how like there's albino versions of animals, that's where they kind of lack all pigment. Melanistic versions of animals are the opposite. They have extreme pigment. So this occurs in other animals as well. In fact, black panthers are there is no distinct species of like black panthers. Those are melanistic versions of leopards and jaguars. I didn't know that. Yeah, okay, I'm looking right now at a eastern gray squirrel that's melanistic and uh this

is this is a great looking creature. I think like like, wow, if you saw one of these in the wild. Yeah, they're beautiful. They're also like very striking and be like, WHOA, but but they're really beautiful. I I hope to run into one the next time I'm at a university campus where squirrels rule all squirrels everything there. Well, if you want to see some of these melanistic squirrels, you can go up to the Stanford College campus in northern California,

where there are bountiful numbers of these melanistic squirrels. In fact, there are so many around the Stanford College campus that there was a rumor that they were an escaped scientific experiment that some scientists, Stanford scientists are just like, yeah, we're gonna make make some uh make some god squirrels and release them. I mean, they do look like you know, in the genetic Mentel's p plant arrangement of it all, they do look like they were made you know what

I mean. Uh, yeah, you wouldn't think it's what you're saying is like a strange mutation. You'd think they were bred. So I understand that rumor, Yeah, it's but yeah, no, it is incredible because they do occur naturally, completely naturally. In fact, like I think we've seen so many other squirrels that have ridiculous coke colorations that at this point it's like, oh, yeah, of course, of course these black

versions of the gray squirrels are gonna occur naturally. As to why this coat coloration happens, I mean similar to albinism, Like there is just a genetic mutation that can mess

with the body's production of melanin and pigment. But we don't see that many albino animals because they are such easy pickens for predators unfortunately, so as beautiful as they can be, they are you know, often picked off by predators pretty quickly because it's easy to spot them, whereas luckily with the melanistic squirrels and other animals, Uh, that's not as much of a factor. So, like, they don't stick out as much as an albino animals, so they

often survive more than their albino counterparts. So in terms of natural settings where the melanistic coat variation maybe beneficial. It's theorized that in certain forests that go through more periodic burnings that black coat coloration would help them fit

in with sort of a black forest. Yeah, there's also a theory that the black firm may help them stay warm in the winter due to thermoregulation, where you know they're absorbing more heat from the sun, but I would imagine that would also put them at a disadvantage because black fur on white snow would make it really easy for a predator to spot. Uh. But really, you will see most of them in an urban environment, especially around

college campuses. And the most compelling reason for them being so plentiful around college campuses and in urban areas is that their natural predators are pushed out of the urban environments, so there are fewer hunting pressures on them, so they can just thrive in their beautiful black coats. So if you've been on a college campus, sometimes you know like there will be like an albino squirrel that gets really

fame miss amongst the campus. And the reason that you'll spot these albino squirrels and they may live to adulthood is that they are somewhat sheltered by being on a college campus because there are going to be fewer of their natural predators around so many people, whereas the squirrels

are totally fine with the presence of of human beings. Um. So uh, you know, college campuses are kind of ideal for these squirrels because the high foot traffic, lots of people willing to part with food, lots of trees, lots of noise pollution, uh and light pollution that probably drives off animals like owls or red tailed hawks who would normally be their predators. So, you know, squirrels like to

go to college and party. Two. Let's be honest, though, if a redtail hawk swooped down while you're in class, right and it was like, you know, ask you with its eyes, can I have some of your sandwich, you'd give it some. It's really that the hawks aren't trying as hard as they could be trying. They're not try hard. Not. This is what I keep saying. Squirrels are try hards and hawks, aren't you. Yeah, squirrels have no shame, and

I'm not judging. I'm not judging them. I'm saying like they have evolved to the world we live in now, where it's like, look, we're gonna ask for food and you're gonna give it to us, and that's how it is. Yeah, it's a good lesson that things like pride and shame. You know, look how successful squirrels are adapting to an urban environment. Now compare that to the less less success with red tailed hawks. Really, shame is just holding you back your your manners. Your talent manners are going to

be the end of your species. So where did that get? I see you holding up your teacup with one talent daintally lifted monocle. I see you, right, and then the squirrels just down there like give us a nuts, right? Yeah, Like the squirrels basically like the drunk frat boy of the university animal them like it'll it'll wander right up to you. It's mostly harmless. It'll look at you until you address it. You know, if you give it some food,

that's it. That's the end exactly. Well, before we go, I've talked a lot about squirrels outer appearances, but I want you to get to know the insides of the squirrels as well, the depth of the squirrel uh, their guts in their heart and now I'm kidding, like you know their behavior. So I'm going to talk about gray squirrels, who we actually this is what we've been talking about,

the melanistic version of gray squirrels. Um and you know, we think of squirrels is just being kind of dumb and just banging nuts around and not really thinking about stuff,

but that they're actually surprisingly intelligence. So gray squirrels have a pretty incredible memory for where they bury their nuts because they like to have cashes where they just like bury it in sporadic areas and so of having like one big cash, some squirrels do that, where other species where they just have like a bunch of nuts in one area, like a nut pile in like a hollow log or something, but gray squirrels like to bury it around.

They diversify their portfolio. They're not portfolio. It's very smart and they are able to remember where they put these nuts and retrieve up to ninety of their cash. Obviously this can vary, so sometimes they only recover like of their cash. But there's this idea that like squirrels forget most of their nuts, and that's just not true. It's just very variable. Sometimes they're really good at retrieving like most of them. Sometimes it's harder for them to retrieve

their nuts and find them. But they definitely do have good spatial memory. There have been a lot of studies on that, and they actually use kind of landmarks to help triangulate where where their nuts are. That's incredible. Yes, wow, uh, I would think that they would, like do they know when their site has been disturbed? You know what I mean, like if they bury them? Like do they know if like an owl set a little trap form or something?

You know what I mean? Well, actually, sometimes they will be observed by thieves, so other squirrels will stalk them. These are all gray squirrels, so like some of them are just kind of sneakily watching another squirrel that they see has got a nut, and they like stalk them. And so squirrels have developed this strategy, this counter strategy. So the thief will stalk the squirrel and then wait until the other squirrel is gone and then go and dig up the squirrel stash and take it for themselves.

So a strategy that they've done to thwart the thieves is they will bury like fake nuts, so they pretend antomime, Yeah, they pantomime burying a nut, and they actually put nothing

in the ground. So like, uh, they dig a little hole, thrust their little paws inside as if they're burying something, but there's nothing there, and then cover it up with leaves and go away, so that the thieves will go over there and like try to dig up nothing, like congratulations, you found nothing, while the other squirrel is off like baring its Actually, that's incredible. It would have been a little better if there had been like one of those boxing gloves on a spring when it digs it up,

you know, right right right to the thief. Yeah, or like a little note I owe you one nut. Yeah yeah x x so yeah exactly. Yeah. How far are we from squirrels and venting banks? Are we? Right? That's once that happens totally different. It's ten years. I think that's right. Yeah, yeah, we're close. I mean yeah. They are pretty smart with their nuts. They get a nut that it detects houses a larvae like a moth larvae.

The squirrel will eat the nut immediately instead of storing it because it knows that the larva will eventually eat all the meat of the nut before the squirrel gets a chance to retrieve it from its cash. So like it has a nut and it's got like a little hole in it, and it goes like, well, if I bury this nut, like in a few weeks, when I come back to get the nut, the larva is probably it's worthless. The larva is going to have eaten it, so it just eats the whole nut, larva and all

extra protein. It's good. Actually helped out in when I was a undergrad. I was did this. It was one of the mini student ras on like a study where we were looking at squirrel behavior with these nuts and we would give them nuts to that had holes in them and have to watch them and write our observations down on the clipboard, which was really good for my like kind of social reputation, just like sitting down giving us nut to a squirrel and then writing stuff down

very normal behavior. Did you name them? And stuff like did you did you go that far? Squirrels? No? I wanted to remain impartial. Named Lucy. You're rooting for it, right right exactly. I don't want you know, it's got to be double blind. I can't know who you are squirrels. We got to protect the squirrels privacy, you know, because what if we find out like, oh, squirrels are good at this, but Hector is not, you know what I mean, like he's not good at it? Uh, yeah, then he'd learned,

which we know is death for squirrels, right, No, we can't. Yeah, it's shame will be the downfall of squirrels. They can't ever know shame that will. There can never be an Adam and Eve squirrel otherwise they are doomed eating the nut of eating still a snake that tempts him though, you know what I mean, Like, I feel like a

snake still works for that story, right right. Fortunately, even when squirrels forget their nuts, it still has a happy ending because forgotten squirrel nuts can help with forest growth because they are essentially just doing gardening. They got tricked

into doing gardening. Unbelievable. Yeah, yeah, squirrels some like they're incredibly positive influences on their environment, despite being three feet of winged doom as I as I felt earlier, right right, three to four feet of winged furry doom coming from above, screaming like a child with him the sema that description deserves to me on mat Man's tombstone, just like a chain smoking child. What is that, sir? Like? Where did did you learn that the coal mines? Where did you

find that fact? Yeah? You think you know nuts? You know no nuts about nuts? You know you want to play Jack's uh well, did you enjoy learning about squirrels. They're great. What a lot of fun squirrels there are. Yeah, I still think they're like inclined towards evil, though, right, I'm allowed to still think that. I think they're just inclined towards success with no moral compass. They're a moral they're morally neutral, and but they crave success. So maybe

that is what evil is. I don't know. I'm not a philosopher. I'm also not not one. I'm not a doctor of philosophy. I am simply an appreciator of squirrels. That's true. Yeah, I mean, you know you could do some positive philosophically, couldn't you. Yeah. I posit that squirrels are they are takers, and they are. I posit that

squirrel not generous, can't trust they're not generous. I posit that squirrels should probably be investigated by the I R. Sure, like, so these are we're all just talking about the nuts we see? What about the nuts? You don't see? It's just kind of the tip of the nutbird underneath the forest. If you dig down far enough, we suspect there's just a gigantic nut down there. An I R. S auditor just like opens up a closet and a bunch of nuts start like you know, pouring out and then just

keeps coming. You think it's gonna end, but no, more and more nuts were staring with what would be an apology in a different animals face, but not these squirrels now just smoking a cigarette thing. What do you want me to tell? Figuring out the angles? Like, that's what he's doing. My texted herd he has been in Bermuda since July. I'll lead this to you, and then he flies out the window and wings. Well, squirrels now you know, now you love them, now you fear them, Adam. Where

can people find you? Where can the squirrels come to your dreams? Well, they can find my podcast on the Small Beans network. I have three of them. One of them about video games called one Upsmanship. Another one is about friendship media called I'll show your Mind to show me yours and finally direct your piec it or is about basically the filmmaking process in your pop low art movies. It's very fun. You can find me very funny on Twitter at the Real Games also Twitch. I do a

lot of video games streaming. Had the Real games and some day sum in theaters, Golding Someday, someday, soon you should do one on a script the it's the Prehistoric Squirrel and the Ice Age trilogy or is it a quadrilogy? How many ice Ages are there? More than many, more than I've cared about, more than I want to face the reality of that. There's so many animated films that are like, oh, that makes a lot of money and

I don't care about it. Yeah, but it's truly about script, right, Like the squirrel who's always after that nut and he can't get his nut, Like it's script, it's the human condition. He's the you know, Sisyphus of squirrel of food gathering. Yeah, right, like the rest of the Ice Age movies, I think is kind of like just junk that it's a vehicle for the script stories, which are truly beautiful. And there's a kind of Kaman exploration that's that we're all do

about script, right, a nihilism. It's a squirrel. The squirrel sort of like revealing the naked, naked reality of failure to attain a journey, the hollow sorrow of success, like you know, maybe the movie right exactly, the movie begins right when he eats a nut, and it's like, now, what you know, He's always spending his time pursuing the nut and never time just experiencing. Yeah. Well, anyways, you can find us on the internet at Creature feature Pot

on Instagram, at Creature feet Pot on Twitter. That's f a T not et that is something very different. You can write me your questions or comments or squirrel pictures. I'm actually playing anning on doing a good chunk of listener question shows soon, so please do send me and your questions at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com and I would certainly appreciate those. Thank you so much

for listening. If you've been enjoying the show, I would really appreciate No, I'm not going to put it that way. That sounds appreciate. Could you know what I would appreciate it if you left a rating and review right now? Now? I'm kidding, guys, I I really just you listening is enough. I really appreciate it. But you know, if you do have the time to live a rating and review, I really really really appreciate that because that really does help the show. And I read all the reviews and they

wore my Heart. I got a really sweet review from a kid recently, and I see that and it's adorable and thank you so much for for your review. It made my day. Man thanks to the Space Classics for their super awesome song. Ex Aluminate Creature features a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the I Heart radiopp Apple podcast or Hey Guess what? Where? Have you listen to your favorite shows? See you next Wednesday.