How a squirrel changes its coat for the winter. Amazing Facts About Squirrel Intelligence

How animals prepare for winter. Part 2.

How animals prepare for winter. Part 2:squirrel, badger, beavers, fox, wolf, mouse. Speech exercises and finger theater about how animals prepare for winter.

How animals prepare for winter: part 2

Stories in pictures on the topic “How animals prepare for winter”

Today we continue the topic of how animals prepare for winter. we discussed with you:

Experiments for children“Why is a hare gray in summer and white in winter?”, “Which fur coat is warmer?”
How hare getting ready for winter?
How bear getting ready for winter?
How hedgehog getting ready for winter?
Presentation for looking at pictures of children.
Poems, stories, assignments for children.

How squirrel getting ready for winter?
How beaver getting ready for winter?
How badger getting ready for winter?
How mouse getting ready for winter?
How fox and wolf getting ready for winter?
4 speech exercises for children.
Games are dramatizations.
How to make it quickly and easily finger theater for performances forest conversations and dialogues?
Poems, pictures, stories for children about animals

Wish have an interesting trip into the world of animals and new discoveries!

Squirrel

Almost all children know how a squirrel prepares food for the winter, because all cartoons show how it hangs mushrooms on tree branches and dries them on stumps. She also collects nuts, acorns, and cones. Where does the squirrel hide them? Under stumps, under tree roots, in hollows, in moss.

Squirrels also prepare their homes for winter. A squirrel's house is called a "hollow". But if there is no hollow, then the squirrel builds a nest for itself. This is a ball of twigs and pieces of bark with one entrance. Inside the nest the squirrel puts moss and bird feathers to make it warmer. She plugs the cracks with moss and grass. The squirrel builds its nest very high in the tree so that no one can climb into it.

The squirrel's winter coat is silvery, similar to snow. And in the summer - red. You already read in the first part of our conversation about autumn how to conduct a simple and interesting experiment for kids, showing the child why a squirrel changes its red coat to a silver one. Did your child enjoy guessing?

Belkina drying room. V. Bianchi

The squirrel took one of its round nests in the trees for storage. She has hazelnuts and cones stacked there.

In addition, the squirrel collected mushrooms - boletus and birch mushrooms. She planted them on broken pine branches and dried them for future use. In winter, it will wander through the branches and feed on dried mushrooms.

G. Skrebitsky

Here you are walking in late autumn through the forest among bare, leafless trees. Look, something is darkening on the branches of one of them; It looks like dried leaves.
No, these are not leaves, but dried mushrooms.
Who brought them up the tree? This is the job of a busy squirrel. At the end of summer and autumn, she collects mushrooms - prepares her food for the winter.

During the fall, the mushrooms on the branches will wither and dry up, and they will remain hanging there until one day. winter days the squirrel will not find them and will not eat them.
In addition to mushrooms, the squirrel prepares other food for the winter. She stuffs nuts and acorns into hollows and wood cracks. All this will be useful to her during the winter lack of food.
By winter, squirrels not only store food: they take care of insulating their homes. With the onset of autumn, the busy animals plug the cracks in their nests with withered grass and moss. Every hole is plugged. Well, now everything is ready, we can welcome winter.

Squirrels, chipmunks, hamsters and many other animals store food for winter.

Beaver

Beavers.A. L. Barto
I've been walking since the morning,
I ask everyone:
- What kind of fur does a beaver have?
What kind of fur, tell me?

Is it true that beavers
Erecting mound fortresses
And do they hide beavers there?

And what they say is true,
Why do they have carpets there?
From fragrant herbs and bark?

I asked my mother about the beaver,
But it's time for her to go to work.

I see a janitor in the distance
He sweeps the yard.

Could you tell me:
Where does the beaver live? -
And the janitor told me: - Don’t stand in the dust,
Let's put the conversation aside.

Without looking up from the game,
Playing dominoes
The neighbor laughs: - Where are the beavers?!
I haven't seen them for a long time.

Tell me, would you be so kind as to
Tell me, where do beavers live?

Task for children: Do you know where beavers live? How would you answer this boy's questions?

The beaver is an amazing animal! He is even called the “King of Rodents”! The beaver has a spatula tail, sharp teeth. A beaver can even chew through a tree with its teeth! Beavers can swim, and they have a special coat - it doesn’t get wet in the water! Beavers take care of their coat and groom it carefully. They scratch it with their front paws, teeth and claws of their hind paws. But other beavers help them comb their backs, because they can’t reach their backs themselves! Just like you, your mom probably helps you rub your back with a washcloth when you wash!

The beaver's house is called a "hut". Beavers build a house from branches and twigs. The beaver's house is very strong, because all the branches are held together with clay and silt. You can only enter the hut underwater.

Beavers live in families. In the fall they have a lot to do - they need to prepare the dam for winter, repair it, prepare a lot of branches and stack them near their house - “hut”. This is their “food” for the winter. They store “food” underwater near their home. And they will need a lot of food in winter! After all, beavers do not sleep in winter, and they need to eat! In winter, beavers swim underwater and eat the roots of aquatic plants and their autumn food supplies - stored branches.

Badger

Under a birch tree on the mountain... Timofey Belozerov
Under a birch tree on the mountain
A badger sleeps in its hole.
And the badger's hole
Deep, deep.

The badger is warm and dry,
Caress your ear all day long
The noise of birch branches
Yes, the sniffling of children:

They sleep soundly on the bedding
Boys with mustaches
And they sniffle from satiety
Wet noses...

A branch or twig creaks -
The badger will open his eye slightly.
He will guide you with a sensitive ear,
He smiles and falls asleep:

After all, the badger has a hole
Deep...

The badger is also preparing his home for winter. The badger's home is a hole. In the fall, the badger repairs the house, brings dry grass, moss, leaves and prepares a warm and soft bed for the winter. Just as we have a mattress and pillow on our bed to make it soft and comfortable to sleep, so the badger wants to make his bed soft and comfortable.

The badger also stores food for the winter, dries it and hides it in a hole. It stores acorns, seeds, and plant roots.

By winter, the badger falls asleep in its hole.

Badgers. I. Sokolov-Mikitov
Once upon a time there were a lot of badgers in our Russian forests. They usually settled in remote places, near swamps, rivers, and streams. For their burrows, badgers chose high, dry, sandy places that were not flooded. spring waters. Badgers dug deep holes. Above their holes grew tall trees. There were several exits and entrances from the holes. Badgers are very neat and intelligent animals. In winter, they, like hedgehogs and bears, hibernate and emerge from their holes only in the spring.

I remember when I was a child, my father took me to see residential badger holes. In the evening we hid behind tree trunks, and we were able to see how old short-legged badgers went out to hunt, how small badgers played and romped near their holes.

In the forest in the mornings I have often encountered badgers. I watched how a badger carefully made its way near the tree trunks, sniffing the ground, looking for insects, mice, lizards, worms and other meat and plant food. Badgers are not afraid poisonous snakes, catch them and eat them. Badgers do not go far from the hole. They graze and hunt near their underground dwellings, not relying on their short legs. The badger walks quietly on the ground, and it is not always possible to hear his steps.

The badger is a harmless and very useful animal. Unfortunately, there are almost no badgers in our forests now. It is rare that inhabited badger holes remain in the deep forest. The badger is a smart forest animal. He doesn't harm anyone. It is difficult for a badger to get used to captivity, and in zoos during the day badgers usually sleep in their dark kennels.

It is very interesting, having found holes, to follow the life of their inhabitants.

I have never hunted the peace-loving badgers, but sometimes I have found their forest homes. It was rare to see live badgers. It used to be that you were walking from a capercaillie current, and the sun rose over the forest. You stop to sit down on a tree stump and listen and look carefully. You will see a badger carefully making its way near the tree trunks and sniffing every inch of the ground. A badger's paws look like small, strong shovels. In case of danger, a badger can quickly bury itself in the ground. When badgers dig their holes, they scoop out the earth with their front legs and push it out with their back legs. They dig holes quickly, like machines.

If you find live badger holes in the forest, do not touch them, do not destroy them, or kill useful and good-natured animals. The badger has become a very rare animal in our forests. It is not difficult to completely destroy this beast.

Mouse

The mouse prepared its pantry for the winter and filled it with grain. Sometimes mice make their own pantry right in the field and carry grains into it every night. The mouse hole has several entrances, and it contains a "bedroom" and several "storage rooms". In winter, the mouse sleeps only in cold weather, and on other days she needs to eat, that’s why she stores so much food! Here's how Vitaly Bianchi writes about it:

Getting ready for winter. V. Bianchi.
The frost is not great, but it doesn’t tell you to yawn: when it hits, it immediately freezes the earth and water with ice. Where will you get food for yourself then? Where will you hide?
In the forest, everyone prepares for winter in their own way.

Those who are supposed to fly away from hunger and cold on wings. Those who remained are in a hurry to fill their pantries, preparing food supplies for future use. Short-tailed field mice carry it around especially diligently. Many of them have dug winter holes for themselves right in the stacks and under the stacks of grain and steal grain every night.
Five or six paths lead to the hole, each path leading to its own entrance. Underground there is a bedroom and several storage rooms.

In winter, voles go to sleep only in the most severe frosts. That's why they stock up on large amounts of bread. In some holes, four to five kilograms of selected grain have already been collected.
Small rodents rob grain fields. We must protect the harvest from them.

Fox and wolf

By the fall the fox has already raised her cubs, so she does not sit in the hole. But if danger threatens, the fox runs to its house and hides. The fox has a hole at the edge of the forest on a hill so that the fox can see the forest from all sides. The fox is very smart, she never runs straight to the hole, first she makes a loop to confuse her tracks, and then hides in the hole.

The fox is a predator; it does not sleep in winter and does not store food for the winter, just like the wolf.

But both the fox and the wolf are preparing their fur coat for winter. Their fur, like that of all animals, grows and becomes very warm and fluffy so that it is not cold in winter.

Speech exercises on the topic “How do animals prepare for winter?” Playing with words

Game “Where is whose house?” Guess how to continue

Lives in a den...
Can live in a hole...
Lives in a hut...
Lives in a hollow...
Lives under a bush...

If the baby makes a mistake, then you can play a game called “Help the kids find a house.” The little animals got lost and lost their homes. Where are their mothers waiting for them? Where should I take the baby squirrel? Where's the bunny? Where is mama bear waiting for her baby? Where is daddy beaver waiting for the baby beaver? Where should the little badger go? Where's the hedgehog? In the game, the baby will quickly remember who lives where. You can use toys or pictures to play.

"Continue the sentence"

IN winter forest you will never meet...
In the winter forest you can find...
In the fall they change their fur coats...
In autumn the hedgehog...

“Name the animals affectionately.”

Squirrel - squirrel,
fox - ... (chanterelle),
bear - (bear, bear),
hare - ... (bunny, bunny, bunny),
hedgehog - ... (hedgehog).

Game “Let's build a bridge. The longest sentence about autumn"

Take the chips. Any small objects can act as chips: pencils, cones, buttons, shells, pebbles, blocks of building material or designer parts. You can cut out squares from thick colored cardboard. One chip is one word. You lay out one chip and say one word. For example, "hedgehog". The child lays out the second chip and says the second word, adding it to the first: “Runs.” "The hedgehog is running." You place the third chip and say the third word. You can name two words if a preposition is used: “Through the forest. A hedgehog is running through the forest." But every word is one trick! Ask the child: “What word is this? This is the word "by". And this word is “forest”. Together we did it: through the forest.” Next, the child adds his word. For example, "Autumn". The result is the following sentence: “A hedgehog is running through the autumn forest” and you have 5 chips laid out. Continue to expand this offer as much as you can. For example, your final result might look like this: “A spiky, cheerful hedgehog runs through the golden autumn forest and carries dry leaves on its back.” The rule is that one word is used only once in a sentence, so that it doesn’t turn out to be “butter oil” :)

I usually use a game version of this exercise. The children and I “build a bridge” from one bank of the river to the other using our chips.

On old wallpaper we draw two banks across which we need to build a bridge. You can draw “shores” with chalk on the linoleum or lay out strings.
We discuss why this bridge is needed. For example, a kid got lost, he needs to go home, but he cannot swim across the river. If we build a bridge of words, he will cross it. But we need a long bridge, so we need a lot of words!
We build a bridge from words, that is, we make a sentence. And at the same time we get acquainted with the term “sentence”, learn to select beautiful figurative expressions and build complex sentences in your speech!
When the bridge is ready, our hero runs happily along it to his mother.
It is possible to build sentences - bridges with any words and in any game situation: the car needs to drive to the other side, Aibolit needs to go to the sick bear, etc. You can build not a bridge, but a road.

Dialogues are dramatizations on the topic “How animals prepare for winter.” Forest conversation

How to conduct a dialogue between animals in the autumn forest - dramatization with a child

The animals gathered in a forest clearing and began to tell each other about their affairs. “I will spend the winter in a hollow,” said the squirrel. - “And for the winter I stored food for myself - dried mushrooms, collected nuts and acorns.”

“And I will sleep in the den,” the bear said in a deep voice. “Now I need to eat a lot of food so that I can sleep peacefully all winter.” In winter I don't need food. I prepared a den for myself. I will sleep in it in winter.”

Act out this conversation with your child and continue it on behalf of different animals. You can introduce other characters - birds and insects. Let the birds tell you how they are going to fly away to distant lands, and the insects tell you how they hide in cracks and under the bark from the cold and frost. Each character talks about himself, about his autumn affairs, about how he prepared for winter.

For dialogues, you can use toys - a bunny, a fox, a bear, a mouse, a squirrel. You can cut out silhouettes of animals or use pictures. By playing animal dialogue, the child consolidates acquired knowledge about the natural world in an interesting and exciting way. And what is also important is that the child learns to apply the acquired knowledge in life! This is much better and more effective than “tormenting” a child with questions: “How did the hare prepare for winter? Remember, how did the badger prepare for winter? Remember..." The child will remember, and after a few days... he will forget! But he will never forget the information that the child used in the game! After all, he lived and felt it, it was interesting and emotional, it was so bright and exciting! Play and develop your baby in the game! And success will be guaranteed!

Children love to act out such animal dialogues using finger theater. You don’t have to buy or sew or knit a finger theater. You can quickly make it from scrap materials available in every home.

How easy it is to make a finger theater on the topic “How animals prepare for winter”

Draw the animals yourself or print out ready-made pictures and stick each one onto a thin strip of thick cardboard. The width of the strip is approximately 1cm. Length 7-8 cm. You can color the pictures, or you can leave them as they are – black and white. Coloring pictures with colored pencils is very useful for a child. It develops fine motor skills, so you can involve your baby in this matter. After all, preparing toys for your future game is always interesting for a child!
Take a strip of cardboard 3-4 cm wide and about 8-10 cm long. Glue it into a “ring” onto the child’s finger using tape. The exact size of the part depends on the size of the child’s finger - the “ring” should be put on and taken off freely, but should not fall off the finger.
Insert the finished strip of cardboard with an image of an animal glued to it inside the “ring” and put it on your finger. You can change characters by inserting them into the “ring” and taking them out. It turns out to be a finger theater.
In this finger theater, one child can either play the role of one animal or play several roles. Each animal talks about how it prepared for winter.
To conduct a dialogue-game, the baby will need your help. Take on one of the roles, ask questions, suggest new stories and topics for discussion!

Plots for the game - dramatizations with children on the topic

"How animals prepare for winter"

As a basis for such dramatization by children of the dialogue between animals, you can take a folk song.

Shadow-shadow-shadow,
There is a fence above the city,
The animals sat on the fence,
We boasted all day.

For older children 5-7 years old, you can take Nikolai Sladkov’s story as a basis for dramatizing the dialogue of animals. Let the raven ask the animals questions, and they answer him. At first, the mother can take on the role of a raven and ask the animals questions about how they are preparing for winter. Then switch roles. Each time, change the composition of the animals answering Raven's question.

A fairy tale for children about autumn by Nikolai Sladkov

- Forest dwellers! - the wise Raven shouted one morning. — Autumn is at the threshold of the forest, is everyone ready for its arrival?
Like an echo, voices came from the forest:
- Ready, ready, ready...
- But we’ll check it now! - Raven croaked. - First of all, autumn will let the cold into the forest - what will you do?

The animals responded:
- We, squirrels, hares, foxes, will change into winter coats!
- We, badgers, raccoons, will hide in warm holes!
- We, hedgehogs, the bats Let's fall into a deep sleep!

The birds responded:
- We, migratory ones, warmer climes Let's fly away!
- We, sedentary people, will put on down padded jackets!

“Secondly,” the Raven shouts, “autumn will begin to rip off the leaves from the trees!”
- Let him rip it off! - the birds responded. - The berries will be more visible!
- Let him rip it off! - the animals responded. - It will be quieter in the forest!
“The third thing,” Raven continues, “autumn will click the last insects with frost!”

The birds responded:
- And we, blackbirds, will fall on the mountain ash!
- And we, woodpeckers, will begin to peel the cones!
- And we, goldfinches, will get to the weeds!

The animals responded:
- And we will sleep more peacefully without mosquito flies!
“The fourth thing,” the Raven buzzes, “autumn will become boring!” He will catch up with dark clouds, let down tedious rains, and incite dreary winds. The day will be shortened, the sun will be hidden in your bosom!
- Let him pester himself! - the birds and animals responded in unison. - You won’t keep us bored! What do we care about rain and wind when we are in fur coats and down padded jackets! Let's be well-fed - we won't get bored!

The wise Raven wanted to ask something else, but he waved his wing and took off.
He flies, and beneath him is a forest, multi-colored, motley - autumn.
Autumn has already crossed the threshold. But it didn’t scare anyone at all.

You can also use for dramatization a fairy tale about how animals prepare for winter by G. A. Skrebitsky “Everyone in his own way” (riddles, tasks for children, folk traditions, video)

Currently, proteins are mostly Northern Hemisphere busy storing seeds and nuts for the winter, but most of us know little about this squirrel activity. Here are some surprising facts about preparing squirrels for winter.

This situation has a beneficial effect on trees. Squirrels collect acorns mainly under oak trees and bury them away from them. Thus, the squirrel helps the plant spread over greater distances.

2. By stocking up, squirrels can also damage trees. For example, red squirrels and Douglas squirrels, common in North America, feed mainly on seeds from pine cones. These squirrels either eat the food they find immediately or store it in hiding places in the trees themselves. Typically, such “pantries” are too damp, and the seeds have little chance of germinating.

This storage space allows squirrels to almost always remain well-fed during the cold season, but trees have less chance to reproduce.

In addition, the researchers also discovered that these cones contain far fewer seeds than pine trees of the same species in other locations and have less nutritional value.

3. Squirrels dry mushrooms for the winter. One of the components of the diet of red squirrels is mushrooms. Sometimes they hang them between the branches of trees so that they can be eaten in winter. Also, such mushrooms are less likely to harbor insect larvae and nematodes.

4. Squirrels are good at gardening and know what they eat. Thus, gray squirrels distinguish red oak acorns from white ones and store each in a certain way. Because white oak acorns germinate almost as soon as they hit the ground, squirrels eat them immediately as the sprouted acorns lose their nutritional value. At the same time, red oak acorns do not germinate until spring, so squirrels prefer to bury them for winter snacks.

And in 1996, a study published in the journal Animal Behavior found that some squirrels bit through the embryos of white oak acorns to prevent them from germinating, and buried them in the ground like red oak acorns.

Moreover, scientists have witnessed squirrels digging up some red oak acorns that they probably had no intention of eating during the winter, biting through the buds, and burying them again for storage until the following winter.

Psychologists at the University of California, Berkeley, are studying squirrels' ability to find and strategically store food. Scientists are interested in how these animals choose an area to collect nuts, where they hide them, and how they remember these places. In other words, the researchers decided to find out to what extent the minds of these animals have developed in order to learn to make decisions and remember thousands of moments: where the supplies made a few months ago are hidden.

Approximately 70 people participated in the study forest squirrels, which were observed by student volunteers. They compared the habitat of animals and their memory systems. As a result, naturalists managed to compile detailed map, where they marked more than 1,000 places with hidden nuts.

Professor Jacobs, a leading expert on the behavior of squirrels, believes that these animals are perfect example, which allows us to improve our understanding of the psychology of survival in wildlife. At the same time, he believes that squirrels are very smart animals and think about the future, so they find hidden nuts not only with the help of smell, but also use a combination of architectural elements and memory to do this. Meanwhile, other scientists believe that squirrels, on the contrary, have a bad memory, and thanks to this, new trees grow from forgotten nuts hidden in the ground by the squirrel.

Squirrels are found everywhere except Australia. This lively and active animal is considered a typical forest inhabitant. Moreover, steering with its tail, the squirrel easily jumps from tree to tree 3 or 4 meters in a straight line and 10-15 meters in a downward curve. At the same time, during the snowless period, as well as during the rut, the squirrel spends most of its time on the ground, where it moves in leaps and bounds. At the same time, individual areas are weakly expressed and overlap.

In addition to mass migrations, the squirrel is also characterized by seasonal migrations associated with the successive maturation of food and the transition of young animals to an independent lifestyle. At the same time, some of the adult individuals remain in place; from their usual food, they switch to low-calorie foods with a high fiber content (these are buds, lichens, pine needles and the bark of young shoots). Thanks to this group, the local population is then restored.

Squirrels are very prolific. During the rut, up to 6 males stay near the female and demonstrate aggression towards competitors - they purr loudly, hit branches with their paws and run after each other. Pregnancy lasts approximately 38 days. Newborn squirrels are born naked and blind, and weigh only 8 grams. Wool appears after two weeks, and they begin to see only on the 30th day. At the same time, they are ready for independent life at the age of 10 weeks, but their mother feeds them milk for a month and a half.

I should also note that in captivity a squirrel lives on average up to 12 years. For comparison, in nature a squirrel that is already 4 years old is considered old. The proportion of such animals at the most favorable conditions does not exceed 10%. In areas with intensive squirrel hunting, the population is completely renewed only in 4 years. The mortality rate of young animals is especially high - up to 85% of baby squirrels do not survive their first winter.

Winter in our forests is a harsh and inhospitable time. Low temperatures and a small amount of food lead to many forest creatures do not survive until spring. You know, for example, how a small animal prepares for winter; it is very active and therefore especially needs large quantities nutrients.

Unlike other forest inhabitants, squirrels do not hibernate. But this does not mean at all that they are not preparing themselves a warm and reliable shelter from the winter cold. As a rule, this role is played by a hollow or crevice in a tree.

The animal lines it with moss and its own fur, creating a thick cushion. But how does a squirrel prepare for winter in terms of food? After all, she will not be able to get food from under the snow.

This is why the squirrel makes impressive reserves. She hides large quantities of nuts, acorns and seeds of cereal plants, “packing” them in hollows and secluded forks of trees.

Pine nuts are especially valued for proteins, since they have a high nutritional value despite their small volume. Since the squirrel prepares for winter very carefully, sometimes there is a real hunt for its supplies, so it is forced to properly camouflage its hiding places.

It should be noted that this animal hides its supplies so well that sometimes it cannot find them itself. This is how new oaks and spruces appear in the forest: seeds from forgotten supplies germinate, giving life to a new generation of trees.

Remember illustrations for children's fairy tales, in which a squirrel hollow is drawn, and dried mushrooms are hung around it? Well, squirrels actually do this. Edible mushrooms they simply pin them on suitable branches, and after drying they hide them in the same hiding places. As a rule, squirrel reserves for the winter include a lot of this valuable product. Dried mushrooms are not only nutritious, but also take up little space.

As we have already said, a hollow serves as a refuge in case of extreme cold. But one should not think that the squirrel is limited only to laying wool and moss on its bottom. Its work before the onset of cold weather is difficult: the animal completely caulks all the cracks, looking throughout the forest for suitable scraps of wool and fluff. If the frosts are especially severe, then she does not even leave the shelter, spending all her time in a warm and reliable hollow.

But how does a squirrel prepare for winter, other than gathering supplies? An important part of this process is molting: she sheds her bright summer coat, changing it to a more suitable gray “camouflage”, which camouflages the animal much better against the background. This is very important: since “small things” like mice and hamsters remain deep under the snow, owls , hori, martens and other predators switch to squirrels.

Last but not least, it is in winter that the number of too young and too old animals, who have weakened their attention and fallen into the claws of predators, sharply decreases.

It must be said that the survival of these cute creatures in harsh winter time People help a lot by installing feeders in the forest. If there is a crop failure, then such feeding is the squirrel’s only chance of survival, since otherwise it simply will not have enough supplies.

So you have learned how a squirrel prepares for winter: this process is quite difficult, and the animal has to work a lot.

1. By storing supplies, squirrels benefit trees. Many squirrels are known to bury acorns in the ground in order to later dig them up and eat them. For example, one Carolina squirrel is capable of creating several thousand such caches of acorns every year. However, she will be able to find few of them later. This situation has a beneficial effect on trees. Squirrels collect acorns mainly under oak trees and bury them away from them. Thus, the squirrel helps the plant disperse over long distances.

2. By stocking up, squirrels can also damage trees. For example, red and Douglas squirrels, common in North America, feed mainly on seeds from pine cones. These squirrels either eat the food they find immediately or store it in hiding places in the trees themselves. Typically, such “pantries” are too damp, and the seeds have little chance of germinating. This storage space allows squirrels to almost always remain well-fed during the cold season, but trees have less chance to reproduce.

It's also worth noting that a study published in 1995 in the International Journal of Organic Evolution states that trees have evolved ways to "combat" this behavior from squirrels. Thus, in the Rocky Mountains of North America, where red squirrels are common, soft pine cones have seeds with a thicker shell and are covered with a large amount of resin. This makes them less accessible to squirrels. In addition, the researchers also discovered that these cones contain far fewer seeds than pine trees of the same species in other locations and have less nutritional value.

3. Squirrels dry mushrooms for the winter. One of the components of the diet of red squirrels is mushrooms. Sometimes they hang them between the branches of trees so that they can be eaten in winter. Also, such mushrooms are less likely to harbor insect larvae and nematodes.

4. Squirrels are good at gardening and know what they eat. Thus, gray squirrels distinguish red oak acorns from white ones and store each in a certain way. Because white oak acorns germinate almost as soon as they hit the ground, squirrels eat them immediately as the sprouted acorns lose their nutritional value. At the same time, red oak acorns do not germinate until spring, so squirrels prefer to bury them for winter snacks. And in 1996, a study published in the journal Animal Behavior found that some squirrels bit through the embryos of white oak acorns to prevent them from germinating, and buried them in the ground like red oak acorns. Moreover, scientists have witnessed squirrels digging up some red oak acorns that they probably had no intention of eating during the winter, biting through the buds, and burying them again for storage until the following winter.