The most conspicuous thing about the little squirrel is that it has a big tail. This tail is always high and cocked up. Sometimes it even looks a little bigger than the squirrel itself. What's the function of the squirrel's big tail?
In fact, it has a lot to do with the lifestyle of squirrels. Squirrels are a family of tree squirrels that inhabit trees. They belong to the rodent squirrel family of Mammalia. This family also includes relatives such as giant squirrels, flower squirrels and rock squirrels. They are also regarded as squirrels in a broad sense. They just live on the ground and have a slightly smaller tail than tree squirrels. Tree squirrels usually jump from one branch to another. When jumping, their big tail can help them maintain balance and control the direction as a rudder. When falling, they even have the function of paragliding. In hot summer, the tail can be used as a sunshade; When it's cold, the big hairy tail can be used as a quilt when it covers the body. In addition, tree squirrels can use their tails to hang upside down on the tree and make all kinds of difficult movements.
More than that, squirrels will swing their tails back and forth to confuse the enemy when fighting. When necessary, their tails can also be used as shields, and squirrels also love to wag their tails to say hello. When dealing with a common enemy, squirrels coordinate their actions through "tail language". Some studies have found that East American tree squirrels can also use their tails to represent social status. More interestingly, contrary to most animals like to raise their tails to the sky, the "landlords" of territorial squirrels like to lower their tails. Instead, the tails of "poor farmers" and "tramps" are raised very high. Scientists half joked and half speculated that after all, the squirrel's tail is big enough. Maybe it would be easier to lower it?
In California ground squirrels, a close relative of tree squirrels, scientists also found another wonderful use of tail - infrared fraud. Rattlesnakes are natural enemies of ground squirrels. In order to deal with snakes, ground squirrels try all kinds of methods. If they can fight, they will even grab and bite. If they can't fight, they will kick sand into the snake's eyes. More importantly, the mother squirrel picked up the snake molt and chewed it for herself and her children to eat, confusing the smell of rats and snakes. When these tricks don't work, in order to protect the children behind them, the mother of the ground squirrel will quickly shake her tail in front of the snake to speed up the blood flow. By heating her tail to increase infrared radiation, the snake perceived by infrared will mistakenly think that the opposite is a big guy and retreat.